This Shabbos was a special Shabbos, as it was the yeirzeit of
Ethan Jacobs, who was a regular at our kiddush and learnings. All the learning this Shabbos, was in his memory. This Shabbos we welcomed back Dan. This Shabbos we discussed
Parsha Naso, including commentary from Rav Yeager, as well as some other topics,
including commentary from Rav Malamed. David
Schlesinger led discussion.
David shared how his father, Harav Nattan ben Harav Shmuel, would
point out that Judaism is the only religion in which is said a blessing after
meals. Dave W pointed out that there is
a lot of motivation to go through procedures, such as saying a blessing, in
order to be able to consume food when hungry, but not a lot of motivation to do procedures, such as saying a blessing, afterwards. David's dad would make this point, that the way we do it is more likely to demonstrate true gratitude, rather than just motivation to get to a meal.
We discussed that we say the blessings afterwards, even when
we have consumed very small amounts. This is because we are in fact considered “full”, even when consuming an amount
of bread the size of an olive. Although
we may not be full physically, we should be full spiritually, by being aware and grateful for the fact that the bread, and everything else, ultimately comes from Hashem. The lesson for us, is that as we consume food we should be consiousely aware of our gratitude that it is provided from its ultimate source.
As Jews, our purpose and mission is to bring spirituality to
the physical world, and we do this by saying blessings, and following the
Torah, which is our blueprint on how to do this. Dan refers to this as “elevating the sparks
of Kidusha”, which is a quote that we bring up quite often. We remember how Ethan would refer to
following the Torah, with his saying “Torah says …”.
We discussed the week’s parsha, and how the Kohen were
historically given the special role of carrying the Tabernacle from location to
location as we traveled through-out the dessert towards the land of
Israel. All the descendants of Aron were
to have a special role in leading services.
Dave W pointed out how the parsha seems to have a lot of unrelated
topics put together. There are also
commandments in the parsha, to isolate people who have contracted spiritual illnesses involving impurity.
We discussed how the original plan was for the oldest child
to have the special role of carrying the components of the tabernacle, and
leading services, however this did not work out so it was assigned to the Kohen,
who had not participated in the sin of the Golden Calf. To this day, the Kohen play a special
role in our services. They receive special honors, such as receiving the first Aliyah.
Along with these special honors, comes additional responsibility.
These responsbilities include the importance of following all the halakuh,
including special commandments given to the Kohen, specifically. These include the commandment to not marry a divorcee, and not coming in contact with those who have passed away by attending funerals. A Kohen can lose his special status by not
following the commandments which apply to him.
We discussed that if a Kohen does lose his special status, it may be possible
for him to do t’shuva and have his status restored.
We discussed that the descendants of Aron, the levies, were
not given any land in Israel, as their role was to lead services and perform
spiritual duties. All of us were commanded
to give gifts to the levies so that they could focus on their duties, rather than on making a living.
This Shabbos, we discussed how the angels had a disagreement
with Hashem on whether or not we should be given all the details in the
Torah. The angels felt that we would become lost in the details, and forget our overall purpose and mission, and
even lose our awareness and our connection to Hashem. Hashem’s argument, was that the Torah is a
path which can lead towards our spirituality, and it was important for this
path to be laid out before us, although we may choose to not follow it.
The lesson to us is that we always try our best to be aware
of the overall reasons for why we are following the details of the commandments and mitzvah. We should try our best to have an awareness of the overall, and have a conscious
relationship with Hashem.
David spoke about the importance of renewing our interest in
routines that we follow, such as how we observe the holidays, so it always seems fresh to us. Some examples of what we can do is perhaps
observe a holiday in Israel, which would be a change, or observing the holiday
with new people or in a different way.
If we renew our interest in our routines and remain aware of our overall
purpose, we can overcome the concerns of the angles.
This is a summary of what we discussed. No halachic rulings are intended or should be inferred.
No comments:
Post a Comment