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Rav Shlomo Katz explores the teachings of Rav Shlomo Carlebach zt"l on the Parsha with the sefer Even Shlomo
הרחמן הוא יזכנו ויחיינו ויקרבנו לימות המשיח הרחמן הוא יזכנו ויחיינו ויקרבנו לימות המשיח ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא הרחמן הוא יזכנו ויחיינו ויקרבנו לימות המשיח ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא Anyone knows where these words are from? Sefardi Benschen. Sefardi Benschen. It’s a very rare niggun from Reb Shlomo from Sefardi Benschen. I knew this before, when I learned this niggun, I went through all the benchers in my house to understand what or other tfillos whatever ma pele from Sefardi Benschen.
What would we do without you Matisyahu. One more time.
הרחמן הוא יזכנו ויחיינו ויקרבנו לימות המשיח הרחמן הוא יזכנו ויחיינו ויקרבנו לימות המשיח ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא הרחמן הוא יזכנו ויחיינו ויקרבנו לימות המשיח ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא הרחמן הוא יזכנו ויחיינו ויקרבנו לימות המשיח ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא הרחמן הוא יזכנו ויחיינו ויקרבנו לימות המשיח ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא הרחמן הוא יזכנו ויחיינו ויקרבנו לימות המשיח ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא ולבנין בית המקדש ולחיי העולם הבא Good morning everybody, thank you for coming. We’re going to be, I was planning, there’s a lot of very very strong pieces on Chukas.
I’m going to save the one that I was planning on doing today for next week because it’s much longer and something came up I have to, I can't learn for too long this morning but my second favorite piece is a very short one. It’s a very short one that is very shayach to what we’re, it’s a tfila. It’s not really a, you’ll see what I’m talking about in a second. We all know that Para Aduma, the beginning of our Parsha, Parshas Chukas, Para Aduma, it’s what we know the famous inyan of that it’s a chok and Rashi says לך אני מגלה ולא לאחרים that Moshe Rabbeinu is revealed to them the reason behind the hesber from Moshe Rabbeinu it’s not a chok.
Chok means things I don’t understand. From Moshe Rabbeinu it’s not a chok. For Shlomo Hamelech it was a chok. That’s the one that he says אמרתי אחכמה והיא רחוקה ממני, Hechacham mikol adam says.
But we have as we’ve seen in recent years, for 10 years already, the famous Rambam in Hilchos Para Aduma that speaks about when he talks about Para Aduma, he starts... and he writes in Mishneh Torah, which is a Sefer Halacha, he writes, there's a famous sicha of the Rebbe, we learned this many times, he writes במהרה יגלה במהרה בימינו אמן. He starts davening in the middle of Mishneh Torah, which is not found anywhere else in Mishneh Torah, that the Rambam starts davening. It's because the Rebbe says, when you start talking about Moshiach, even if you're talking about halacha, it's mehaste ma'ura in yeder ke-me-ha a chashak for Moshiach.
Even if you're writing halachos. And of course Moshiach and the Parah Adumah are directly directly correspond to each other, and they're dependent on each other. Basically we know that the tenth Parah Adumah which hasn't been revealed yet, although I did, you saw this this week, where was this one? Does anyone know? Anyone see, you've seen it. There was another Parah Adumah that was found recently, I saw, I forget where it was.
Lakewood seems to have been finding Parah Adumahs last few years, there's a bunch of Parah Adumahs in that area. It would be nice if there was a Parah Adumah right here, you know, ready to go. But what we're seeing today from Reb Shlomo is a very short piece, but it's all my heart is feeling right now, and hopefully we'll get something very strong in it. In the beginning of the parsha, when it describes the ashes, it describes what it does with the ashes, there's a pasuk that a lot of my friends who have the name Asaf felt very good about themselves when they were younger, or when they, hopefully still now.
I have a nephew with that name Asaf. Asaf we know, Asaf from the Mizmorei Tehillim, right? Mizmor l'Asaf. In the Beis Hamikdash was Asaf. But Asaf is a play on words, ve'asaf ish tahor, it says in the parsha.
So all my friends named Asaf, you see, you see? The Torah says ve'asaf ish tahor, right? But obviously the literal meaning, the translation, is ואסף איש טהור את אפר הפרה, that a pure man would be the one to come and collect the burnt eifer of the Parah Adumah.
ואסף איש טהור את אפר הפרה. So Reb Shlomo says like this, and this is a build-up from many different of the many different sefarim that speak about the deeper context of Parah Adumah. And there's a drasha you can make from the pesukim.
Reb Nosson has a drasha. You know, it's not just the Chassidische masters. Rashi in the end of, it's on sheini, because the Rashi at the end of the inyan of Parah Adumah, he then repeats everything, if you know the Rashi I'm talking about, at the end of the parshia that speaks about Parah Adumah, then Rashi goes like זאת חוקת התורה אשר ציווה השם לאמור דבר אל בני ישראל ויקחו אליך פרה אדומה תמימה אשר אין בה מום אשר לא עלה עליה עול. There's a whole Rashi there, it's a beautiful long Rashi where he darshens every single word, to, like, bringing a full picture, a full picture of the process of what the Parah Adumah does.
This is a drasha that's basically based upon all these, all the Rashi and all the sefarim that have ever been written on this concept. What, what is the Red Heifer really telling us?
אפשר לדרוש שהפרה אדומה רומזת לעם ישראל. Am Yisrael is the Parah Adumah.
פרה אדומה תמימה אשר אין בה מום אשר לא עלה עליה עול.
It's a big avoda to believe that Am Yisrael is mammash, maybe we can believe it's a פרה אדומה תמימה אשר אין בה מום אשר לא עלה עליה עול. Yes. b'pnimiyus shel hadevarim, yes.
מעולם לא היה עלינו דבר מלבד השם.
לא עלה עליה עול means no one else's yoke really came upon us and stayed fixed and permanent, mastering us. Nothing else besides ol malchus shamayim.
מעולם לא היה עלינו דבר מלבד השם. But then it says והוציא אותה אל מחוץ למחנה.
You have to take the parah outside of the machaneh.
ריבונו של עולם מוציא את היהודי אל מחוץ לארץ ישראל. Hashem sent us into the exile. The Parah Adumah had to go out there to the world, michutz lamachaneh, outside the camp, outside Eretz Hakodesh.
b'meshech me'os shanim, I should have had the liberty of editing here and say really b'meshech alfei shanim, but I just didn't have the azzus.
במשך מאות שנים עד הגלות לא ידענו מה פירוש הדבר. slicha. I was, I learned this wrong.
He's saying for hundreds of years until the galus, while we were in Eretz Yisrael, לא ידענו מה פירוש הדבר, אבל מאז הגלות אנחנו יודעים למרבה הצער. zos omeres, until we were exiled from the land, when we were here in Eretz Hakodesh, specifically in the time of Shlomo Hamelech, this pasuk פרה אדומה תמימה אשר אין בה Zot omeret, until we were exiled from the land when we were here in Eretz Hakodesh, specifically in the time of Shlomo Hamelech, this pasuk פרה אדומה תמימה אשר אין בה מום אשר לא עלה עליה עול was something maybe we could understand mamash, but בהוציאו אותה מחוץ למחנה we couldn't make that drasha. We didn't understand what that means. Unfortunately, unfortunately, all of our grandparents unless you've been here I don't know unless you're one of the families that never left Eretz Yisrael, but suffice to say especially in this room I think it's very clear that everyone knows exactly that you know at least the last two or three or five generations of our family has been michoots lamachaneh and we've be'ezrat Hashem, Baruch Hashem have come back.
But we could understand what this means.
בהוציאו אותה מחוץ למחנה.
אבל בסופו של דבר, but at the end, ve'asaf ish tahor. At the end, they'll be gathered.
Yom echad yavo Mashiach and veRibono shel Olam יאסוף ויקבץ את כל האפר. veRibono shel Olam is going to come and he will gather all of the efer, all of the ashes. I can't help but visualize Majdanek in front of me because anyone that's been there knows there's that horrific mountain. How many of you have been to Majdanek? Really? Just you? You've been there, Chaim? You've been there.
You remember, you know what I'm talking about that mountain? Have you seen pictures of this? There's a horrific it's hard to believe that it actually is real. That's how, that's how mavhil it is. There's a mountain of ashes in Majdanek. Now my friend went with he was a Kohen, it was his Bar Mitzvah trip.
He went with Reb Shlomo to Poland. And he was asking Reb Shlomo as a Kohen, where can I go, where can't I go over here? Kohen. He said to him brother, anyone killed al kiddush Hashem there's no tumah by any of these things, right? So you're standing there by this mountain of ashes and it's there's bones in there you could see it's lo l'ha'amin. I'm actually I was always intrigued as to how come that was never taken and put into proper kvurah? It's very strange, no? It's still there.
But one day, one day Reb Shlomo says ve'asaf ish tahor. Mashiach Tzidkeinu is going to come and he's going to gather, he's going to gather all the ashes.
שנזכה לראות זאת בעינינו. He didn't merit to see it in his eyes, but we will be'ezrat Hashem.
Amen. Reb Tzadok Hakohen omer, it's a Torah from Pri Tzadik, כשהתפלל אברהם אבינו על סדום זו הייתה התפילה הראשונה בתורה. You all know, the headquarters of prayer, it's a famous teaching, was Avraham Avinu davening for Sodom to be saved, to try to bring some type of rachmanus on the city of Sodom, which is very hard to understand why does the Torah choose to show us the first time someone davened, a Yid davened, is after is trying to save such a disgusting, horrible place. And we all know obviously that he knew he had to, he couldn't it wasn't a conscious thing, something inside of him was pushing him to daven for Sodom to be saved because Avraham Avinu knew that Mashiach comes from here and it was true.
Who was saved from Sodom? Lot and his two daughters. So Avraham Avinu davened for Sodom, it was the first davening in the Torah.
בזכות התפילה הזו ניצל לוט ויצא ממנו משיח. But this is amazing.
Betoch otah tefillah, in the first davening, Avraham Avinu says ve'anochi afar ve'efer. I am but dust and ashes. Avraham Avinu is saying this about himself.
לכן קודם ביאת המשיח יהודי יהיה קשור לעפר של ארץ ישראל ולאפר של ששת המיליונים.
What does this mean Anochi afar ve'efer? Reb Shlomo's drasha is gevalt. You have to be so connected to the actual dust of Eretz Yisrael and the ashes of the six million.
כל עוד אינך קשור לשניהם אין לך שייכות למשיח. So this is he says until you're really connected to both of them, both to the afar ve'efer, you're not really connected to Mashiach.
So let's just unpack this for just a minute. There are many, many people that are very strong in one of the two. Either one. Either their whole inyan is Eretz Yisrael, but the pain, the ashes lo, tzrichim lehamshich.
Like I always tell you that one of the most traumatic things for me growing up in this country as a teenager were not actually the bus bombings, it was the it's what happened afterwards. I've told this to you many times. Yalla, clean it up guys, that's how we show that we win. We clean up the scene and we just move forward.
The greatest example I saw this in my own eyes, Erev Purim. So anyway, I'm sorry I have to end early, but we could go on and on darshing this out, but I felt like, you know what, this enough is enough to get our Shabbos on, get our Erev Shabbos on, and mamash with a tfila amuka, holding onto the Rambam's hands while he's writing Mishneh Torah, במהרה יגלה יגלה במהרה בימינו אמן. Amen. B'ezras Hashem, Gut Shabbos everyone.