A Thought on Parshas Emor

"...l'nefesh lo yitama..." "...he should not defile himself for a soul..." (21:3) The Torah has a set of rules which govern the ritual and the interpersonal behavior of the kohanim. One of those rules pertains to his maintaining his purity or spiritual cleanliness at all times, whether or not he is involved in doing Temple service. This means that he may not come into contact with the dead. It is noteworthy that this rule about not defiling himself is not worded directly as "la'meis lo yitama" which would translate as "he should not defile himself with a dead body." Our verse, instead, uses the word "nefesh" rather than "meis", which is one of those words which signifies the spirit or soul of a person. By entering a cemetery or touching a corpse, he is hardly making contact with a "soul." Firstly, a soul is intangible. It is "spiritual". Secondly, whatever a soul is - i.e. a Divine spark, the "breath of life from Above", one's consciousness, or one's mind - surely those entities are gone once a person is dead. We speak about "departed souls", or absence of life, and other expressions which denote how a dead body no longer houses a "nefesh." In what way would it even be possible to defile oneself to a soul? What then is the actual meaning of our verse? What is the actual restriction or instruction to the kohen here? The Panae'ach Raza sees in our verse a remez, a subtle hint, to a much deeper principle. He understands our verse as alluding to the enduring existence of the nefesh after death. When a person dies, his or her body has expired. However, there is "hashaar'as ha'nefesh" which means the continuation and remaining-on of the soul following end of life. The deceased person to whom a kohen may not defile himself is indeed called a "mais" or dead body, but calling him that would imply finality, as if life is over. In our belief system, the soul lives on, albeit in another dimension of reality and unfettered by the physical container which we know as the body, which has died and expired. The soul has not died, and lives on. What the Torah teaches us about death is that tumaa pertains to the dead body of those whose souls live on. After death, the "person" loses physical presence and significance and takes on solely the spiritual presence and significance of his or her nefesh. During life, this soul was viewed as almost subordinate to the living body. The body was, from our vantage point, primary. At the stage of existence called death, a conceptual transformation occurs - the Torah wants us to think now of the soul as primary, and the former physical self recedes in significance. After death, the person to whom the kohen may not defile himself is called a nefesh, which is that which lives on. He is not to defile himself to that nefesh's body. Good Shabbos. D Fox

A Thought on Parshas Kedoshim

"...lo tikom..." "...do not take revenge..." (19:18) When the Torah commands us not to hold a grudge or take revenge, the Talmudic quantification of these prohibitions is that if I ask someone if I can borrow a tool or something and they refuse me, if at a later time they then ask me for a favor, I am not allowed to say to them that since they would not help me I refuse to help them. To do so would be to act spiteful and vengeful and I would be guilty of doing exactly what our verse forbids. Many people have raised the question as to why the Torah is so adamant that we not "take revenge" in this way, yet the Torah does not forbid the first party, the one who was stingy from the beginning by refusing to accommodate the other, from being unkind. Why punish the second person, who does have some psychological justification for feeling uninclined to be nice to someone who has been unkind to him? Why no commandment of "thou shalt not be stingy when asked to lend your possessions"? The Panae'ach Raza grapples with this and suggests that we can indeed understand the psychology of both parties here, and we can see the Torah's understanding of people. Why would some people refuse to comply with another's request for help? It is likely that those types of people are internally territorial, protective of their possessions, and mistrusting of other persons. This predisposes them to refuse others' requests for aid and they have a preconscious reflex to "just say no." They do not even process cognitively the request or weigh their decision. They are just not conditioned to be considerate of others. For that reason, the Panae'ach Raza writes, "the Holy One, blessed is He, would not "force" him to lend his things to others" by commanding him not to be stingy. This would go against his general retentive nature and the Torah does not usually forbid people to do what they cannot immediately control in themselves. In contrast, he writes, a person who is prone to be giving and considerate of others yet finds himself tensing up in spiteful reaction to one who has turned him down, is dealing with hatred and vengefulness. Those are psychological reactions, not reflexes, over which a person needs to marshal self-control. I might feel hate, resentmentment and spitefulness but it is my avoda to take charge of those feelings and not act on them in my interpersonal behavior. This is why the Torah tells me to accept that sometimes some people are just not nice. Their character style, however, is no excuse for me to behave in a way which goes against the ideals which I am capable of. If I say "no" to the other person, I am transgressing the value of chesed which the Torah wants me to aspire to. Good Shabbos. D Fox

A Thought on Parshas Achre-Mos

"...v'lifnei ha'kapores yazeh sheva pa'amim..." "...and then he shall sprinkle seven times over the curtain..." (16:14) This parsha relates the rituals undertaken by the Kohen Gadol during the service of Yom Kippur. The sacrificial avodos include the anointing of the ark's cover with the dam ha'korban. The beginning of the verse states that first he does this one time towards the eastern front of the cover, then seven times towards the front of it. Rashi makes what appears to be a bland comment without elaboration. He writes "so its one above and seven below." That remark seems mysteriously void of explanation, and even for Rashi, who does keep his commentary quite concise, this seems a bit cryptic. The Panae'ach Raza, at ease in the midrashic and mystical just as he is facile in the realm of halacha, does not disagree with Rashi here. In fact, he interprets Rashi's words as "a remez" - a secretive hint to a much larger concept than that of the two directions of "above" and "below." The Panae'ach Raza sees in Rashi's comment the message that "it should suffice for a person below to aim high in his piety, as do the angels above, yet only in a 1:7 ratio". He elaborates with some midrashic principles. We find that the prophet Yeshaya (6:3) says that the angels declare that HaShem is very holy. They declare "kadosh kadosh kadosh". Following those three words, they specify the Identify of the Holy One, for the verse closes "HaShem Tz'vakos" - HaShem the Lord of Legions (His malachim). The Sifri notes that the mention of this Divine name follows three prefatory words. Now, when we look at Moshe's own praises in the beginning of parshas Ha'azinu (Devarim 32:1-3), he also mentions that name of HaShem yet he precedes it with a full 21 words! At a mystical level, we are meant to derive from this that a mortal person should aim to emulate the heavenly legions in reaching above to praise HaShem, yet we can only approximate their level of holiness at a ratio of 1:7 (which is 3:21). Moshe Rabbeinu himself was teaching that "it is enough if I can be one seventh as sanctified as the angels." The potency and the energy behind our exultations cannot be as exalted as those of the malachim. It took 21 mortal words to approximate what the angels said in 3. Now, returning to our verse, the Panae'ach Raza says that this is what Rashi intends. When the Kohen Gadol performed this avoda of ha'zaas ha'dam, he first beckoned to the Above by sprinkling dam toward the upper side of the curtain. Then, he emulated the Divine response with a full seven acts of ha'zaah. This symbolized that we mortals, in contrast to the bounty which HaShem sends to us from above, can offer up only a seventh of that which His angelic messengers bring to us below. This is what Rashi hints at in writing "so its one above and seven below." We aim to offer praise above yet our service is but a fraction of how His praises are manifest below. One unit of mortal praise is at best 1/7 of the praise truly fit for the Divine. There is only "one" unit ascending from below; there are "seven" descending from above. The Panae'ach Raza closes that we also find this enunciated, in remez form, by Dovid haMelech in Tehillim 148. He sings " Praise HaShem from the Heavens, from the Heights, from His angels and His legions, from sun and moon, from stars of light, from the loftiest heavens, and the supernal waters, let them all praise His Name." That is seven levels of praise which he attributes to the Divine kingdom above. Then, Dovid haMelech says, "Praise HaShem from the earth." That is a single statement about praising Him from below, in contrast with the seven praises associated with all that praise Him on high. This further illuminates a facet of this remez of 1:7. As we approach Shabbos HaGadol and the Pesach praises and songs, may we indeed aim to emulate the energies on high which are totally engaged in recognizing His greatness. Good Shabbos and Chag Kosher v'Samaeach. D Fox

A Thought on Parshas Metzora

"...ki tavo'u el ha'aretz..." "...when you will enter the land..." (14:34) The Torah educates us about the forms of tzaras - a type of blight which revealed one's spiritual deficiencies despite otherwise robust physical health. These conditions could erupt on a person's body, on the stones of a residence, or on garments. Our sages have revealed to us some of the lessons and messages which we were meant to derive in the event of contracting tzaras. For example, when a person suffered a blight of this form on his or her body, it was to encourage them to examine their interpersonal conduct. At the root of most interpersonal problems is arrogance and self-importance. Tzaras on one's body was an indicator of how one needed to overcome those issues, and the course of recovery therein involved social isolation and identifying oneself as needing to be kept away from others. In turn, the negaiim, those blights which were found on residences, were apparently unique to the houses abandoned by the heathen nations who had once occupied the Promised Land. Our sages reveal that the appearance of such signs on a dwelling, while an inconvenience for the new residents, was actually intended as a blessing. Upon implementing the remedy, which involved removing the stones of the house, we would discover some of the riches left behind by earlier dwellers. This may have taught people that although the process of entering Israel involved some initial hardships, the ultimate purpose of those ordeals bore great bracha, which is a wholesome lesson indeed. The puzzle, however, is what one was to derive in the event of those signs appearing on a garment. What we wear is not us, but merely an object or property. Moreover, those clothes which were sullied by a negaa needed to be destroyed. There is no bracha in that! The Panae'ach Raza offers a thought, based on clear halachic premises. He notes that many of the mobilia, the portable acquisitions which our forefathers brought with them through the desert, consisted of bizas Mitzrayaim and bizas HaYam - the bounty which we were given by the Egyptians as they urged us to leave their decadent land, and the spoils which washed ashore following the downfall of their pursuing army. We took those ornaments and garments and fabrics along with us as we trekked through the desert en route to Israel. We are told that these objects never wore out or frayed during the forty year exodus. It would seem that these items were still intact as we entered the Holy Land. Now, that is fine as long as those garments are unencumbered by any prohibition. However, we know that the people of Mitzrayim were pagans engaged in idolatry. That would mean that if any of those ornaments or garments were actually vestments which had been used in the pagan worship, they were forbidden to use and even forbidden to keep. It now makes sense, says the Panae'ach Raza, why certain garments would contract negaiim: those which were actually forbidden because of pagan affiliation would have to be destroyed. The unwitting owner of an avoda zara fabric would have no way of identifying or knowing its status, nor that he had a responsibility to utterly destroy it. This is why some of those items contracted a negaa. Garments with negaiim had to be burned, according to the Torah. Those which were burned were actually, he reasons, forbidden items which had been used in Egyptian rituals. In this roundabout yet Divinely calculated manner, the Jews who entered Israel were able to fulfill the commandment of destroying avoda zara, which would have been a real challenge had they just been commanded to remove the clothes which they may have favored for so long and then been told to incinerate them. It was far easier to rid oneself of an item already rendered repulsive through its discolored and toxic outbreak. So at a spiritual level, the appearance of negaaim on garments was actually a blessing too. It enabled the Jewish owners to fulfill a mitzvah which many people never encounter. Good Shabbos. D Fox