Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You are listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

00:10 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Good morning everybody. Welcome back to the Parsha Review Podcast.

00:14
I'd like to announce that we're dedicating today's class to the memory of our precious Tanta. Tanta Shaindel, the aunt of one of our dearest participants in this Tuesday morning class and she passed away this morning and, god willing, this should be a tremendous merit for her, for her neshama, and she should only be a blessing for the family. She should be a mele tz'yosher. She should be a good representative in front of the Almighty for all of us, for all of the challenges, for all the difficulties that we face. She should be a representative standing in front of the Holy Throne of the Almighty saying please help your people. Look what's going on in Israel, look what's going on around the world and, knowing from what I hear from you, she's a perfect candidate to be representing us in front of the Almighty.

01:06
My dear friends, this week's Parsha is Parsha Shemini. Now, very interesting. This week's Parsha almost always falls out after Pesach. Usually it's after Pesach. This year, because we have a leap year, it's before Pesach, but it's very odd that it's before Pesach. Usually it's right after Pesach. The first Shabbos is after Pesach. Our sages tell us something very, very important for us to know. As a general rule, whatever shows up in that week's Torah portion is telling you something about that week. In modern day Meaning, the Torah was given to us 3,300 years ago, but there's a synchronicity that happens between the portion and the current events that happen that very week. So our sages tell us that it's not a coincidence, therefore, that parashashmini, this week's Torah portion, usually falls out right after Pesach. Because what do we have in this week's parasha? We have about all of the prohibited foods and permitted foods, and we will get into it in a minute. But why, right after Pesach, do we go right into the portion of Shemini? That tells us so much about the portion of Shemini, that tells us so much about the laws of kosher, all the laws of kosher, leviticus 11, this week's Parsha, and it really is remarkable remarkable, the laws when you look at them Now.

02:36
Previously we mentioned that kosher is not physical. Food is not physical. Food is spiritual, and today we're going to talk about that a little bit more. So the first thing we need to know is that, on Pesach, we're very, very stringent and we're very, very careful about what we eat. We know that we clean our house from chametz. We don't have any leavened foods, so we don't have any bread. We don't have cookies and cakes and all of these things that are made from flour that has risen because of the yeast that's in it. We don't eat any of that. That's chametz, that's leavened, and we don't touch that on Pesach. When do we start eating that? We eat that after Pesach Now, just symbolically. Why is that so? Our sages tell us.

03:32
Because the whole idea of Pesach is recognizing that we are in the hands of Hashem. We're by Hashem's mercy. Our entire survival, our entire existence is by Hashem's mercy. The most important thing for us to realize is that what keeps us away from understanding that we're in Hashem's hands is arrogance. When we're arrogant, we can't connect with God. It's either me or God. You can't have them both. It's either I'm the ruler or Hashem is the ruler.

04:06
My grandfather used to quote from one of the great sages that someone who's arrogant would ideally like to take God off his throne and sit in God's place. That's what they really believe Deep in their heart. They think I can control this world a little bit better than God. I know what's really happening? What do we do on Pesach? We take out that arrogance, we take out that yeast that makes the matzah become into bread. Because, really, what is matzah? It's unleavened bread. It's bread that does not have yeast in it. It's bread that does not rise and have all the air inside it. It's just the bread without the arrogance. That's what matzah is. And for eight days we munch on this delicious matzah. It's not delicious, but we munch on this matzah. Why on this matzah? Why Representing our recognition, representing our recognition that we are committed to humility, to being humble in front of Hashem and to recognize that everything is from Hashem. And we take all the ear, all of the space, the distance between us and Hashem, and that's what the matzah represents. We put it all aside and we're just close and Hashem, and that's what the matzah represents. We put it all aside and we're just close to Hashem. Now Pesach is over.

05:32
What does everyone do right after Pesach? It's a custom in almost every Jewish community. Obviously, it's not a custom, I'm just kidding around but people line up out the door in the pizza shops to get the first pie of pizza and, in fact, in many congregations they auction it off on Simchas Torah. By Sukkot they auction off who's going to get the first pie of pizza in the pizza shop? Why it's a first. It's fresh chametz, it's a fresh, you know that crust that has a little bit of ear in it. Is that first sense of arrogance. We start right after Pesach. Boom, we'll go right back into it. So now parashashmini makes a lot of sense.

06:16
Why we have the laws of kosher right after Pesach? Because we're now going right back into the regular ordinary life. We're going into our habits, we're going into our rote, we're going into our usual behavior. The Torah is giving us a little hint here. Perhaps give a little focus to what it is that you're eating. What you eat is actually soul food. What you eat is spiritual food for your soul. I know we all feel, oh, I'm so hungry, I'm so weak, I need to eat more, I need to eat this, I need to eat better, I need to eat healthier. The truth is is that it's the soul that's hungry, it's the soul that's yearning, it's the soul that's wanting a connection and we, by mistake, don't realize that it's not the food that fills our body, it's the food that fills our soul. It's the food that fills our soul. So now, the first thing, I think it's just as a point of, hopefully, inspiration to take the laws of kosher seriously, to understand what it entails.

07:44
So let me just very, very briefly give you a summary of kosher food. Okay, it's very simple. Anything that grows from the ground, from a tree or from the ground, a vegetable or fruit is kosher. Anything that grows from the ground is kosher. So that means any fruit, yes, your favorite fruit kosher Vegetables, kosher, all of them. So why do you sometimes look at a pack of lettuce and you'll see that it says kosher? Why does it need to be kosher if it's kosher off the ground? Well, it's kosher because that means that it was checked that there are no little worms or bugs in there. The bugs and the worms are not kosher. The lettuce is kosher. The kale is kosher. All the other delicious vegetables, the peppers and the cucumbers, all of those are all kosher, but the bugs that may be inside them are not kosher. So that's why there's a process of how we wash them, of how we clean them, of how we rinse them to ensure that there are no bugs in them. We can have a separate class dedicated to that, to learning about how to make sure that everything we eat is kosher, but every fruit and vegetable is kosher, naturally. Okay, that's number one.

09:07
Number two other foods, like chicken meat, only if it comes from a kosher animal. What is a kosher animal? So any animal land animal that has split hooves and chews its cud. Both conditions split hooves and chews its cud. Both conditions split hooves and chews its cud. There are four exceptions of animals that have one, not the other. For example, the pig. The pig has split hooves but does not chew its cud. And then there are three others, like the rabbit, the camel and the hire, which they are chewing their cud but don't have split hoofs. All the rest don't have either. You look at any of the other non-kosher animals, right? The hippopotamus, right, doesn't chew its cud and doesn't have split hoofs.

10:01
So those that have both conditions, like a cow, like a deer, like a cow and like a sheep and a goat all of those are kosher animals and they're allowed to be eaten. They have split hooves and they chew their cud. However, they need to be slaughtered properly and then they need to be rinsed and they need to be soaked and they need to be washed and salted in the proper way so that all the blood is extracted. We spoke about this last week. The blood is the life, the soul of the animal. You're not allowed to eat the blood. So for any animal, any animal that has these two signs is kosher.

10:57
Bring it to a slaughterer. They'll slaughter it for you. Bring it to what used to be the shlachta. They used to bring it to the butcher. The butcher used to slaughter it for them, not only cut up the meat, but he would make sure that the whole slaughtering was proper. My mother, who's a very young woman, she learned when she was in school. They learned how to kasher a chicken. That was part of schooling when they were in 10th, 11th, 12th grade. These are things they needed to know, because then you didn't have. Today you have.

11:28
Everything is packaged, everything is already done in the plants, but it once was not like that. You would buy a chicken, you'd bring it to the sheikhet, you'd bring it to the slaughterer, to the ritual slaughterer, and he would check it to make sure that it had all its signs of kosher, and then he would slaughter it with a blessing, cover its blood, as the Torah commands, and then he would give you the chicken. Now, what do you do with it. I can eat it like that. No, it's got to be rinsed, it's got to be soaked, it's got to be salted, it's got to be washed and there's a process to that and that's what they would learn. So, okay, so we have that. What else? Anything else like eggs kosher, except if it has blood in it? Eggs kosher except if it has blood in it. So that's why every egg that's checked, every egg that's eaten by someone who's observant of kosher will check the egg to ensure that there's no blood in the egg.

12:25
Candies, all of these things generally, if they're natural, they're kosher. However, there's a very, very important piece here. We're talking about kosher ever. There's a very, very important piece here. When we're talking about kosher Today. We use in the industrial world a lot of coloring, food coloring, a lot of chemicals that are not from kosher animals. So, for example, there's a color of red that is used in certain foods that comes from beetles and a little beetle. It's not a kosher animal. Obviously you can't eat that. They take the color from that beetle and that extract is what they use in food. You can't eat that. So if you have a candy that has that red from that beetle. That's why it's important to ensure we have tremendous, tremendous kosher certifications out there. The O with the U in the middle we have, the star with the K in the middle, we have. I mean, there are hundreds and hundreds of bona fide kosher agencies that do a magnificent job investigating and making sure that every food that has their symbol on it is verified kosher and that you're eating the best and ensuring that it's kosher.

13:52
Indeed, fish, any fish that has fins and scales, it's kosher. So, salmon, tilapia, all of these, if you see, has fins and scales. Boom, you can eat from that fish. It doesn't need to be slaughtered properly. That fish is much easier. What people used to do? They used to catch a fish, they'd bring it to the butcher and the butcher would just, you know, take out the bones or do whatever was necessary. Just a side note, by the way, they didn't always know how to take out the bones, so gefilte fish came from that. By the way, anybody who doesn't like gefilte fish, it's because of the following reason First, is never buy it in the jar. Okay, terrible, terrible idea, okay, okay, okay, I understand, I understand. So it brings you back to the Al-Tahaym, to the old home, right, I understand. So let me tell you where the gefilte fish came from. What happened was okay.

14:45
The halacha tells us that on Shabbos you're not allowed to eat. You're not sorry, you're not allowed to do an activity called borer. Borer means extracting the bad from the good. So a perfect example of that would be you're eating your fish and you see a bone. You're not allowed to take that bone out of the fish on Shabbos. On Shabbos, you can't take the bad out of the good. So people would be eating their fish and they'd be in the middle of eating, you don't realize, you take it out. So in order to eliminate this problem for people who are eating their fish and by mistake doing a prohibition, a biblical prohibition of removing the bad from the good.

15:36
So what they did was they invented a new kind of fish, and the fish is called gefilte fish. What is gefilte fish? It is ground fish and they ground it up with the bones. The bones are very soft bones. They ground it up into little and it becomes, and that's how gefilte fish has become what it is Now. Today, they'd take out the bones before they make it, but that's what it was and the reason they created this whole fish called gefilte fish is because it was filleted. It was already. They took out all, they took the bones and they made it into this gefilte fish. Today, again, it's not necessary to do that because it already. Again, we have an industrialized world where the fish come prepared, ready to eat and it's delicious.

16:26
But any fish that has fins and scales, they say you know, how do you know what's a kosher fish? You see a fish going with a carrot on its head. I don't know why, but everyone serves fish with a carrot. I don't know why, but it's an interesting thing. Okay, so either way, that's some of the laws of kosher, very, very briefly, so we understand what we're talking about.

16:48
But the idea here behind this is that we see that Yochanan Kohen Gadol, yochanan Kohen Gadol, was a Kohen Gadol. He was a high priest for 80 years. 80 years he was the high priest serving in the temple and he became a heretic. Our sages ask how did he become a heretic? How, the Arizal says it was because he ate foods that were prohibited foods. What happens when someone eats foods that the Torah says not to eat? It messes with your whole system, your whole spiritual system. There's no way that he could have gotten into this, into this heresy, had he not had non-kosher food in him. Because he had food that was unclean for the soul. It messes with you. It says it creates something which is called timtum halev craziness of the heart. We also see that it says v'al tishak zu esnaf shoseich says when it talks about the eating not clean food, food that's non-kosher food. It says don't disgust your soul, but you still have to do with it. It's your body. Eating crabs, eating all of that stuff is disgusting for the soul. The soul cannot handle it.

18:20
We also see a verse in this week's parasha Ki ani. I'm going to pull it up here, chapter 11, verse 44. Ki ani Hashem olokeichem, for I am Hashem, your God. Vi hiskadish tem ve yisim k'doshim. You shall sanctify yourselves and you shall become holy, for I am Hashem, your God. You shall sanctify yourselves and you shall become holy. Ki Kaddosh ani, because I am holy, says Hashem, and you shall not contaminate your souls through any creeping things that move about on the earth. Well, what does your soul have to do with it, isn't it your body? No, food has nothing to do with your body. Food has everything to do with your soul. Food has everything to do with your soul. The holier our food is, the cleaner our food is, the holier our soul becomes. And a person should never, ever say as we are all students of Musser studies, we know that everything is a small step and that step begins today, every person's today. Well, what did I do?

19:36
I had a friend of mine Today, I believe, he's 78 years old but about 15 years ago he told me the following story we were learning together regularly and he said that one day he said when he was four years old, three years old his father had a restaurant and his mother was feeding him shellfish Said this is the way he grew up and he loved shellfish and his entire life he's been eating shellfish and in fact him and his wife have a tradition that every Saturday night they go to the finest shellfish restaurant in Houston and enjoy its delicacies. He says one week he walked in to the restaurant on Saturday night with his wife and while they're waiting to be seated, he turns to his wife. He says I don't know why I feel this way, but something tells me I should no longer be eating this. And he said to her I'm accepting upon myself that I will never eat shellfish again. This is in his 60s. His whole life he's been eating this, but made a change.

20:53
I want to encourage each and every one of us to never, ever, feel like it's too late. It's not too late Any change we want to make. Today is a perfect day to make that change. Today is a perfect day to begin a new leaf in our lives that, from this day on, I'm not eating certain foods that are not kosher. Maybe we can't get to everything Fine, certain foods, I know that that are not kosher. Maybe we can't get to everything Fine, certain foods, I know that this is not kosher. No longer eating this. And to take on that commitment. Our sages tell us this is the essence of our holiness. You want to know where holiness comes from. It doesn't come from the synagogue, it comes from what we feed ourselves three times a day.

21:38
And sometimes you may wonder why isn't the bubble gum that you buy in the store? Many of the bubble gums are not kosher. Well, if you look at the ingredients, you'll see there's something called gelatin Gelatin is a pig fat, or glycerin it's a pig fat. So what does the kosher bubblegum look like? Same thing, but it has something called glycerol, which is the same type of fat but that comes from a kosher fish. That gives it the chewy substance. But people can think innocently there's nothing non-kosher about that, can't be. Well, we don't know what gets put into these things. What goes into a tic-tac? Oh, we have no idea. It happens to be tic-tacs are kosher, but they weren't always, because in the coding there was something that was not kosher and they changed it for kosher and nobody knows the difference. But it has the OU symbol on the back, so we know it's kosher. That means that some rabbi is going into the back of that plant and checking that every ingredient that goes into that food is indeed certified kosher Gelatin and there's glycerol, which is the kosher version of that.

23:00
Okay, so now we talk so much about kosher, there's another important thing Our children. Teaching our children and our grandchildren about kosher and embedding it into their consciousness. I'll tell you something very special. There's nothing more powerful than seeing your child in the shopping cart in a store and as you're checking out you know they have all of these pressure sales right at their cash register and all of these candies, and my child looks at it and says, ooh, I want that. So my children know and I believe every single child who grows up with a kosher lifestyle has the same exact attitude, and that is if it's not kosher, it's not even an option. If it's not kosher, it's just not an option. So there are times that my child will say, ooh, I want that, and I'll sayher it's just not an option. So there are times that my child will say, oh, I want that, and I'll say, okay, let's just look. If it's kosher, I'll take it, I'll turn it over and I'm like okay, this one doesn't have a kosher, let's find a different one that does have a kosher symbol.

24:09
So there's a number of benefits. First is that the child, already from a young age, learns to be aware and to be alert that not all foods are kosher. Number two is that a child learns that there are certain things that are just simply no, and it's very important for a child to know that Sometimes it's just no. You know why? Because it's not kosher, not kosher, it's not even an option. Not that I'm not going to buy it for them. They're not going to buy it for themselves. They know we keep kosher and something which isn't kosher is just not an option. It's important for us to instill that into our children, to instill that there are certain values. There are certain.

24:51
We are talking so much in recent months already six months, sadly, since the October 7th Simchas Torah attack on our people, on our brothers and our sisters and we're talking about Jewish pride. We have to be proud to be Jewish. We have to fight anti-Semitism. Do you know, one of the greatest ways for us to be proud? Kosher. I only eat things that Hashem tells me to eat, things that Hashem says in His Torah, leviticus 11, in this week's Torah portion where Hashem says this is the food you should eat. This is the food you should not eat. Stay away from it. And I'm proud of it. It gives me a sense of like. I'm part of my heritage, my lineage, I'm part of my ancestry. This is what my grandparents fought for. This is what my grandparents fought for. This is what my grandparents died for To preserve our kosher, to preserve how far people went to find something which was kosher Back in the Alta Heim, back in the old days, back in Europe, what they would do to find kosher bread, to ensure that the pastries they were eating were kosher. It's so important.

26:06
But more than just that, we know that we have blessings that we recite every day. We're supposed to recite a hundred blessings a day. Sages tell us those blessings for the foods that we eat. Make those blessings count as well. The food is for the soul. It's soul food. What's about the blessing? Oh, that's connecting that soul with the eternal. That blessing is what connects that soul food and us with the eternal. That blessing is what connects that soul food and us with the Almighty.

26:45
Our sages tell us that when God took the Jewish people out of Egypt, and now again we're in the time of the redemption. We're in the time. We're soon. Next week we're going to be in the first days of Nisan, first days of the month of our redemption, the month of Pesach. It's a time of unbelievable breakthroughs in our connection with Hashem, one of the merits that the Jewish people merited to leave Egypt for says the verse Ki ani Hashem, hama le'eschem. If you look, chapter the next verse after what we said Ki ani Hashem, hama le'eschem, me'eretz b'sayim, for I am Hashem, who elevates you from the land of Egypt. I took you out of Egypt, l'yos l'chem, l'lokim, to be unto you a God, v'yisim k'doshim, and you shall be holy, Ki k'doshani, because I am holy. So for what merit? Our sages tell us and this is right, after we're talking about all of the kosher foods.

27:55
For what merit did the Jewish people get redeemed and taken out of Egypt? Our sages tell us, because they were careful with eating kosher, even in Egypt, even in slavery, even with all of the challenges they had. Hashem took them out because they didn't eat what the Egyptians ate. They didn't. It says because they didn't eat what the Egyptians ate, they didn't. It says that they didn't eat the shrotsim, which is the little creepy crawlers all of the other nations ate, that Jewish people in Egypt did not eat it. It kept them holy, it kept them elevated, it kept them connected. My dear friends, food is a very. It kept them holy, it kept them elevated, it kept them connected. My dear friends, food is a very soulful thing, it's a very spiritual thing. Let's take every opportunity we have to elevate ourselves, elevate what it is that we eat, how we eat, it should be with dignity, it should be proper.

29:01
The Talmud tells us Someone who eats in the marketplace is compared to a dog. Why? The dog has no self-worth, it has no dignity. A person who eats, eating is such a holy thing. You just walk around the marketplace, eating your pizza in front of you, of walking in the mall, you see these people just eating. That's so undignified. It's a very holy act when we eat. You will never find a picture of the Queen of England eating Never. You know why? Because she's a person of royalty, a person of dignity. You don't eat in public. You don't eat Because she's a person of royalty, a person of dignity. You don't eat in public. You don't eat in front of a camera. It's undignified.

29:46
Hashem should bless us all that we should all get to the highest levels that we can accomplish of greatness, of closeness to Hashem, through our observance of kosher, through our observance of eating properly and, hopefully, merit, just like our ancestors did, to a complete redemption from all of our exiles, all our personal exiles, all of our personal challenges. That we're faced, that we're locked in, like we were in Egypt. We all have our little things. That we're locked in, we're stuck. Hashem should relieve us all from those boundaries. Open up the gates of closeness to Hashem. Have an amazing Shabbos, my dear friends.