Audio Shiur: The Case of Kelaim - Why do we Keep Commandments

Audio Shiur:
The Case of Kelaim - Why do we Keep Commandments

A short comment in Rashi about the reason (or lack of one) for the mitzvah of Kelaim leads us to a long essay from Ramban and a deep discussion about the nature of mitzvot and the reasons why we perform them.

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Audio Shiur: Parshat Kedoshim - Peah and our Perspective on Poverty

Audio Shiur:
Parshat Kedoshim - Peah and our Perspective on Poverty

While the basics of Peah seem, at first glance, straightforward, a more careful analysis not only of the text, but of the mitzvah itself and many of the Mishnayot in Peah, reveals a fascinating worldview on how we relate to the poor, to poverty itself, and to giving to others. While we might think that leaving Peah is similar to Tzedakah, it's different in many important ways.

You can download the source sheet for the shiur here.


Click here to navigate to the shiur on YUTorah.org.

Click on the player below to play the Shiur or right click here to download)



Did you know that this shiur is available as a free podcast on iTunes? Click here to subscribe - and leave a comment and rating so more people will find the shiur! Thanks!

Audio Shiur: Parshat Kedoshim - The Letter and Spirit of the Law

Audio Shiur:
Parshat Kedoshim - The Letter and Spirit of the Law

The first verse of Kedoshim leaves us wondering: what does it mean to be holy? We analyze a spectrum of opinions that shed light on this critical question, in order to arrive at a conclusion that can help us create more holiness in our lives.

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Audio Shiur: Kedoshim - Careful Speech

Audio Shiur:
Audio Shiur: Kedoshim - Careful Speech

Examining the section of Kedoshim dedicated to proper speech raises challenges: Do we speak positively and properly? Do we offer proper rebuke or recoil from the challenge? And is Facebook a good thing or a bad thing? What about the iPhone?


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Privacy, Parshat Kedoshim and the Lost Iphone

The media has been abuzz about the lost new prototype of the next generation iPhone. At Apple, secrecy represents a large part of their marketing strategy, building a mystique and demand for their products that garners literally millions of dollars worth of attention. If you're not familiar with this story, I'll summarize briefly.
An Apple engineer, (now named on the internet) working on the new phone, went out drinking with his new phone
After drinking beer, he left the phone at the bar (note to self: top secret gadgets and alcoholic consumption don't mix well)
Someone else found the phone, and in a drunken stupor, gave it to the person sitting in the next booth, who he thought was a friend of the owner. (He thought wrong).
That person played with the phone, and even identified its owner through the Facebook page on the phone. No one came back to claim the phone, so he took it home.
He claim to have called Apple trying to reach the owner.
Realizing that this wasn't just any phone (it looked a little bit different), he opened the phone. The website (I'm specifically not linking to the site. If you click on the link, they'd make a profit, making me a willing conspirator to their profit from illicitly obtained information. If you're really interested, find it yourself.) continues,

He reached for a phone and called a lot of Apple numbers and tried to find someone who was at least willing to transfer his call to the right person, but no luck. No one took him seriously and all he got for his troubles was a ticket number. He thought that eventually the ticket would move up high enough and that he would receive a call back, but his phone never rang. What should he be expected to do then? Walk into an Apple store and give the shiny, new device to a 20-year-old who might just end up selling it on eBay?

When he failed to find the owner, he did what any normal person would do with a phone that they had found: he sold it for $5,000 cash to a tech website.
What does Judaism have to say about this event? A great deal, and all of it's sad. Really sad.
There's well-known mitzvah called השבת אבידה - the commandment to return lost items. The mitzvah is pretty straight forward: if you find someone's property, you can't use it or benefit from it. Just give it back. Like the drunk guy tried to do. You can't open it, examine it, sell it, or manipulate it in any way. If you can't find the owner, just keep it. Maybe one day you will. The only real exception to these rule is when the item itself will rot or deteriorate. Then you can sell the item (like a cow, or a squash) and keep the money to return to the original owner.
So if you find a phone, you can turn it on to find its owner. But you certainly can't open it and you definitely can't sell it.
But there's something more nefarious that went on here as well. The value of the phone stemmed from the proprietary information that it contained. I personally could care less that the new iPhone will have a camera, but many people apparently really do care. The existence of the phone and its form are (er, were) industrial secrets. And no one, not a journalist nor private citizen has the right to reveal information acquired against the will of its owner. We learn this from a Midrash in this week's parshah.

גדול כסוי הסוד, שכל המגלה סוד חברו, כאילו שופך דמים, שנאמר (ויקרא יט, טז): 'לא תלך רכיל וגו' [לא תעמוד על דם רעך]'. גדול המכסה סוד חברו, שהוא מקיים מחשבות חברו.

So great is the keeping of secrets, that one who reveals secrets is compared to one who spills blood, as it is written, "You shall not be a talebearer among your people, and do not stand idly by the blood of your friend." Great is the person who keeps his friend's secret, for he fulfills the wishes of his friend.

Perhaps your thinking: isn't that a little bit of stretch? It's like spilling blood?
Actually, is that really so difficult to imagine, even in this case. Imagine the engineer who lost the phone. OK, it was dumb to bring the phone to a bar. But who among us can say that we haven't done a stupid thing or two? But now that his name is out, imagine that Apple fires him. Can you see him finding another software engineering job anytime soon? What would your state of mind be in this type of situation? Does anyone know how he'll react?
We live in a world where the drive for the scoop - the latest information at any cost, has robbed us of any semblance of privacy or secrecy.
Which should give us all pause to wonder: what's on my phone?

Because I Said So: An Old Drashah That's Still Relevant

After writing my last post, somewhere in the back of my head I knew that I had written about this before. A quick search on my hard drive revealed that I had spoken of the notion of obedience and submission before, as it turned out, specifically regarding the controversial and difficult subject of homosexuality.
In 2004, homosexuality and Judaism took center stage in Michigan, including a controversial agenda that made the ballot which attempted (ultimately successfully) to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. At the same time, the Detroit Jewish News broke its longstanding policy and announced that it would announce homosexual unions. I gave this as a drashah at the Young Israel of Oak Park in response. I find it interesting that the piece seems to combine both the parenting issues that we struggle with, and the challenge to Orthodoxy specifically in the area of homosexuality.

Table Talk - Kedoshim 5768

I saw an interesting question on a wonderful brand-new website publicizing the well-known parshat hashavua pages (gilyonot) of Nechama Leibowitz. (As an aside, for many, many years, Nechama Leibowitz published a weekly sheet on the parshah, which she would distribute to her students and whoever else wanted one, and then, if you sent it back to her, she would grade them. Based upon these weekly sheets she produced her well-known series, “Studies in the Weekly Parshah.” But I digress.

Many of us are familiar with the well-known prohibition, ולפני עור לא תתן מכשול – “and do not put a stumbling block before the blind man” (Vayikra 19:14).

Here are translations of two different explanations of this prohibition:

Rashi (on the passuk): “Before the man blind about a matter, do not give him inappropriate advice. Do not tell him, “Sell your field and buy a donkey”, and you circumvent him and take it from him. (By the way, it’s not clear to me whether Rashi means that you take the field or the donkey, but I think it means that you give him the advice because you want the field for yourself.)

Rambam (Book of Commandments, Negative commandment 299): “Anyone who stumbles a man blind in a matter and gives him inappropriate advice, or he strengthens the hand of the sinner about which he is blind and does not see the truth due to the desires of his heart, this person violates a negative commandment.

Nechama asked the following great question: According to these two interpretations, who is the blind man? What type of blindness does the Torah refer to? What behavior does this verse prohibit?

Discuss this question around the Shabbos table. For further discussion, can you come up with a different understanding of the passuk or find still another interpretation? As a bonus question, what sin do we confess during viduy on Yom Kippur that relates to this issue?

Table Talk -- Acharei Mos Kedoshim 5767

אחרי מות-קדושים תשס"ז

Where does meat come from? While you and I know that it comes from a cow, or a sheep, as your three-year-old the very same question. It would not surprise me at all if she answered: “One Stop Kosher.” After all, if you’ve never seen a animal slaughtered, and never witnessed the salting and soaking of the meat to remove the blood, how would you know that meat did grow on trees shrink-wrapped in plastic?

Our parshah relays the commandment of כיסוי הדם – the covering of the blood. After the slaughter of an animal, God commands us to cover the blood of that animal that spilled on the ground with dirt. But, this rule doesn’t apply to all animals. The Torah divides kosher animals into two basic categories: בהמות – domesticated animals such as cows and sheep, and חיות – undomesticated animals like deer. The rule of כיסוי הדם – covering of blood -- applies only to fowl and חיות – undomesticated animals. Why must we only cover the blood of the undomesticated animal, but not the blood of the domesticated animal?

Kli Yakkar suggests that the root of this commandment stresses the need for us to be sensitive and appreciative of the nature of blood. We find this commandment in the context of the prohibition to eat any type of blood. The Torah stresses that blood represents the spirit of all living things. While God permits us to eat the flesh of other animals, the spirit belongs to Him alone, so God forbids us from consuming any type of blood. Therefore, because the Jewish people regularly offered the blood of domesticated animals as sacrifices to God, there was no need for any additional prohibition. We would never keep for ourselves that which we offered to God alone. But because we never offer חיות – undomesticated animals – as sacrifices to God, we must carry out the additional action of covering the blood to remind us that the animals belong, first and foremost, to God Himself.

That leaves me to wonder: while we might have appreciated the value – and ownership – of blood during the times of the Temple when we offered sacrifices, is there any way for us to compensate and have that same level of understanding and appreciation today? Isn’t it interesting that our society, with all its infatuation with blood and violence (see my sermon from last week), goes out of its way to insulate itself from any kind of real blood?