Shemini Excerpts

שמיני
Shabbat Shalom

(10:17) Moshe asks Elazar and Itamar, 'Why did you not eat the Sin-offering?' He told them to do the sin-offering and he expected them to eat it. Kind of like when the sisterhood asked me to visit Clara on her birthday. And then they got mad that I didn't bring a gift from the sisterhood...I am not a member of the sisterhood, Sadie. You gave me no money, and was already doing my duties as the rabbi. She was in the middle of Shiva...

Moshe did not specifically tell them to eat everything and there were a lot of commandments at the time. It wasn't like me asking the secretary to make sure that the mouse is working, to only find out that she didn't do it. She also forgot to hand me my messages. 

Even so, Moshe expected. Expectations. That is what people always have. And Moshe, like the brilliant leader with incapable followers, understood that they don't listen most of the time. Mike! Wake up...

But they had good reason. Nadav and Avihu, 'their brothers' just got killed for doing something they weren't asked to do. Now Elazar and Itamar are taking it a little careful before they start to make decisions....Maybe we can instill some fear around hear. Yes. You do not talk on your cellphone in a funeral...H' is praised through the death of his Tzadikim. Not through the deaths that have happened in this...

Why was Moshe mad? Because (10:17) H' gave it to them 'to gain forgiveness for all of the nation, to atone for them before H.'' Cohanim have a greater role. Even when morning, the Cohanim serve the people. Service doesn't have a break. The sisterhood back then did not ask the rabbi to do their Chesed projects for them...Visiting a Shiva house is not a project Sadie. It is something you do because it is right. Like mowing your lawn. The Simlowitz lawn is an embarrassment. The whole neighborhood is morning the height of the grass.

It was more then the fear of death. Aaron answers Moshe that they are Onens, in a state of having to take care of the deceased. There are laws for those who have to bury the dead, even for Cohanim.

There were other offerings that they ate, even though they generally couldn't, due to the death. Because they were for that specific time of the dedication of the Temple and the inauguration services. Understood that you eat them, because there is no later date that it will occur again. Kind of like a decent shmorg. You see the pigs in the blanket and you eat them. But the sin offering of the people was a regular occurrence. They didn't want to set the precedent that you eat it, as Ahron made clear (10:9) 'Now that such things befell me, were I to eat this days sin-offering, would it be good in H's eyes?'

Even if offered, the Onen, does not eat that regular sin-offering. There is a state the even the Kohen Gadol is in, even if he is not contaminated...Not everything is about purity. You can't walk through a hospital without having to sanitize every little thing. Our doctors installed a sanitizer shpritz on the Bimah. That is not what being holy is about. Your concept of purity Dr. Kingfeld is not right...We are not dissecting the scroll here...You know what is impure? The green cover to the piano. The sheet is an eyesore. Every time we have Kiddish. We are mourning that. The piano cover and the uncut Simlowitz grass...The grass is even mourning, growing out its blades.

Even though the Kohen Gadol may not mourn, he still must show respect to the deceased. At the funeral last week, people were on their phones. What is so important? You might get a call that somebody died?

We have to ask the question of H.' What would H' want? H' would want you to care a bit about not putting every visit of somebody in mourning on the rabbi.

Yes, it is awkward to talk with these mourners, always so depressed.

(10:20) 'Moshe heard it and it was good in his eyes.' 

Sometimes you have to back down in an argument. Even if you are right. Moshe may have been correct, in expecting them to eat it. But he was wrong...You can't expect that things will get done. The shul BBQ was messed up again. it was done all wrong, on a rain day....