Close To Torah

The name of an object or person describes its essence, and the names of the paryshiyos are no exclusion to this idea. Consequently, parshas Acharei-Mos is more than the beginning of the parshah, it is the nature of the parshah as well. The parshah begins with Hashem telling Moshe to warn his brother Aharon that he should not repeat the ways of his children who perished. Rashi explains that Rebbi Eliezar Ben Azariyah would compare this to a sick person who goes to a doctor. The doctor tells him that he should not eat cold food and that he should not lay in the mildew. Afterwards, another person comes to the doctor and the doctor says that he should not eat cold food and lay in the mildew so you do not die like the first person.  This additional explanation will inspire the second man more than the first person. Thus, Rashi concludes that this is why the Torah tells this to Aharon HaCohen; to teach him in a way that he will be compelled to listen. Let us take a step back for a moment and look back at Parshas Shemini where this incident occurred.

In Parshas Shemini, the karbanos are brought on the eighth day of of the inauguration of the recently erected Mishkan. The Torah then relates that two of the sons of Aharon HaCohen, Nuduv and Avihu brought their own ketores offering. They decided to do this independently  without any commandment to do so.  As a result, they were punished rather than praised for their actions. Chazal tell us Nuduv and Avihu sinned when they drank wine prior to entering the Beis HaMikdash. A question appears; why would the Torah punished the children of Aharon HaCohen when the prohibition of drinking wine in the Beis HaMikdash is written following their death? One possible explanation is that they were punshied for not being careful in something that they knew was wrong. You could ask, how could they have been careful…they didn’t know it was prohibited! The answer is that they should have known that it is inappropriate go into a place of kedushah in a state that is impure. Wine is something associated with temptation, and is often used improperly. For example, a nazir does not drink wine when he saw what happened to a sotah as a result of intoxication.  As with all aspects of our lives, it is our duty to take mundane items, like wine, and sanctify them through Torah and mitzvos.   Even within the 613 mitzvos the Torah still leaves room to take your life a step further.  And that step is  kedushah.

Although wine led Nuduv and Avihu to their sin, their actual sin was bringing a ketores without being commanded to do so. While they may have had great intentions of doing Hashem’s will, in reality they acted against it. What was so wrong about bringing something that wasn’t commanded? The language that the Torah used to describe their offering was “aish zaruh” or foreign fire. Their act was considered foreign  because it was not commanded. There is a great difference between acting in a way that is l’fnim mishuris hadin, or beyond the letter of the law. The Torah is complete and perfect in every way, therefore when one tries to add to it they will inevitably retract from it. In our Avodas Hashem, we must be careful to follow the actual obligations of the Torah and to not create our own interpretations.

Why must the great Kohen Gadol Aharon HaCohen need to have his own children die in order to teach him to obey the specific prohibition of entering the Kodesh Kadushim during the year!? We are talking about the brother of Moshe Rabbeinu, the greatest man to ever live.  Now we may begin to understand the question we initially raised, why must Aharon HaCohen be taught such a serious lesson, wouldn’t telling him be enough?

Parshas  Acharei Mos, literally “After Death”, refers to the children of Aharon HaCohen, and perhaps contains a deeper meaning.  When people reach the end of their life, they engage in the deepest personal reflection imaginable.  Their life flashes before their eyes, and they examine their lives, their experiences, their relationships.  Indeed, our own mortality drives us to examine ourselves on a regular basis, lest we reach the end of days with no concept of who we are or what our purpose is.  It is this idea, the idea of deep reflection, that we learn from Parshas Acharei Mos. Aharon learned through the death of his beloved, holy children, the importance of learning from, and moving on from experiences.  We can be told the most important lessons from the most important people, but nothing teaches like Experiences.   And what better day, the day designated by G-d himself, to reflect, learn, and move on from our experiences but Yom Hakippurim.  That is why we learn Acharei Mos for Yom Hakippurim.  That is why Aharon HaCohen, and Klal Yisroel, needed this lesson.

That is truly the pasuk in the other parshah of this week, Parshas Kedoshim. The pasuk tells us “קדשים תהיו.” While there is a discussion as to what the specific mitzvah is, the basic idea is to make one’s self holy. A famous explanation of קדשים תהיו is that one should  מקדש עצמו במותר לך meaning to sanctify ones-self by that which is permitted to him. As was touched upon earlier this should never lead to one’s own interpretations of the Torah, only expressing great care in their observance to mitzvos. This idea of becoming kadosh is a deeply rooted desire of Klal Yisroel and it must be expressed through mitzvos. Otherwise it will be used improperly as we saw by the sons of Aharon HaCohen. These parshiyos are usually found during the time of Sefiras HaOmer, between Pesach and Shavuos. This is a time where we grow in preparation for the acceptance of the Torah once again. This is the time where we also observe mourning for the students of the great Rebbi Akiva whom were said to not have shown proper respect to one another. The greatest thing that we can do in this time in preparation for the acceptance of the Torah, as we grow from being like an animal (as the offering on Pesach is from food of the animals) to being like a Man (as the offering on Shavuos is from the food of Man) we should take extra measures to treat our fellow brethren with proper respect. The greatest chumros should be found in our Ben Adom L’chavayro as that is where we tend to lack. We think that the acceptance of Torah is just through our learning and davenning, it is also through the way we treat others. We should use this time to purify and sanctify ourselves before Yom HaKippurim where we come before Hashem. We should all be zocheh to grow in all ways through this period of time in our lives.

הוא אהרן ומשה אשר אמר ה’ להם הוציאו את בני ישראל מארץ מצרים על צבאתם. הם המדברים אל פרעה מלך מצרים להוציא את בני ישראל ממצרים הוא משה ואהרן (ו:כו-ז).  

“They are Aharon and Moshe whom Hashem commanded them to bring the Jews out of the land of Egypt… They are the speakers to Pharaoh the king of Egypt to take the Jews from Egypt, they are Moshe and Aharon” (6:26-7).

Why are the words “Aharon and Moshe” repeated twice and reversed, once putting Aharon first and the other time placing Moshe first? Also, in one instance it describes their locale as “the land of Egypt” and later simply “Egypt” omitting the word ‘land’, why?

Klal Yisrael were trapped in Egypt in two different ways. They were physically enslaved by the country, forced to perform backbreaking and torturous labor for them. Even more dangerously, they were spiritually subservient to the morals of Egypt. Although, they still kept many Jewish practices such as their names  and dress, nevertheless, Chazal tell us that they had fallen to almost the lowest level of impurity. Thus, the redemption would had to be twofold, from the physical shackles of the land and from its’ spiritual decadence.

A lifeguard was sitting in his watch-post monitoring the pool when suddenly he heard a commotion. Spontaneously, he dove in to save the drowning child. First he pulled the kid out of the water and then he proceeded to pump his stomach to get the water out of his lungs and thereby allow him to administer CPR. Now the child would live! It was a two step process, first he had to get the kid out of the water and then he had to get the water out of the kid! The second part is much harder. So too, the Kotzker Rebbe explains the Exodus contained two phases. The first element was  getting the Jews out of the land of Egypt and the second was getting Egypt (perversion) out of the Jews! Hence, a physical and spiritual redemption. The redeemers had both jobs at hand, to first remove the child from the water, and then to remove the water from the child!

Rashi explains based on Chazal that this verse states the names Moshe and Aharon twice and alternates whose name is first in order to signify that they were both equal in greatness in the field of putting in their full effort into bringing out their own potential. Now let’s put it all together!

The Daas Sofer explains based on the Kli Yakar that our verse talks of the two forms of Exodus which we have shown.

1 – “From the land of Egypt” refers to the leaving of the physical location.

2 – “From Egypt” refers to leaving the materialistic spiritual perversion of Egypt.

The job of liberating Klal Yisrael from these two forces was shared between Moshe and Aharon, with each one specifically in charge of one aspect. Aharon was the spokesman to Pharaoh and to the people, to help them leave physically. Moshe encouraged his people to spiritually want redemption from the perversion of Egypt, so that he could give them the Torah. He inspired their hearts to Avodas Hashem and served as their spiritual leader teaching them Torah and the way to serve Hashem.

Both jobs were vital for the redemption. Thus, the verse equates the greatness of Moshe and Aharon. When talking about their individual jobs respectively it puts the appropriate one’s name first, “Aharon and Moshe whom Hashem commanded them to take Klal Yisrael out of the land of Egypt” this was Aharon’s department, the physical redemption from the land. Next, “to take the Jews out of Egypt,” is the spiritual aspect, thus, the verse concludes by placing Moshe first!