Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Nasso 1

good evening we are learning so we're in the article homage on page 749 parashatnaso is the longest parashah in the entire Torah it has 176 verses pesukim and it has 18 mitzvot seven positive and 11 negative so the reason why this partial is so long is because it covers a lot of topics a lot of big topics as well as because it has a list of the offerings that the Nasim the princes of every tribe brought for the in for the inauguration of the mishkan of the Tabernacle and even though each particular offering is only five verses but since the Torah repeats the same five verses for every one of the 12 tribes now you have five times twelve you have extra 60 verses so instead of the Parsha being average size around 120 versus it's almost 180 versus 176 verses because of this extra repetition um okay so on page seven forty seven Forty Nine we spoke about counting the Levites and at the end of last week's Torah portion we spoke about the responsibilities of kehat one of the families of the Levites uh what did they need to carry and they the children of kehad carry the most holy utensils The Arc of the Covenant the table the menorah the golden Altar and the copper altar now we go to the family of Gershon Levi had three children and mirari we spoke about kehot now we're spoken speaking about Gershon Hashem spoke to Moshe saying take a census of the sons of Gershon as well according to their father's household according to their families from 30 years of age and until 50 years of age later we will give the the total number of um uh the families but first we say what is their responsibility towards 24. this is the work of the gershonite family they shall carry the curtains of the Tabernacle the tent of meaning and its cover and the tahash cover the Tabernacle had three covers first um colorful Woolen curtain on top then on top of that skins of goats for protection from water and on top of that again colorful tahash skins so they would carry all of them and the screen of the entrance of the tent of meaning the outer screen the curtain that that would cover the outer entrance the children of kehat would carry the curtain for the inner entrance into the holy of holies but the children of Gershon would carry the screen that leads into the holy um and the lace hangings of the courtyard the entire Courtyard was surrounded by a fence made of curtains lace curtains and children of Gershon would carry all those curtains all around the courtyard as well as the screen of the entrance of the Gate of the courtyard so that was the third entrance into the courtyard and the curtain for that entrance the children of Gershon would carry so there were three entrances into the mishkan the courtyard entrance the entrance into the holy and the Ancients into the holy of holies and verse 26 continues their ropes and all their utensils of their service which means the ropes needed to tie those lace curtains to the pillars so that the wind shouldn't lift them up as well as pegs and and other utensils needed to attach the the curtains now verse 29 responsibilities of mirari the children of mirari the sons of mirari according to their families according to their father's household shall you count them from 30 years of age and up until 50 years of age and in verse 31 we list what is their job this is the charge of their burden and the children of mirari actually carry the most heavy utensils the children of kehad again carry the most holy utensils children of Gershon carried all the curtains tapers cheese curtains for the top curtains for the walls and entrances but the children of mirari carried the actual heavy stuff the actual walls made of of wood as well as sockets and pillars let's see the planks of the Tabernacle made from acacia wood from which the walls were made the its bars the bars that went through the wood and also above the wood the pillars were connected by Long Bar on top Long Bar on the bottom and one long bar in the middle inside the pillars this would keep them straight and not waving not on top and not on the bottom it's pillars pillars that support the curtains for the screens and its sockets the sockets are silver bases under the beams um verse 32 the pillars of the courtyard for the curtains of the courtyard and their sockets their pegs ropes and the various tools and the maintenance equipment now we turn to page 751 then now the numbers of the working Levites are given verse 35. from 30 years of age and up until 50 years of age everyone who comes to the legion for the work in the tent of the meeting their countings according to their families were now for the kehat 2750 these are the countings of the kohatite family for Gershon 2630 these are the countings of the families of the sons of Gershon and for the mirari these were the countings of the families of the sons of mirari and now what is the total number of all the working Levites verse 47 everyone who comes to perform the work of service and the work of burden in the tent of meeting their countings were 8 580. so about eight and a half thousand working Levites now you might ask how's this Fair some families carry The Honorable utensils the holy ones some families carry the white curtains relatively light curtains and some families have to carry heavy wooden beams and silver sockets doesn't seem fair but we know that Hashem provides every person not only with the job but also with all the tools and resources necessary for that job and in this case as well the children of kehat had to carry or all their burdens on their shoulder the children of kehad could not use any wagons and any um animals children of Gershon their load was second in heaviness in weight and therefore they were given as we're going to see later in the Parsha some um of the wagons and some animals and children of mirari who carried the heaviest burdens they were given plenty of animals and plenty of wagons so everyone's load was relatively the same you can say the opposite children of kehat actually had to work more because they had to carry all these utensils on their own shoulders without the help of animals or wagons now chapter five on the bottom of page 751 purification of the camp now that we learned about the structure of the camp how the Jewish people are dwelling around the mishkan now the camp receives the sanctity of a Jewish town a Jewish Community has great sanctity partially because of its proximity to mishkan or in our times to a synagogue and partially because the Jewish people are holy people so we have three areas in the Jewish Town number one is the mishkan itself that is considered the in um the most holy that is considered the camp of the the camp of divine presence that's where divine presence rests then we have around it the encampment of the Levites that is called the the camp of the Levites and that is the second level of sanctity certain impure people can be there and certain people have to come out and then the Third area is the Israelite Camp the rest of the town and that also has Holiness certain people who are impure have to come out of it go outside of the Jewish settlement and certain impure people can stay and because these three areas have sanctity we need to learn the rules who must leave the first inner Camp who must leave the second camp and who must leave the third camp Hashem spoke to motion command the children of Israel and they shall expel from the camp anyone with Sarat anyone everyone who has had a zov emission and everyone contaminated by a human corpse here we have the three levels the person with Sarat must leave every camp the person with Sarat must dwell outside of the Jewish settlement he cannot be in the camp of the sheikhina he cannot be in the camp of the Levites and he cannot even be in the camp of the Jewish people he has to dwell outside of City walls or in the desert the person with Sarat the metsora had to dwell outside of the clouds of Glory because right outside of the Jewish encampment were clouds of Glory that protected the Jews and anyone who had Sarat the spiritual Affliction of the skin had to go out of all three camps second one is zav is not allowed zav is an emission an unusual emission of a man or a woman he cannot stay in the camp of Shekinah and he cannot stay in the camp of the Levites but he can stay in the camp of the Israelites and the third one is everyone contaminated by human corpse anyone who came into contact with a dead body or was in the same room with the dead body under the same roof he cannot be in the mishkan in the temple itself but he can be in Jerusalem he can be in the camp of the Levites and certainly he can be in the Jewish town from here we see that on a certain level someone who touches a dead body it's not as severe as someone who has Sarat of affliction Affliction it's a sign that he did um he spoke negatively about someone he said that's the impurity that comes Upon A person who speaks negatively the impurity is so severe the divine presence cannot dwell next to him that's how um much we have to stay away from any negative speech we should always speak positive because where there is positivity there is spirituality and there is God now we turn to page 753 the next topic is what if a person steals theft from a Jew or from a convert Hashem spoke to motion verse 6 a man or a woman who commits any of man's sins by committing treachery toward Hashem and that person shall become guilty even though we're talking about theft but it's called it's considered a silly against God because any sin against another human being is also a sin against God himself because Hashem commanded us to keep these laws not to steal not to kill not to hurt anyone financially and if we hurt another human being not only we're hurting the person but we're also going against the command of God another reason is because a human being is created in the image of God and we when we fail to recognize the godliness in every human being and therefore because of our forgetfulness we treat another human being as an object that is an affront that is a sin against God himself we fail to recognize the image of God in a person so what's the law verse 7 they shall confess their sin that they committed so the first step if you want atonement is confession what we call the first step of the sugar person has to recognize his sin and admit and say God I'm guilty this is what I did or in this case he has to approach the Jewish court or the victim and say I'm sorry I stole what's next he shall make her a situation for his guilt in its principle amount in order to receive atonement for theft it's not enough just to say I'm sorry you also have to return the stolen goods and on top of it you have to add a fifth to it this is a special case when a person admits his guilt if he doesn't admit his guilt and the witnesses um catch him and and um testify against him then he has to pay double he has to pay to um times the value of what he stole but if he admits then he only adds one-fifth which according to Taurus 25 which is the fifth quarter that's how the Torah speaks whenever it says add a fifth means the fifth part divide the object into four you already have four parts and now add one more part to that that's a fifth quarter so he pays 125 percent of what he stole to whom he should give it to the one to whom he is indebted from who he stole now what if a person is no longer alive you stole from Ruben and ruvan died what do you do with the money you give it to his closest relative either his children and if he doesn't have children you give it to his brothers and if he doesn't have brothers you give it to his uncles and if he doesn't have uncles you give it to his great uncles and so on and so forth until you find his relatives however verse 8 says if the man has no relatives to whom the debt can be returned you go all the way back there are no relatives how's that possible every Jew if you go back to yaakov avinu is related and the commentators say that this refers to a convert and if the convert was not married he didn't have children and someone stole from him and by the time they got to return it the convert died what do you do with the money he is not alive anymore and he doesn't have relatives what do you do with the money the Torah says they returned debt is for Hashem for the Quran you have to bring it to betamic Dash and whatever uh group of kohanim work on that day in betamic dash they take the money and they divide it among themselves and on top of that he has to bring a ram of atonement he has to bring a and an offering this is the law for someone who stole verse 9 we speak about bikurim and every portion from any of the holies that the children of Israel bring to the Cohen shall be is we find first fruits in the land of Israel we mark them and then when they arrive we pick them from every tree from every Vine and we bring it to yerushalayim and we give it to kohen now we continue the next topic is the Sota the Wayward wife verse 11 Hashem spoke to Moshe saying Speak to children say to them now in page 755 any man whose wife shall go astray from the path of senior of modesty and commit treachery against him and sin against her own husband what can happen for example a man could have leaned with her carnally but it was hidden from the eyes of her husband which means the husband suspects that she may have become defiled but the husband doesn't have a proof what does he do how does she ever purify herself in his eyes because if a man specs he will not trust her but what if she is really innocent how can you prove it or what if it's the opposite he says yeah I suspect her but it's probably nothing it's okay I'm gonna stay married to her but what if she really committed adultery a wife who commits adultery is not allowed to remain married to her husband he must give her divorce so either way you go whether he wants to be lenient or strict she can't because he doesn't know the truth and she became secluded with a man and could have been defiled we're not sure we know that she became secluded she was in a room in a closed room with a man that was not her husband but we don't know what happened inside there was no witness against her not even one person and she had not been forced because if we know that she was forced that's okay we forgive her because it's not her decision a woman that was forcefully raped is allowed to stay married to her husband verse 14 and the spirit of jealousy had passed over him and he had warned his wife he had a conversation with her he noticed that her behavior is not 100 and he told her please don't talk to that man don't become secluded don't be alone with that man I I'm not comfortable with him you're too friendly with him and he warns her and after that warning she had become defiled she was alone with him and possibly there was adultery or a spirit of jealousy had passed over him and he had warned his wife and she had not become defiled or perhaps he warned her and nothing wrong happened but in his mind he is suspicious so what do they do verse 15 The man shall bring his wife to the kohen in betamic dash and he shall bring her offering for her attentive barley flower they come to the betamic dash and let Hashem decide let Hashem tell them whether she's guilty or not how's that going to happen verse 16. we offer her an opportunity for confession the kohen shall bring her near and have her stand before Hashem the Cohen shall take Sacred Water from the kiore from the lever in an earthenware vessel and the Quran shall take from the earth that is on the floor of the Tabernacle and put it in the water he put he takes a little bit dirt sprinkles it over the water then the kohen shall have the woman stand before Hashem and uncover her head to embarrass her to put her in public hopefully she will admit if she admits she can go free she gets a divorce she doesn't receive the ketuba but she's not punished otherwise however if she doesn't admit then there are two possibilities either she is innocent and she says I have nothing to admit to I'm innocent so then we will let her go through this procedure and she will be cleansed or she's really guilty and she doesn't want to admit then we will go through this procedure and she will actually die now we turn to page 757 verse 19 the Quran shall make her swear and say to the woman if a man has not leaned with you and you have not strayed in defilement then you will be proven innocent by these bitter Waters but if you have strayed with someone other than your husband and then the verse doesn't finish which means it leaves it up to our imagination what's going to happen to this woman and the Quran shall cause the woman to take the oath and the woman shall respond amen amen meaning I agree to the conditions and the curse that you placed if I'm innocent amen I'm going to be cleansed and if I am guilty a man I'm gonna be punished whether it was the man that my husband suspect me with amen whether it was with a different man that my husband doesn't even know amen she answers amen to every possibility now verse 23 what happens uh before we make her drink the kohen shall inscribe these curses on a scroll he writes on a scroll with ink including the names of Hashem the few verses from the Torah and he erases it into the bitter Waters since the ink is um water soluble after writing the curses he puts it into the water and dissolves it which means together with the curses together with the verses of um the Torah the name of Hashem is also erased this is one time when we are actually allowed to write the name of Hashem and then to erase it why in order to remove the suspicion from an innocent woman and in order to bring peace between a husband and a wife now what happens after the kohen verse 25 takes the meal offering the minha from the hand of the woman and waves it before Hashem and offers it on the altar then verse at the end of verse 20 23 26