Thursday, June 1, 2023

Thursday's Parsha Tidbits - Parshas Nasso

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.

Parshas Nasso begins with Hashem telling Moshe to count the sons of Gershon. R' Frand observed that in Parshas Bamidbar Moshe had been commanded to count the sons of Kehas and that the Medrash quotes the pasuk in Mishlei - יְקָ֣רָה הִ֖יא מִפְּנִינִ֑ים to describe the fact that Kehas is counted first. This is because even though Gershon was the oldest of the sons of Levi, Kehas was counted first because he carried the Aron which contained the Luchos.

R' Frand then asked - since Kehas was the oldest, why was he not given the task to carry the Aron and that way the sons could have been counted in order? He answered by quoting the Klei Yakar which explains that while certain tribes/subsets of tribes were given certain responsibilities, the Torah belongs to no tribe. Had Kehas been given the role of carrying the Aron, it would have the appearance that the Torah belongs to the eldest or most honorable. By choosing the family of the second son to carry the Aron and then mentioning them first, the Torah demonstrates Kavod HaTorah comes before age/stature.

R' Frand said a second vort based on a Medrash about R' Meir. One Friday night R' Meir gave a shiur which was attended by a local woman. By the time that she returned home the candles in her home had gone out and her husband was quite upset. He asked her - where were you? She replied that she had been at the shiur. The husband said that she could not return to the home until she had spat in the eye of R' Meir.

R' Meir was subsequently visited by Eliyahu HaNavi who told him about the husband's statement and further told R' Meir that he needed to remedy the situation.

R' Meir made an announcement at his next shiur (which the woman was in attendance at) that he needed someone who knew how to say incantations over his eye in order to cure it. The woman stepped up and said - I can do it. Then when she was standing over him, she spat in his eye, to which R' Meir told her that she should return home and tell her husband about the great power of Shalom.

R' Frand quoted R' Elya Lopian Ztl who asked - why did R' Meir need to arrange for this? He could have just told the husband to knock off this nonsense and take her back, rather than be embarrassed by having her spit in his eye?

He answered that R' Meir learned from the Sotah. While Hashem could have set some other process in order to determine whether she had strayed, instead the Kohain is instructed to erase the pesukim including the name of Hashem in order to create the Mei Sotah. If Hashem is willing to suffer the indignity of having His name erased in order to bring peace between husband and wife, R' Meir could allow for this woman to spit in his eye.

R' Frand said a third vort which he heard from R' Shraga Neuberger in the name of R' Tzadok M'Lublin. He asked a question - if a person decided to observe all the laws of Nazir - not becoming Tamei, not consuming wine and not cutting his hair, would he have the same level of Kedusha as a Nazir? The answer is no as without making the vow of becoming a Nazir he has not become one.

R' Tzadok explains that this is why the Nazir is mentioned so close to Birkas Kohanim in the parsha. We learn from Birkas Kohanim the power of speech as the Berachos are transformative. Similarly in order to obtain the Kedusha of Nazir, he must make the declaration aloud.

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