Thursday, June 16, 2005
An Actual Dvar Torah
To break up the Skokie monotony, I sponsored a tish at a friends house. We got 12 guys to come from 10 to 1. Not too shabby. Amazing what a little cholent will do.
This is the Dvar Torah I gave, in highly condensed version.
The halacha is that somebody making a beracha should give people a chance to say amen to a beracha before moving on. However, he does not need to wait for people to say amen, he just needs to give them the opportunity. By Birchas Cohanim, this freedom does not exist. The Chazan, the Cohanim, and the Congregation must each wait until every last individual completes their response before continuing. Why is the Halacha different?
If we look at Parashas Nasso, we see that both the opening parsha and the closing both carry similar themes. They both deal with counting of a repetitive nature. The meforshim learn that these teach us the importance of each individual, that the torah spends so many extra words enumerating everything in detail. And these two parshiyos serve as "bookends" of 5 very integral short parshiyos in between. In addition to Birchas Cohanim, we learn about Sotah, Nazir, Meila, and Tzarua. These last four all deal with individuals and their conditions as part of the Congregation. Their importance as an individual within the larger context of the whole is strengthened by the Torah's guidelines here. The Torah wants to make sure that each person is able to maximize their impact on the community, and notes the proper way for these individuals to modify their behaviour so that, whether they were higher or lower spiritually then others, they will be able to integrate and contribute to the whole.
So too then is the lesson of Birchas Cohanim. The source of Beracha only comes when each individual can fully contribute to the community. It should therefore be no surprise that Halacha requires that the Chazan, Cohanim, and Kahal all wait for each other. No matter what a person's position is in the community, the community is not at it's peak unless every voice has its place. So we wait for every last individual to make their contribution before moving on with the rest of the blessing.
May we all merit to find our voices in Klal Yisroel, and merit to receive the divine blessing through the Cohanim in the rebuilt Bais Hamikdosh, B"V Amen.
This is the Dvar Torah I gave, in highly condensed version.
The halacha is that somebody making a beracha should give people a chance to say amen to a beracha before moving on. However, he does not need to wait for people to say amen, he just needs to give them the opportunity. By Birchas Cohanim, this freedom does not exist. The Chazan, the Cohanim, and the Congregation must each wait until every last individual completes their response before continuing. Why is the Halacha different?
If we look at Parashas Nasso, we see that both the opening parsha and the closing both carry similar themes. They both deal with counting of a repetitive nature. The meforshim learn that these teach us the importance of each individual, that the torah spends so many extra words enumerating everything in detail. And these two parshiyos serve as "bookends" of 5 very integral short parshiyos in between. In addition to Birchas Cohanim, we learn about Sotah, Nazir, Meila, and Tzarua. These last four all deal with individuals and their conditions as part of the Congregation. Their importance as an individual within the larger context of the whole is strengthened by the Torah's guidelines here. The Torah wants to make sure that each person is able to maximize their impact on the community, and notes the proper way for these individuals to modify their behaviour so that, whether they were higher or lower spiritually then others, they will be able to integrate and contribute to the whole.
So too then is the lesson of Birchas Cohanim. The source of Beracha only comes when each individual can fully contribute to the community. It should therefore be no surprise that Halacha requires that the Chazan, Cohanim, and Kahal all wait for each other. No matter what a person's position is in the community, the community is not at it's peak unless every voice has its place. So we wait for every last individual to make their contribution before moving on with the rest of the blessing.
May we all merit to find our voices in Klal Yisroel, and merit to receive the divine blessing through the Cohanim in the rebuilt Bais Hamikdosh, B"V Amen.
# posted by Josh : Thursday, June 16, 2005
