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Torah Portion -
Shemini
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Written by Mychiel Balshine
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Parshat Shemini
Would You Kiss A Spider?
IN the final task of the Tri-Wizard tournament, Harry Potter came face to face with a sphinx (1). The sphinx would not allow him to pass unless he solved her riddle; part of which went ‘Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss’. Harry thought for a few moments, then correctly answered ‘a spider, nobody would kiss a spider’.
Harry and the sphinx’s assumption is generally very true; however there have in the past been exceptions. The Medrash (2) relates a story where King David asked Hashem why he created spiders for ‘they are such ugly and useless creatures’. Hashem responded ‘be patient, a day will come when you’ll want to kiss one’.
Some time later David had to hide in a cave from King Saul who wanted to kill him (3). As Saul’s search party approached his cave, Hashem sent a spider which spun a big web across its entrance. When Saul saw the unbroken web he surmised that no one had entered there and continued his search elsewhere.
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Torah Portion -
Shemini
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Written by yehuda katz
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. "All that crawls on the stomach (GACHON - Stomach, in Hebrew) ..............(11:42)
In Kiddushin 30a., it states that the letter "vav" in the word Gachon (stomach) is the very middle letter of the entire Torah. Why was it so essential for the Sages to inform us of this fact? I would like to propose the following original answer, Bezrat Hashem:In kabalistic thought, the letter "vav" is known as "ASVATA DIKISHAT" (the letter of truth) since it stands perfectly straight, namely unbent.One animal that crawls is the snake which used deceit to entice Eve to sin. (Please refer to Genesis 3:4-5)
This caused Adam to have a tremendous downfall for which the world still needs to rectify. In actuality "falsehood" is the cause of much evil. Yet the very middle letter of the entire Torah is the Letter of Truth, namely the "VAV".
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Torah Portion -
Shemini
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Written by Rafi Jager
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The Talmud (Tractate Baba Metzia 87a) explains that until the time of Avraham, an outward appearance of old age did not exist. However, this presented a problem, as people intending to speak with Avraham were invariably confused and ended up speaking with his son Yizchak instead. Therefore, Avraham prayed to Hashem for "old age" and his request was granted. As the possuk states, "Avraham was old, well on in years. . ." (Genesis 24:1). The reasoning offered by the Talmud raises an interesting question. Surely Avraham was not seeking self-glorification. Why then was he so concerned that people speak only to him? Wasn't Yitchak also a knowledgeable individual capable of answering people's questions?
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Torah Portion -
Shemini
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Written by d fine
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Rashi 11:2 tells us that the reward for Aharon’s silence (and that of others) at the deaths of his two sons was that the portion of the Torah regarding kashrus was told via him also. All of HaShem’s rewards are middah ke’neged middah - the reward matches the deed perfectly. So what has eating Kosher got to do with silence? One idea is that their silence (as Rashi says) showed their understanding that whatever HaShem does it is for the best - they accepted HaShem’s decree with love. This show of great understanding is connected to the mitzvah we have to understand and differentiate between kosher and non-kosher animals (Vayikra 10:10). Moreover, the fact that silence is connected to the laws of Kashrus shows us that there is a certain connection between what comes out of our mouths and what we put into our mouths. Lastly, one underlying principle of kashrus of animals is that non-kosher animals tend to be cruel in their behaviour. Thus, we do not want to ingest them for if we do so we will absorb a certain degree of cruelty and callousness into our characters. This means that the underlying idea of kashrus is keeping one’s character clean in terms of having good middos (traits). The connection to Aharon’s silence here is that such a silence demonstrated a great wealth of good middos in putting HaShem’s agenda over any pain Aharon might have experienced.
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Torah Portion -
Shemini
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Written by d fine
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As Rashi makes clear (10:20), Moshe admitted that he had erred in a certain law in our sedra. In Rashi’s words ‘he admitted and was not embarrassed to say that he had not heard this (correct ruling).’ We see from here the tremendous importance of sticking to the truth no matter what. Even though Moshe knew that this moment would go down in history as the moment that Moshe did not know the correct law, he still admitted that he was wrong. For it’s about truth - not about one’s own personal ego. It is better to admit the truth than try to save face and make up a lie. Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s gilyon ha’shas in Brachos 25b counts the incredible 45 times (approx) that Rashi on Shas comments with the words ‘I do not know what this means.’ Rashi did not have to inform us that he did not know; he could have not written anything and saved the ink. But Rashi did open his mouth (well, his quill) and told us several times ‘I do not know,’ thereby showing his total and utter commitment to truth, to honesty, and to integrity.
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