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Come see the newest Jewish vocal group in their headlining
debut! Six13 is performing this Sat. night, April 2nd at 9:15
PM in Park Slope, Brooklyn at the Jewish Music Café. Check out
www.jewishmusiccafe.com or
www.six13.net. |
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the concise, relevant Weekly Dvar. Since I'm sending
out two Emails this week, I thought it would be appropriate to
keep them both short. Happy Purim, and enjoy...
* * *
The Gemara (Tractate) in Pesachim (3a) quotes: "A person should
not speak in a negative way, as we see the Torah itself" went out
of its way to speak nicely regarding the animals entering the Ark,
describing the non-kosher animals as specifically that -
non-kosher. It doesn't call them Tamei (Impure). The Torah
"wastes" words in order to teach us the importance of speaking
nicely. From this week's Parsha, Shemini, we have a problem with
this Gemara. The Torah continually refers to non-kosher animals as
Tamei (11:4 and others)! What happened to speaking nicely?
R' Mordechai Kamenetzky answers that the difference is that the
story of the Ark is a narrative, which is when people should be
careful to tell it over in a nice way, refraining from Lashon Hara
(slander) or negativity of any sort. In our Parsha, however, the
Torah describes the nitty-gritty laws of what one may eat. In our
case, it’s important to give a resounding "TAMEI!" when discussing
these matters, as the consequences are much graver. It should be
the same when dealing with children and others around us who may
not know better. We speak softly in order to get them to
understand history, reasons and customs of Judaism. However, as
the metaphor of food may hint at, if they are in imminent danger
of internalizing negative influences, it's time to fearlessly
admonish them! When dealing with clear right and wrong, the Torah
tells us that sometimes it’s necessary to boldly speak where no
one has spoken before! |