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Tetzaveh: A Change of Clothes · A Thought for the Week

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to a Thought for the Week, a Torah in
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  Speaker 1: Motion podcast. I'm Jake Hellman, founding director of Torah in Motion,
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  Speaker 1: and it's a pleasure to have you here with us.
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  Speaker 1: After detailing the construction of the Michigan this week in
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  Speaker 1: Parsha Titsava, the term moves to discussing the people who
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  Speaker 1: work there, namely the Kohanei. The parsha begins. Most of
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  Speaker 1: the Parsha deals with the clothes that the Khani were
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  Speaker 1: to wear. All the gohaning. The regular cohning were four
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  Speaker 1: pieces of clothing, a katonat, a tunic as they call it,
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  Speaker 1: mikhnasaying pants, a mighbat which is basically a turbin out
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  Speaker 1: of nada, a belt that's all simple clothing. You weren't
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  Speaker 1: allowed to wear shoes in the temple. That's for another discussion.
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  Speaker 1: And then the kohen Gado. The eye priest had four
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  Speaker 1: extra pieces of clothing which were all made of gold.
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  Speaker 1: The regular clothes were made of linen. The additional pieces
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  Speaker 1: that the coohangado were the kosha and the breastplate, the
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  Speaker 1: el a robe, then a foot and apron and it
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  Speaker 1: seats golden seats, a headband, the coin Goda was the
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  Speaker 1: only person who really permanently functioned in the temple. The
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  Speaker 1: go hunting with rotate in shifts, and in practice your
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  Speaker 1: typical coin worked two maybe three days a year in
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  Speaker 1: the Beta Migdash. The rest of the time they were
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  Speaker 1: teaching Torah. Now right after, the tour discusses a great
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  Speaker 1: length the clothes and all the details and how they
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  Speaker 1: were made and the linen stitching, et cetera. The tour
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  Speaker 1: then discusses the sacrifices that were brought when they inaugurated
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  Speaker 1: the Kohaning to become Kohning, and the tommud makes the
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  Speaker 1: following interesting analysis or comparison. The Tumbo says, why do
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  Speaker 1: we write them next together. It's understandable why they're next
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  Speaker 1: to each other. The kohaneim, we're the ones who brought
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  Speaker 1: the corbonet. But that's not the answer the tumbel. The
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  Speaker 1: tumb was looking for something else, and they say, ma
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  Speaker 1: corbonet macapriam. The same way that sacrifices can serve as
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  Speaker 1: a vehicle for atonement a big day Kuhuna macapriam, so too,
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  Speaker 1: the clothes of the kohen Gadol can serve or the
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  Speaker 1: Kohaneyman in general can serve as a big vehicle of atonement. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the origins of clothes is rooted in sin. In the
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  Speaker 1: Garden of Eden, there was no need for clothes. The
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  Speaker 1: physical and the spiritual world worked totally in harmony. It's
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  Speaker 1: only when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit
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  Speaker 1: that there was this rift between the physical and the
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  Speaker 1: spiritual worlds Man recognized that he is naked. God said,
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  Speaker 1: where are you? Said, oh my God, I didn't realize
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  Speaker 1: I'm naked. And this story ends. The toy tells us
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  Speaker 1: that God may for them or katonah the same clothing
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  Speaker 1: we have by Cohin the coaneine, and God may for this,
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  Speaker 1: these these two NICs, and that's the beginning of clothes.
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  Speaker 1: So if clothes are a response to sin, it naturally
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  Speaker 1: follows that clothes can, in a sense, must serve as
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  Speaker 1: a means of atonement. Now, of course, it would be silly,
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  Speaker 1: and worse than silly to declare that just wearing clothes
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  Speaker 1: serves as atonement. We know by the corboronaut bringing corbonet
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  Speaker 1: don't serve as atonement either. The corbonot are just a
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  Speaker 1: means to inspire us to do better, and that therefore
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  Speaker 1: we get atonement by purchasing an animal flour taking it
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  Speaker 1: to the temple thinking about what we did. We must
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  Speaker 1: think about what we did. We have to see how
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  Speaker 1: we can improve. And improve doesn't mean we doven better.
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  Speaker 1: Improved means how we treat the poor. If you look
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  Speaker 1: at all the profits, that's all they care about. How
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  Speaker 1: we treat the people without clothes and with love, food
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  Speaker 1: and corruption. They it's all the man to man meets foot.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, that's what the corbonot are meant to do.
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  Speaker 1: And if you if not, God basically despises you read
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  Speaker 1: other prophets. God despises our sacrifices. The first chapter of Isaiah,
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  Speaker 1: he tells us that God said, don't trespass. I don't
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  Speaker 1: need you here unless your corporonot are going to bring atment.
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  Speaker 1: Not because you brought the corbonaut, but they're the clincher,
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  Speaker 1: so to speak, what you have done, and therefore toming
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  Speaker 1: can be attained, and so too. Of course each piece
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  Speaker 1: of clothing it's a little bit harder to see. This
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  Speaker 1: should serve as an inspiration and a means to do,
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  Speaker 1: to do chuva, so the tomb would says Okay, how
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  Speaker 1: are we going to do this? So the thumb would
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  Speaker 1: says that each piece of clothing atones for a particular sin.
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  Speaker 1: We will just discuss the first one one of them.
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  Speaker 1: The tomb would says, this is in Vachim eighty eight A,
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  Speaker 1: that the katonat is mecha perredoshiuta murder. The tunic the
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  Speaker 1: sort of that covers the body, that the more than
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  Speaker 1: another shirt, but you know, attached to the body that
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  Speaker 1: brings a toonement for murder. What's the connection? How does
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  Speaker 1: it do that? So the tomb would continues, They quota
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  Speaker 1: verse bayishkatu si erisime. They slaughtered a goat by it
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  Speaker 1: blue ktet, and they dipped the katonet the tunic in blood.
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  Speaker 1: This verse is discussing Yosefe and his brothers. The brothers,
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  Speaker 1: the brothers, you know, ripped off his coat katonet passim
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  Speaker 1: that Jakovic made for him, this beautiful multi colored katonet,
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  Speaker 1: and they dipped it in the blood, and then they
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  Speaker 1: sent it to Jacob, their father. Oh look what happened.
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  Speaker 1: You know, your son must have been a must have
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  Speaker 1: been eaten alive. And uh. The katona therefore, is meant
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  Speaker 1: to remind us of the terrible sin of yosafe that
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  Speaker 1: we should repair and treat each other with more than respect,
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  Speaker 1: with love, especially among brothers, and Jewish people are all brothers,
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  Speaker 1: but among all humanity, and you have to act that way,
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  Speaker 1: and that can serve as an intonement for murder. It's
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  Speaker 1: very nice. But the problem is the brothers didn't actually
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  Speaker 1: kill Joseph. If we're going to bring this verse that
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  Speaker 1: we see what the brothers did, the clothing a tone
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  Speaker 1: for that sin. They did a terrible sin, but it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't murder. They didn't kill Josef. They sold them to Egypt.
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  Speaker 1: So I could give two approaches to answer this question.
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  Speaker 1: We could say that kidnapping and selling is a kin
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  Speaker 1: to murder. We have a lot of That's like, if
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  Speaker 1: you embarras somebody in public, it's kinds you're the murder.
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  Speaker 1: It's not actual murder, it's as if you murdered them.
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  Speaker 1: So to kidnapping and selling, it's even a little close
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  Speaker 1: to murder. It's a kin to murder. And if you
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  Speaker 1: look in the Torah, then partial mishbatim we read a
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  Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, it is a capital offense if
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  Speaker 1: you kidnap and sell somebody you, in theory are given
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  Speaker 1: a death penalty, and it's written in the Torah. In
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  Speaker 1: Parsha Mishba team right after the Torah talks about murdering.
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  Speaker 1: If somebody murders somebody, to give it death penalty, and
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  Speaker 1: then Tore says that if you kidnap somebody and tell
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  Speaker 1: you also get a death penalty. There's just one verse
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  Speaker 1: in between. That one verse in between says if you
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  Speaker 1: hit your parents, even if you don't kill them, hitting
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  Speaker 1: a parent is a kin to murder, so to speak,
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  Speaker 1: even hitting a parent which means drawing blood, but hitting
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  Speaker 1: a parent is also a capital offense. This adds another
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  Speaker 1: layer to this idea because hitting a parent, that's exactly
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  Speaker 1: what the brothers did to Yakov with Yosef. Maybe they
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  Speaker 1: didn't murder him, but that's just you know, a technical detail.
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  Speaker 1: As far as Yakov was concerned, they did murder him.
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  Speaker 1: They sent the coat to Yakov, he said, kaya raj to.
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  Speaker 1: He was eaten by an animal and he couldn't be sold.
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  Speaker 1: He more and he moore because his son was murdered.
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  Speaker 1: Irrespective of whether Jacob suspected the brothers did someddenly whatever
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  Speaker 1: thought it doesn't matter for his Yakov's point of view. Ramyakov,
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  Speaker 1: his son had been killed, and the brothers were responsible
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  Speaker 1: for the death of Jose, even though they may not
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  Speaker 1: have actually murdered him, but it didn't really matter. So
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  Speaker 1: that's why the Gamarrakans say that it's intonement for murder.
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  Speaker 1: I'd also like to suggest another answer is that it's
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  Speaker 1: true the brothers didn't murder him, but that wasn't due
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  Speaker 1: to lack of effort. That was just luck of the draw,
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  Speaker 1: so to speak. They wanted to murder him, and it's
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  Speaker 1: clear the brothers wanted to kill him. That's what they
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  Speaker 1: said they were going to do. They didn't kill him
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  Speaker 1: because Rubin, the eldest brother, said don't kill him, throw
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  Speaker 1: him into a pit, and whatever Ruven thought. The torp
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  Speaker 1: basically tells us Ruben thought, he's going to come back
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  Speaker 1: and he'll yose ye. I don't know how he's going
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  Speaker 1: to do that way when the brother's reading lunch, he'll
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  Speaker 1: come back, but that's a pretty unlikely outcome, and the
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  Speaker 1: brothers find the brothers probably agreed to Ruben's idea, his
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  Speaker 1: suggestion because they thought he would die in the pit,
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  Speaker 1: and the tour actually tells us that when they threw
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  Speaker 1: him in the pit bor rake ain bow mine, the
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  Speaker 1: pit was empty, there was no water. How's he going
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  Speaker 1: to survive in the pit? And our sages interpret if
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  Speaker 1: the pit is empty, obviously there's no water. Oh there's
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  Speaker 1: no water, but there's snakes and scorpions. So that's why
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  Speaker 1: probably they agreed, Okay, we won't kill him like with
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  Speaker 1: our hands, well like Rubens will kill him by throwing
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  Speaker 1: him in the pit. Ruven didn't understand that. But that
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  Speaker 1: would not be the last time ruve made a very
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  Speaker 1: out of touch idea. Remember it was Ruvein who suggested
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  Speaker 1: to his father. He promised, let's go down to Egypt.
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  Speaker 1: I know this guy, that viceroy there. He wants us
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  Speaker 1: to bring Benjamin down beyond me. Don't worry, I guarantee you,
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  Speaker 1: and if not, you can kill my sons. A pretty
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  Speaker 1: not a pretty, A very stupid argument. So Ruvein was
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  Speaker 1: somehow out of touch, and that's why the brothers probably
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  Speaker 1: agreed that was the way they were going to kill him.
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  Speaker 1: And by dint of luck, before Josef could die, a
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  Speaker 1: caravan came by, and you would have said, what is you?
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  Speaker 1: Who to say? What do we gain by killing our brother?
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  Speaker 1: It's clear they thought they were going to kill him. There,
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  Speaker 1: let's sell him. Let's make a few bucks on the deal.
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  Speaker 1: And that's what they did. So while inn you know,
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  Speaker 1: in our system of law, attempted murder is not the
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  Speaker 1: same as murders, not punished the same in the heavenly court.
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  Speaker 1: I presume the heavenly court works differently. What differences make
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  Speaker 1: attempted murder or murder? Why should the guy who has
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  Speaker 1: like a bad shot, he doesn't, he's not very good
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  Speaker 1: at killing somebody. Why should he get off of lucky?
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  Speaker 1: I think from a divine perspective, it doesn't really matter.
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  Speaker 1: It's God who controls our outcomes. We just control our efforts.
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  Speaker 1: So trying to kill somebody, least from a heavily perspective,
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  Speaker 1: as we say, you're putter bide at them, you're exempting
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  Speaker 1: the rules of man. But in the rules of heaven
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  Speaker 1: you're you're you're cupable. So trying to kill somebody is
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  Speaker 1: in many ways the same way as murder itself. We
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  Speaker 1: do not have a katona, so we don't get this
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  Speaker 1: form of atonement. We have to do it on our
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  Speaker 1: own by treating people without the inspiration of the clothes.
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  Speaker 1: We can think of yose without the ktona. Now, unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: all too often close serves us a way to divide people.
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  Speaker 1: You know what they were people very sad. Let us
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  Speaker 1: learn the lesson of daktona than yosef. Don't worry about
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  Speaker 1: what other peoples are wearing, just worry about yourself. Chebat shalom.
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