Parshas Ki Sisa
By: Rabbi Price
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In memory of my father Moishe Dovid ben Avraham Zev-niftar 16 Adar
And my Uncle Yosef ben Avraham Zev-niftar 18 Adar I.
Parshas Ki Sisa
I saw a beautiful point from Rabbi Frand on this Parsha.
“In this week's parsha, Moshe Rabbeinu is instructed to make the Shemen haMishcha [anointing oil]. He was instructed to anoint Aharon and his sons with the oil to sanctify them for the priesthood and then he was to tell the children of
Rashi on these last words quotes a teaching of the Sages [Horiyos 11b] that the original Shemen haMishcha that Moshe made to anoint Aharon would remain intact in its entirety into the distant future (l'asid lavoh). When the
It is obviously an open miracle for such a small quantity of oil to last for so long. It is somewhat akin to the miracle at the time of the Chanukah story of the oil that lasted for eight days without being consumed.
G-d does not make miracles unnecessarily. Even if, for some reason, it would have been part of G-d's Grand Plan to have all Kohanim for all time be anointed by the oil prepared by Moshe Rabbeinu, that plan could have been carried out without resorting to such a miracle. The All-Knowing G-d could have figured out how many gallons of oil would be necessary to anoint the Kohanim of all future eras and tell Moshe to prepare large quantities of oil, instead of merely preparing 12 lug. Why did G-d make this open miracle, (which was perhaps greater even than the Chanukah miracle) that the small quantity of Shemen HaMishcha that Moshe prepared would last forever?
I saw a very interesting observation on this question from Rav Dovid Feinstein. This miracle taught us the lesson that the Kohanim did not become sanctified because of the Shemen haMishcha. If Shemen haMishcha was necessary for sanctifying the Kohanim, it is logical that it would be consumed. The process of transferring holiness from the oil to the person would necessarily consume the oil. By virtue of the fact that the oil did not become consumed, the Torah is informing us that it was not the oil that made them holy.
How did they become holy? They became holy on their own. The Shemen haMishcha was merely a catalyst. It was like a candle. When a second candle is lit from a first candle, the full brightness of the original candle remains intact. The Shemen haMishcha inspired Aharon and his sons to find and bring out the sanctity that was already inherent in the kohanim. The lesson is that people cannot be "made holy". There is no magic formula to sprinkle somebody with "holy oil" so that he will automatically become holy. It does not work that way.
Holiness must be self-generated. There can be an inspiration for the holiness and the Shemen haMishcha served that function. It was supposed to "light their fire", so to speak, and inspire them. But the holiness had to come from within. The same is true regarding wisdom and character traits and any form of sanctity.
We as parents can try, can inspire, can cajole and persuade our children. We can try every tool in the book. But we can not pound kedusha [holiness] or chochmah [wisdom] or midos [character traits] into a child. Our children are blessed with an inherent sanctity by virtue of their neshamas [souls]. We can try to inspire that inherent sanctity, to bring it out and make it blossom. However, we cannot impose it or superimpose it on them. This is the lesson of the oil of anointing. This is why G-d felt it necessary to make such a miracle to teach this enduring lesson that sanctity cannot be imposed - it must be inspired.” [Till here is from Rabbi Frand].
I also heard from my Rebbeim a similar point.
The truth is that no one can make someone religious or understand life. Only the person himself can choose to do so. As it says in Pirkey Avos 1:14, “àí àéï àðé ìé îé ìé”- “If I am not for me then who is for me?” And Rabbeinu Yonah there explains that if one doesn’t constantly rebuke and arouse himself, then who will? Other people’s rebuke will only help momentarily, they are only tools to help the person, at the end the person himself must use these tools to arouse himself from his slumber. It’s like getting weapons and teaching someone to shoot in the Army. When it comes to the actual war, no one will shoot for you. You have to shoot for yourself.
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I’m going to end off with two stories of Chizuk-encouragement, which I’m sure we can always use. These are the weapons we can use in our battle against the yetzer horo-evil inclination.
The first one is a true story that was related few years ago at the Grand Siyum [a Grand Farewell Banquet at the end of the Yeshivah year, usually in June] by one of our alumni that illustrates how having proper perspectives help us to live a happier life. In fact, it was a young child in the story who realized this profound “secret of life.”
It made such an impression on me that I asked the alumnus to write it down for me. Here are his beautiful and moving words.
“While working at a Hebrew Sunday School, I learned a very important lesson from a young boy. The school took the group of kids on an overnight trip for an “ice-breaker.” At the overnight, we built a bonfire and we all sat around singing songs and playing games. At one point we went around the circle, and everyone had to say a little something about themselves. All the kids said basically the same thing, nothing too profound, until it came to one boy who said something that caught me off guard.
“I’m Zach,” he said, “Zach with an ‘H’ [at the end and not a ‘K’], and I know the secret of life.”
I was curious, so I decided to inquire. “All right, Zach, you mind sharing [this information with us]?” I asked.
[Zach responded] “This past summer, I went to an overnight camp with a bunch of my friends. Every night before we would go to sleep, we would all shmooze a little bit. One night I heard my bunkmate, who slept on top of me, mumbling to himself. I asked him if everything was all right? He told me that every night before he goes to sleep, he talks to G-D. Every night he asks G-D a question. “Why did You have to make me different? Why do my parents have to be divorced?”
All of a sudden, a boy from across the room exclaimed, “I do the same thing! I ask G-D why my sister had to perish in a car accident?”
Another boy said he asked G-D why his brother had to be mentally disabled?
Everyone in the room said something about themselves that they weren’t happy about, and had a claim against Hashem.
“And that’s the secret of life,” he [Zach] continued, “to know that everyone has challenges in life, life isn’t perfect. However, IT’S NOT THE SITUATION THAT DEFINES THE PERSON, IT’S HOW HE OR SHE RESPONDS TO IT!”
The second piece is a Torah thought from Rabbi Asher Balanson [a rabbi who lives in Telz Stone], who brings a beautiful mashal-parable from Rabbi Dessler, the “Michtav MeEliyahu,” which is an important lesson in how to view the tough situations in life.
Rabbi Balanson points out that many of us have complaints with the way Hashem deals with the world. We wonder, “Why did that person have to get sick and why did the other person die so young?” “Why are people getting divorced, or having a hard time with shidduchim-mates for their children etc.?”
Rav Dessler brings this interesting parable which may make it a bit easier to understand these things.
Let’s consider a small child who is in nursery school. He has been taught the difference between a straight line, a slanted line, and a curved line. He opens a book, and sure enough, he is able to identify each sort of line that he sees, when he sees the letters. Some are straight, some slanted, and some curved. The child is confident that he “understands” the entire book.
A year later he’s taught the actual letters of the alphabet. This time when he opens the book, he can identify even the letters not just the different sorts of lines. He realizes that up to now his initial “understanding” was not complete. But now that he knows every letter in the book, he really understands the book.
Finally, when the child learns how to read, he realizes that just identifying letters is really not understanding the book at all, and that it’s necessary to put the letters together to form words and then join the words into sentences. Even after he knows how to read, he may not really understand the book at all. If the topic dealt with in the book is a very deep one, it might take him years of study before he really does understand the book fully.
We ourselves go through life like that child with the book. We think that we understand what we see, but all we see are curved lines. We think that what we see is cruelty, but it isn’t. We think that what we see doesn’t make any sense, but it does. It is just that we haven’t been taught how to read yet, and we don’t understand what we see.
The child in nursery school might very well ask why there are so many more curved lines than slanted ones-that doesn’t make any sense. The child in first grade might ask why there so many more “e”s on the page- that doesn’t seem to be very fair! And the simple answer is that you simply don’t understand. The lines are not what you perceive them to be; the letters are not what you perceive them to be.
We have to do our best to keep in mind that even if we don’t understand the book, He who wrote the book certainly knows what He is doing.
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