Thursday, March 28, 2019

Thursday's Parsha Tidbits - Parshas Shemini

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 11:3-8, the Torh discusses the laws of the kosher land animals and the requirement to have both split hooves and chew their cud. The Torah then identifies four animals which only have one of the two requirements. [The gemara discusses how if you find an animal and see that it has one of the requirements and know that it is not one of these four, then you can be certain that it is kosher].

The Klei Yakar notes that each of these non-kosher animals which has one kosher sign is identified specifically by the kosher sign first and then the Torah states that it is not kosher because of the only one sign. He asks - why did the Torah need to identify these animals in this way - it would have been more logical to identify them by the non-kosher symbol and say that this is the reason that it is not kosher.

The Klei Yakar answers that the reason they are identified this way is to teach a lesson about being hypocritical - of acting two different ways, or even acting one way on the outside and another on the inside. In this way a person is even worse than a Rasha, as the Rasha does not give the outward impression that he is good person, or that he is doing the right thing.

R' Frand stated that this is perhaps the reason why eating one of these non-kosher animals like a pig has a negative impact on a person in that the consumer becomes hypocritical like the item that he is consuming.

R' Frand also quoted R' Elya Boruch Finkel who identifies this with a person who publicly acts in two different ways and he theorizes that this might be why it is better to deal with a Rasha. A Rasha can be brought back to teshuva because he is what he is and does not attempt to rationalize his actions. He further equated this with the story of Eliyahu on Mount Carmel and his interactions with the prophets of Ba'al. As part of their discussion, Eliyahu says - if you are going to follow Ba'al just worship it. But why would he be urging them to worship Avodah Zarah? Because it would be easier to bring them back if they acted uniformly negatively, rather than positive in some ways and negative in others.

R' Frand also connected this to Rivka and her menuchas hanefesh from finding out that she was having twins. Rashi quotes the Medrash that Rivka went to ask at Yeshivat Shem V'Ever as to why the child seemed to kick both when she walked by a Beis Medrash and a place of Avodah Zarah. When she was advised that she was having two children (including one who was a Rasha) she felt better. But why would she feel better if she knew that she had a Rasha in her womb? Because now she knew that this not one baby with two conflicting manners and there was always a possibility that the Rasha could be brought back to teshuva.

R' Frand closed the vort by observing that people often have this problem of being hypocritical and rationalizing their conflicting ways. He called it cognitive dissonance, where a person is bothered that he is acting two different ways. He gave an example of smoking - people knew that it was unhealthy, but rationalized that it was not so bad because the person was not smoking so much, or because he is an active person and takes care of himself some other way, or even that if he quit smoking he would gain weight and that was more unhealthy. R' Frand even quoted some people from years ago who theorized that the studies on the damage of smoking were not applicable to Sabbath observers since the study group smoked 7 days a week and the frum people had a 25 hour window when they did not smoke. 

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