ON THE PARSHA Parshas EMOR (VaYikra 21-24) by Dovid Lipman NOTE: The old styles are being temporarily abandoned due to constraints on typing time. WHAT ABOUT AHARON? (21:1) "...say to the Kohanim, the sons of Aharon, ... do not defile to a dead body ..." At first, I wondered - doesn't 'the sons of Aharon' leave out Aharon himself? Is he allowed to become Tamei from a dead body? Then I realized that Aharon is not excluded at all! He has his OWN rules - the stricter rules of a Kohain Gadol, who can't become Tamei even to relatives! HIS laws start with 21:10. Actually, though, the Kli Yakar notes the language of "the sons of Aharon" (see Gur Aryeh for an intensely exhaustive analysis of Rashi's approach) and says they had to be so described and addressed to explain their in-between status. Their holiness derives from being 'sons of Aharon', and is not inherent, so they must become Tamei for relatives, but Aharon himself - and, by extension, any Kohain Gadol, has inherent holiness from his direct rela- tionship with Hashem. He may NOT necome Tamei. SHABBOS OR YOM TOV? (23:2-3) "...these are the holidays of Hashem... Six days you may do Melacha, but on the seventh..." Why is Shabbos mentioned in the chapter about Yom Tov? And first, no less? A famous explanation said in the name of the Vilna Gaon is that Shabbos is NOT being mentioned - this is a general introduction to the holidays. On six, Melacha needed for food may be done: First and last day of Pesach (there are no "two day" Yom Tovs in ideal circumstances), one day each Shavuos and Rosh HaShanah, and the first and last days of Succos. But on the SEVENTH Yom Tov, i.e. Yom Kippur, it's called "Shabbos Shabboson", and no Melacha, even for food, may be done. STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES (23:43) "So your generations will know about the Succos I gave the Jews when taking them out of Egypt" The first Mishnah in Succah is explained by the gemara: When the language "so you will know" is employed, the "knowing" is actually part of the mitzvah. So a Succah may not be taller then 20 amos, or a person won't be aware he's IN a Succah, much less why. (See Tosfos in Succah who expands on this, using the laws of geometry.) However, R' Yehudah holds the Succah may be taller - he holds people look higher than that. The halacha does not follow his opinion. In Eiruvin (3a), we learn that a neighborhood road's Eiruv beam ("korah") is needed to remind people where the Eiruv ends, so it must be within 20 amos of the ground. There, too, R' Yehuda's opinion is recorded in the Mishna that above 20 amos is okay. The gemara asks why the Mishnah needed to record R' Yehuda's opinion about how high people look, twice. Doesn't the Mishnah usually leave out laws/opinions that can be derived from elsewhere? Leave one out? Part of the answer given is that, had R' Yehudah's opinion been written by Succah only, we would have assumed that it only applied there. In a Succah, people sit. They look up. People who are passing through a neighborhood road ("mavoi") are walking. (People who are walking don't look up - Rashi) Rashi, and this gemara, may be hinting to a lesson in human nature. When do people look up? That is, when do people look for Hashem, to see that their lives are the types of lives He wants us to be living? When do people look to the heavens, and become inspired? When do people look up? Not while they're walking. When people are busy, going places, doing things, they don't stop to think about what's Above them. We get too involved. Even in a mitzvah, often. We have to stop and smell the roses in our lives -and see if we like how they smell. Maybe there's something we can do to improve the garden.