The Painful Reason a Shliach Was Flying

By Mayer Preger for COLlive.com

The opening words of the Parsha are “Speak to the Kohanim, Aharon’s sons, and say to them: Let no [Kohen] become ritually impure…”

The Talmud questions the redundancy of the statement “and say to them” if it already states “speak to the Kohanim”. The Talmud then answers that the extra mention is to emphasize the necessity of instructing and guiding Kohanim on the importance of not becoming ritually impure.

The Talmud states two additional places in the Torah that use redundant verbiage for the same purpose, to emphasize the necessity for mentors to instruct and guide others: One is the prohibition of consuming blood, the other is the prohibition of eating insects.

Isn’t educating and mentoring a prerequisite for everything in the Torah? Why are these three prohibitions particularly singled out? More importantly what lesson does the Torah want to impart by singling out these three specifically?

Educating and guiding challenged individuals to have proper conduct and values is generally difficult. Unfortunately, there are times when guiding others becomes so challenging that the mentor might opt to resign his efforts. It is for this potentiality that the Torah adds redundancy, to emphasize the necessity so that the mentor does not give up.

In general terms, there are three character types that test one’s limit to teach and guide. The three aforementioned prohibitions that are singled out metaphorically represent these three types.

The first prohibition is not to eat insects. To most people, the consumption of insects is repulsive. Someone that would consume them is so far gone from normal behavior. Even worse, they may do it in spite of the norm. They want to be difficult and different. They may be angry at society, sending rebellious messages. This negative mindset may express itself in other negative lifestyle choices that are also far from the norm. This type of character may seem too challenging for almost any mentor. Most mentors would rather pass and avoid such extreme challenges.

The second prohibition is not consuming blood. Throughout the hundreds of years that the Jews were in Egypt, it was traditional to use the blood of animals in their delicacies. It was only at Mount Sinai, the giving of the Torah that its consumption became prohibited. Having to change a life long habit is very difficult. The Torah saw that since the Jews were so accustomed to this behavior of eating blood, it would be very difficult to convince them to stop doing so. Therefore the Torah uses the double verbiage, to elaborate on its importance. A mentor might be inclined to “look away” from this type of transgressional challenge and focus on more agreeable issues, ones that the mentee has not been so accustomed to.

The third prohibition is that a Kohen should not become ritually impure. The Rambam states that ritual impurity is reserved to a genre of Mitzvos in which there are no known logic. These types of Mitzvos that didn’t come to us with an explanation are very difficult to instruct others to adhere to. Again, here the mentor might look to pass on this challenge and focus on other Mitzvos, ones that have thoughtful explanations and seem more logical.

For all these three types of difficult challenges, the Torah doubles its verbiage in order to empower and direct the mentor not to give up and to stay the course when they encounter these educational challenges. They must do whatever possible to ensure that in the future, the mentee learns to live a straight and proper lifestyle.

How can one be a successful mentor when dealing with these great challenges? Within the wording of this teaching, the most important “ingredient” to succeed in this challenge is להזהיר הגדולים על הקטנים – to warn the adults (Kohanim) about (educating) their children. This specific term “to warn” is not usually used to illustrate education, the reason it is used here is for its alternate definition, להזהיר which also means “to light up”. To truly be successful in educating and influencing challenged people, one must approach them in an extremely positive and enlightening way.

There was a Shilach from Rishon Lezion, Rabbi Eliyahu Segal flying back to Israel from America. During the flight, he noticed a gentleman that looked Jewish sitting nearby. He approached him and asked if he would be willing to put on Tefillin. The man became visibly agitated and in an antagonistic tone, he said I know what Tefillin is and I’m definitely not interested, my parents were Holocaust survivors and they are opposed to anything religious.

The Shliach humbly “pushed” a little more explaining to the man how important it would be for him and for his parents.

The gentleman then retorted “why are you so interested in me putting on Tefillin”?

The Shliach answered that sadly, the purpose of his trip to America was to bring his terminal stricken wife Chani to Houston for an extreme experiential treatment, as a last effort to save her life.

Unfortunately, it was not successful and he was on his way to bring her body back to Israel to be buried. Since according to Jewish law, a person that will be burying a loved one should not put on Tefillin on the day of burial, I was wondering if you could please put on my Tefillin in my stead. The gentleman immediately agreed.

The Torah attests that every Jew, no matter how hard and challenging his issues might be, has a pure bright core and when touched, he will be able to overcome any of those negative or seemingly impenetrable obstacles. The key to open that place is positivity and purity, להזהיר – light.

The hardened gentleman was touched by the purity and positivity of the Shiach and that is what changed his mind and made him want to do it.

The word להזהיר with its double meaning (warn/light) serves as a direction and a promise. It is the responsibility of the educator to find a truly pure and positive place in their efforts to educate. It is also a promise to all those that do undertake this endeavor that they will find new purity and positivity in all aspects of their own lives as well.