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 16:18, the Torah states וְיָצָ֗א אֶל־הַמִּזְבֵּ֛חַ אֲשֶׁ֥ר לִפְנֵֽי־יְהוָֹ֖ה וְכִפֶּ֣ר עָלָ֑י . Rabbi Frand quoted Rashi who states that this is part of the ceremony that the Kohain must do various acts. However the Targum Yonasan Ben Uziel says that the Kohain does the kapparah with his words by saying his tefillah when he left the Kodesh HaKodashim. But what does this mean?
R' Frand noted that the Rambam discusses that the Kohain Gadol said a tefillah kitzara when he leaves, but the Mishneh L'Melech does not know the source for the tefillah.
R' Frand quoted the Gemara in Yoma 53 that the prayer itself is that the Jews would not be under the sovereignty of other nations. Another opinion is that the Jews should need charity one from the other and should be able to support themselves. Another opinion is that the prayers of the travelers should not be accepted. Why? Because the travelers hate rain and they pray that there should not be any rain to make their travels difficult.
R' Frand quoted the sefer Bei Chiya by the son in law of the Novominsker zt'l who asks why the prayer not to listen to the tefilla of the travelers is listed here? How often did it even rain there that the travelers would even give this prayer? He explains that the problem is much broader. He links this to a limud in Divrei Yechezkel about a pasuk in Tehillim "rochok m'yishuasi divrei sha'agasi" - we often pray for things that would not be good for us. We think that it may be a good deal, but not know the other guy is a crook. We ask for help getting something, but don't know that the item we pine for may not be good for us.
The traveler is similarly short sighted. He prays that it should not rain, not thinking about how important the rain is for the crops, or the water supply. He prays for what he thinks is good for him now.
Thus the Kohain Gadol's prayer that the traveler's tefillah not be answered is symbolic in nature. The message is that when we daven, we should daven for the big picture and not be short sighted and only look at the immediate.
R' Frand quoted a Ramban in Kedoshim on וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵֽעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ who writes that the pasuk cannot be understood simplistically. If this was true, then the Gemara which discusses two people travelling in the desert with one jug of water should require the person to give it away and not to drink it to preserve his own life.
R' Frand explained that וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵֽעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ is a lesson in how we should treat others and want good things to happen to others. A person should do for others and want for them as much as he wants for himself. A person can want his neighbor to have money or a nice house, "but I want my kids to be better than his" or "I want to be smarter." The Ramban explains that there is no carve out, a person should not want his friend to have it as good as him, except for...
R' Frand then mentioned that Mishpacha magazine had asked him his advice for people making the seder for the first time and he told them - teach your kids the songs at the end of the seder, the traditional niggunim of your family. R' Frand then stated that as he did not keep some of his father's minhagim - his father stood for all of kiddush, he sits at the bracha. His father stood for havdallah, he sits as they do in yeshiva. But he has his father's niggunim for the end of the seder as a mesorah. And he taught those to his children and they use them at their sedarim.
R' Frand next quoted a story from R' Fishel Gross about being sensitive for a neighbor's needs and wanting the best for them. A woman had lost her husband a few years prior, but she always had her children for the seder, so she was never alone. But this year as an older woman, she was home by herself for the seder. But her neighbors were sensitive to her plight - they moved their dining room table next to the window and told her to do the same. She was able to listen and participate in their seder, even though they were not in the same house.
After the Chag ended, her children called and asked how her sedarim were. Fantastic, she responded, I was able to sing with the neighbors in their seder and they even sang the niggunim like daddy used to! I had a seder like we used to, when daddy was alive. But she did not know that the neighbor had called the children of the woman and recorded their niggunim and practiced them with the family so that they could sing them with her. This is being concerned for others and וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵֽעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ.
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