This Shabbos, David led discussion, and we talked about the upcoming
holiday of Pesach, and the 5 types of chametz: wheat, barley, spelt, rye and
oats. We discussed that there is some differences in
what is considered chamtez, with some holding that rice is ok to consume over
the holiday. We discussed how some foods
may not be allowed simply to make sure we do not make mistakes. Foods
such as rice, will also puff up when cooked, so have been forbidden by many to
help us avoid confusion. If we allow rice, we may think something else is rice when it is not.
This Shabos we discussed the weeks parsha, Tazria, and Rav
Yeager’s commentary on the parsha and on other subjects. In ancient times, Kohen, who were the
priests, would be summoned to make declarations concerning physical
maladies, which may or may not be manifestations of a spiritual condition. In
this week’s parsha, there is discussion of tzafaratz which would afflict people
and their possessions. The Kohen come
and make a determination as to whether people and their objects are pure or impure.
We discussed how it is that the Kohen would make this
determination. The Kohen would simply
get a feeling about something, and it is believed that this feeling was
transmitted to the Kohen with a spiritual mechanism that can’t be explained by science. It is believed that when we committed sins,
we would be struck by tzafaratz.
We discussed how Hashem sends warnings. At first these warnings are not obvious, and
may appear to simply be random bad luck.
If we ignore the warnings, we may receive more serious warnings. In the case of tzafaratz, it may first appear
to afflict our house, then it may afflict our clothing, and then finally if all
the warnings are ignored, afflict us personally.
We discussed how Miriam was afflicted with this malady, for
saying lashon hara about her brother, Moses.
In modern times, we may not get leprosy for saying lashon hara, but
hashem may warn us in other ways. A lot
of what we attribute to random happenings of bad luck, may actually be warnings
from Hashem. And these could be warnings
for anything, not just that we should not be saying lashon hara. We discussed how it is very easy to say
Lashon Hara, and how damaging our words can be.
It is even a worse sin to say something false – or slander someone. What is particularly bad is to tell someone
the bad things others are saying about them.
This Shabbos we discussed the upcoming holiday of Pesach,
and how this holiday should not set off alarms!
We discussed that the total amount of work necessary to get ready for
this holiday is actually a lot less than we imagine! We plan to discuss this more next week.
One of the things we did discuss this week is the importance
of making our holidays a simchah. In
Judaism, being in a happy state is not something we should have to force. It should be the other way around – we force
ourselves to be serious when we have a particular responsibility. On Shabbos and definitely on
holidays we should automatically be in a state of simchah, without this something that has to be forced, the same way
that opening up the faucet allows water to flow through the pipes. At certain times – and perhaps most of the time
we have to stop the water from flowing – but when we open the faucet the water
flows automatically, and in the same way our happiness that we are alive,
having been created by Hashem, and in contact with him should automatically
flow. Of course this is the ideal situation, that we should strive to achieve.Last Shabbos we discussed how the Torah first came out with the fact that time had a beginning, and how scientist finally came to believe the same thing we had known. This Shabbos, David talked about his father’s, Rav Dr. George Schlesinger, great contributions in the area of the philosophy of time. There is an organization that Dr. Schlesinger was a big part of that can be found at the following url: Philosophy of Time Website
This is a summary of what we discussed this past Shabbos. No Halachic rulings are intended or should be inferred.
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