Thursday, May 9, 2019

Thursday's Parsha Tidbits - Parshas Kedoshim

The following is a brief summary of some of thoughts said over by R' Frand on the parsha this evening. I have attempted to reproduce these vorts to the best of my ability. Any perceived inconsistency is the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.

In Vayikra 19:16, the Torah states ".לֹֽא־תֵלֵ֤ךְ רָכִיל֙ בְּעַמֶּ֔יךָ לֹ֥א תַֽעֲמֹ֖ד עַל־דַּ֣ם רֵעֶ֑ךָ אֲנִ֖י יְהוָֹֽה"

R' Frand asked - why is that the Torah juxtaposes these two thoughts - that a person should not speak loshon hora לֹֽא־תֵלֵ֤ךְ רָכִיל֙ בְּעַמֶּ֔יך and that a person should not stand idly by and allow someone else to be killed - לֹ֥א תַֽעֲמֹ֖ד עַל־דַּ֣ם רֵעֶ֑ךָ?

R' Frand answered by quoting from the sefer Halichos Shlomo which is a discussion of R' Shlomo Zalman Auerbach's minhagim. Within the sefer it is written that R' Shlomo Zalman would say kaddish for the yahrtzeits of his family members who had no one to say kaddish for them, including his grandparents. He would also say kaddish on the 24th day of Nissan, although this was not the yahrtzeit of any member of his family. Instead, it was the yahrtzeit of Sasha Mindel Bas Chaim Yehudah who was the granddaughter of R' Shlomo Kluger.

R' Frand stated that R' Kluger said the eulogy when his granddaughter and asked that his sefer be learned in her memory on her yahrtzeit and that if a person is saying kaddish and it is not beneath him, he should say kaddish for his granddaughter on that day - and if not, he should pay a poor person to do so. 

R' Frand then read from the introduction to R' Kluger's sefer Nidrei Zerizin where he talks about how his granddaughter was set up with a man named R' Ya'akov Hertzberg and that people who made the shidduch were evil and he was upset at himself for not checking the family properly as they were evil as well. Shortly after the marriage they began to expert pressure on the granddaughter to follow their evil ways and may have physically or verbally abused her. She was afflicted with a diseased lung within a few months of the marriage and went in for treatment, but the Kluger family was not told. By the time R' Shlomo found out and took her to a proper doctor it was too late and she died shortly thereafter. He writes that Hashem should avenge her blood against those who knew the character of this family and did not warn them not to allow their granddaughter not to marry into the family. And even though R' Shlomo Kluger lived from 1783-1869, R' Shlomo Zalman, who was not even born until 1910, felt it important to say kaddish for this woman who must have passed away more than forty years before he was born.

Based on this we can understand the meaning of the pasuk. Although there is a rule not to say loshon hara, you should not stand by when someone is drowning. You need to realize that sometimes in not speaking, you will allow someone to drown. Although its more comfortable to remain silent, this is not what a Jew should do according to the Chofetz Chaim because it could lead to a churban. The statement must be without embellishment, or personal agenda (there are 5 rules in total) but the person who knows must say something.

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