"TO LIFE, TO LIFE 'LECHA'IM' "- Parshat Emor

Beit Midrash

Torah Portion and Tanach
Vayikra
Emor

קטגוריה משנית

Female Lesson Parashat Hashavua Series'Library Piskei Din (Hebrew)Test Yourself

This week's parsha deals with the prohibition of Kohanim to contact death.
Rav Kook explains that as opposed to other religions who mainly turn to the clergy before and during the process of death (for all agree, when man does not understand a topic, it's "prime-time" to turn to religion or l'havdil, superstition) and there are "no atheists in the foxholes", we don't want our holiest people to be associated in our minds with death, but rather life.
Similarly, Rav Kook explains the kabbalistic custom that some WOMEN don't enter the cemetery, for they are ALL LIKE Kohanim, who should be preoccupied with conceiving & raising life, tahara, and not the opposite, tum'ah! Even though "death" is seemingly "part of life", all of Yisrael are called "ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש" (Shmot 19, 6), "a nation of Kohanim", likened to KOHANIM, because Am Yisrael lives forever and is preoccupied with -טהרה life, and the Living Torah.
Children inevitably focus on short-term pleasures, eating as much candy as possible, without thinking of cavities or diabetes. Contrarily, mature adults already know that long-term pleasure is more important than short-term. But Judaism says, why settle for third class (short-term) pleasure or even second class (long-term) pleasure, when one can opt for longer than long= ETERNAL pleasure which is first-class. The eternal G-d, created the eternal Israel, to live the eternal Torah in the eternal land of Israel. We focus on the eternal, and don't get hung up on death. Our enemies glorify death and the Shahid, but we fight our enemies for the sake of giving life to our eternal people & eternal Torah, yet even after death, there is "life after death".
The mitzvot bring a taste of that eternal Living Torah to our daily lives, but every child knows that just about all mitzvot are superseded by life itself (Shulchan Aruch Or. Ch. 329). We grow up with this as obvious, but the Samaritans will not drive in an ambulance on Shabbat nor will they eat on Yom Kippur even to save their lives! They say to us cynically "we are more religious than you, and do G-d's mitzvot even when it's hard, even if it really 'costs us' our lives". We answer that our Living Father is a מלך חפץ בחיים"", a King who desires life, who commands "וחי בהם ולא שימות בהם", "live by them [the mitzvot] and don't die by them" (Vayikra 18). Only the 3 cardinal sins, idolatry, murder and adultery [as the Maharal, Netzach Yisrael, ch. 5, p. 36, explains, which respectively correspond to the epitome of the 3 mitzvah categories: between man and G-d, man and man, and man and himself- his desires for making life], show us that life itself is meant for meaning. That same G-d is the One who created us with the survival instinct, the strongest of drives, to continue our life.
Apparently, Hashem has arranged that the most known Hebrew phrase in the world (unfortunately probably even more than "Shema Yisrael", and probably because of "Fiddler on the Roof"!), is "LeChaim"- "To Life", for we are in fact preoccupied with life. Shabbat Shalom! Rav Ari Shvat (Chwat)

Emor