Tazriah 5774 March 29, 2014

A Taste of Stories For The Soul Illusory Talk By Rabbi Mordechai Fleisher Know Where to Look All the animals accosted the snake with a to overcome, thus attaining perfection when we A man once told the pointed accusation. “All the other animals that kill triumph over it. It is a challenge of realizing the Brisker Rav (Rabbi Yitzchak do so because they have a need to eat. But you, illusory nature of the lusts and desires that we Zev Soloveitchik; 1886-1959) you bite and kill even when you have no need to crave. But there are two types of drives. There that certain punishments were eat! How do you explain your actions?!?” Replied are those that fill a real need; after engaging in occurring to the Jewish people the snake, “What do you want from me? Am I the activity, there is a satisfaction, a void that is due to the desecration of any different than one who speaks lashon hara fulfilled. Then there is the type which never fills Shabbos that was rampant at the time. The Brisker Rav told him to (slander)?” any need; the illusion is that we think this activity think of the story of the prophet will fill our need. Yonah (Jonah). Yonah, trying to Sounds like a whimsical conversation, don’t avoid having to announce the you think? But it’s real. It’s a conversation that will The (Berachos 17a) compares the prophecy G-d had ordered him take place at the End of Days. So says the great Evil Inclination - the evil that is now part of to relay to the wicked people of Talmudic Sage Rish Lakish (Erachin 15b). And it is our consciousness – to leavening that swells the Nineveh, fled the Land of Israel obviously presented to teach us a vital lesson about bread. How does leavening inflate the bread? Air on a ship. the nature of lashon hara. is incorporated into the dough, causing it to rise. It is clear from the verses Air. Nothingness. Just empty space. It looks big, that the other passengers were But the passage is puzzling: One who speaks but it’s just hot air. The Evil Inclination tries to idolaters, as we are told that lashon hara certainly feels an urge to do so, much convince us to aggrandize ourselves, to swell up when a huge storm erupted and as one who eats does so because of an urge and with self-importance, to inflate our egos. But what threatened to capsize the ship, desire to engage in such an activity. Why is one does it get us? NOTHING. There is no satisfaction the people all prayed to their drive justified, while the other is condemned? in self-aggrandizement. Eating and drinking, regret various deities for salvation. Yet, Furthermore, the claim made by the animals to the it though we may later, will make us feel full, will Yonah did not even suggest that snake is never resolved; the snake simply passes the provide us with an enjoyable taste, but puffing up the calamity was a result of their buck to humanity! with self-importance brings no real satisfaction. idol worship – despite its status The only satisfaction one attains is when a person as one of the worst sins possible. Let’s examine the details of the passage a bit truly appreciates what he inherently is, not when Rather, he immediately accepted more closely. The snake is the animal that shows he builds himself up and lords over others. responsibility for causing the up in the Garden of Eden, tempting Eve to eat storm and said it was because of from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. The snake And that brings us back to slander. Why his own sin. was placed there by G-d for the express purpose of do people have a need to speak or hear ill of Similarly, said the Brisker Rav, testing Adam and Eve. And how did he convince others? More often than not, it’s because we feel we must look at our own actions them to eat? He told Eve that she would “be like better about ourselves when someone else is put and rectify our own personal G-d”. Ultimately, Eve succumbed to the wiles of down. (Why else would there be an entire market shortcoming, not point at the the snake, seduced by the lure of becoming greater catering to the inane fascination with the sordid faults of others. than she already was. misadventures of celebrities, if not so that we can This week’s parsha discusses reassure ourselves that despite their superstar the affliction of tzara’as, a spiritual But it was a lie. Far greater stature awaited status, they are no more successful than we?) And malady of the skin brought on Adam and Eve had they withstood the test, but that is a satisfaction that fills no need at all, for by certain spiritual defects in a their illusions of grandeur caused them to stumble. putting others down is just a means of artificially person. A major aspect of the message of tzara’as is to look at The illusions created by the snake. Illusions that inflating our own feelings of self-importance. one’s own shortcomings and seek never materialized. But the sense of worthlessness experienced to improve, rather than blaming before hasn’t gone away; you can’t really become other causes. The primordial snake of Eden is the evil something through illusions and nothingness. So that G-d created to provide us with a challenge what did you gain through your malicious talk? continued on back Kollel Happenings Interpersonal Issues THE TORAH VIEW OF PUBLIC The Laws of Lashon Hara (Slander) RELATIONS AT APRIL 2ND T4T If one was talking with others, and the should place his fingers in his ears or some subject matter turned toward lashon hara other similar method by which he will be Join award-winning broadcast and he is unable to leave, there are several unable to hear what is being discussed. journalist Dean Rotbart, Co-Host approaches that can be taken. Ideally, one of Radio Chavura and Business Unconventional (710 KNUS AM), and Rabbi Mordechai Fleisher, Senior Lecturer for Denver Ask the Rabbi Community Kollel, as they discuss Pesach in a Box? the relevance of public relations From: Joseph C. Passover, you can put the Passover dishes back in Jewish life. Wednesday, April into the same containers. Just be careful not to 2nd at the East Side Kosher Deli Dear Rabbi, get them mixed up. from 1-2 pm. Cost: $20. RSVP: [email protected]. This year my wife and I are kashering our It is customary to cover cupboards and utensil home for Passover for the first time. We are holders that will be used on Passover. If you LEARN 2 LEARN now purchasing Passover dishes, utensils, etc. can’t do this or can’t obtain new utensil holders, My question is, when we remove the everyday remove the inserts, clean the drawers completely You have long dreamed of dishes, where do they go? May we put them and put the Passover cutlery directly into the acquiring the tools to achieve in the boxes that held the Passover dishes? Is drawer. proficiency in learning Gemara on your own. But how? The it better that the Passover dishes not come Denver Community Kollel offers in contact with a surface that was touched by By the way, I must warn you about one of the a comprehensive, step-by-step, everyday dishes? Do we cover the inside of the mysteries of Pesach: The Pesach utensils are level-by-level program crafted cabinets? Do we change the plastic containers in taken out of a specific amount of storage space, for people just like you. All our kitchen drawers? and yet they never seem to all fit back in again! you need is the ability to read I have never found a rational explanation for Hebrew; we will teach you the Dear Joseph C., this phenomenon! Symbolically, perhaps we rest. For more information, too should resist returning to the confines contact [email protected]. First of all, congratulations on your first “Kosher of everyday living after tasting the spiritual for Passover” home. Many happy returns! liberation of Passover. PARSHA ON THE MALL You can store clean everyday utensils in the Reprinted with permission from Ohr Somayach, Wish you could learn more about the weekly parsha? Looking boxes that held your Passover dishes. After , www.ohr.edu

to add some Torah study and

inspiration to your busy day? Then here’s an opportunity A Taste of Torah you won’t want to miss! Rabbi Illusory Talk Mordechai Fleisher explores continued from front several parts of the weekly Zip, zilch, nada. Kind of like killing others for no is all about – a great, big gargantuan illusion! Can parsha at this exciting and reason. Just like the snake. you not see that when a person speaks slander, he intriguing class. The class takes does so thinking that it will gain him something, place Thursdays from 12:30-1:30 Why do we do it? Because we think it will bring until he realizes that despite his delusions of pm in downtown Denver at 910 us satisfaction. But it is nothing more than the evil grandeur, he is even less of a person than he was 16th St., 2nd floor. Refreshments part of us, that snake back in Eden, prodding us before he opened his mouth? That’s the snake - the are served. To have your name and reassuring us that partaking of the forbidden Evil Inclination – that part of a person that is evil added to the email notification fruit will get us what we want. Except that it rearing its ugly head. list (as the class doesn’t take won’t. And that is what the snake replies to the place every Thursday), please animals: Do you not see that there is a trait that And, as in Eden, we are given the challenge contact Rabbi Fleisher at rmf@ G-d created that drives me to do things because it to recognize evil for what it is – a fake, an illusion. denverkollel.org. looks good, even though it won’t fill my needs in When that occurs, we can return to that pristine the slightest?!? That’s what evil – my raison d'être - era, a world unsullied by man’s destructive actions.

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