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שבת שלום -פרשת אמור
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Video Shiur
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Click play to watch the video shiur by
Rabbi Scott Kahn about ברכת החמה |
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News and Notes
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We wish mazal tov to Dov
Muchnick, who made a siyum
on Seder Nashim this week.
Dov is in the process of
going through Shas Mishnayot
for the second time since
Simchat Torah, and has finished
three sedarim so far in this
second round.
Everyone
in the yeshiva is looking
forward to our annual Old
City Shabbaton next week,
in anticipation of Yom Yerushalayim.
Our students will be joined
by Rabbi Meir Arnold, Rabbi
Ariel Greenberg, and their
families.
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Mourning Laws: Torah vs. Paganism
By Rabbi Pesach Wolicki
The opening verses of this week's parashah deal with some of the laws of the purity of the Kohanim. Specifically, the text outlines restrictions on mourning practices. One such restriction follows.
"They shall not make baldness on their heads and the corners of their beards they shall not shave, and they shall not make gashes in their flesh." (Vayikra 21:5)
These laws do not only apply only to the Kohanim but to all of Israel. (see T.B. Makot 20a)
These meaning behind these practices must be understood in order to gain an appreciation of the point of their prohibition. The gashing of flesh and tearing out of hair certainly appear to be expressions of grief. The mourner, pained at the loss of a loved one might, in a fit of extreme grief, tear the hair out of his head and gash his flesh. What about shaving? Why would a grief stricken mourner shave his hair?
Sir James Frazer, best known for his classic work on Paganism, The Golden Bough, discusses ancient mourning practices in another work, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament (Macmillan 1923). Frazer devotes twenty pages of this book to the practices of cutting the hair and gashing the flesh by mourners. He details the customs of literally dozens of Pagan tribes from all parts of the world who engaged in similar practices. The customs of these many varied tribes were more alike than different. They were alike in a number of prominent ways.
First, the gashing of the skin - the most common mourning practice - was not a spontaneous act by a delirious grief-stricken mourner. The gashing was ordered and followed set ritual forms. Second, the cutting of hair was not, by and large, the tearing of hair from the head as an act of grief but the cutting of hair from the head with scissors or a blade. Third, for the most part, shaving was done in order to collect the shaven hair.
Frazer shows quite conclusively that the hair and blood drawn were intended as offerings to the deceased. Often the hair would actually be thrown into the grave with the body. The purpose of these rituals was not to express grief at all. Rather, they were meant as ways of appeasing and, in some cases, worshiping the dead.
Frazer concludes the chapter - "Cuttings for the Dead" pp. 377-397 - with this explanation:
"The widespread practices of cutting the bodies and shearing the hair of the living after a death were originally designed to gratify or benefit in some way the spirit of the departed; and accordingly, wherever such customs have prevailed, they may be taken as evidence that the people who observed them believed in the survival of the human soul after death and desired to maintain friendly relations with it. In other words, the observance of these usages implies a propitiation or worship of the dead." (Chap. IV, pp. 397)
We see from the above that the central meaning of this prohibition is not so much to forbid harming our bodies in the course of grieving, although this too is certainly prohibited. The primary focus of these laws is to combat the prevalent Pagan ideals of reverence for and worship of the dead.
It is interesting to note that one of the primary Jewish observances in the early stages of mourning is a prohibition on shaving and cutting one's hair. This is the exact opposite of the Pagan custom.
"Life and death have I placed before you, blessing and curse; you shall choose life in order that you live, you and your descendants." (Devarim 30:19)
To choose life is to choose the way of G-d. This is the life that promotes life and the betterment of this world. To choose Paganism is to choose death. This is the path that does not value life and glorifies death.
Reverence for death and the dead is a primary component of Pagan belief systems. The Torah opposes this. The Torah's way is the way of life.
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