Emor Excerpts

אמור

Shabbat Shalom

Getting through Vayikra fast, with the double Parshas. That is what I like. This is the third or fourth one. All I know is that it is hard to give Vayikra sermons...For you, I will...

The Shiva house was uncomfortable for all. 'After somebody dies, you say holy stuff.' That is the last three Parshas' names put together. I understand, it is hard to say kind things about Rose. But we have to try. The next couple of days of Shiva, let’s try. If we can brainstorm as a community…She was giving. That is true. When she worked at her shop, and you paid her, she gave you a muffin. She was giving in that way. Very good Michael. 'She was named after a flower.'  That was all I could come up with. She was an angry flower who blamed all the kids in the neighborhood for playing ball...She didn't even let the kids light the Lag B'Omer fire last year...Parental supervision would have been good. I guess Rose cared about the kids.

Lag B'Omer fires? We want the shul here, intact. Parents must purchase wood this year. The kids took one of our favorite pews last year. The thing made for a beautiful fire, but now there is no women's section on the left side of the Shul. 

(23:27-28) Afflict yourselves and no doing Melacha...This is how we atone on our day of atonement. We treat Yom Kippur like Shabbat, and don’t do creative forms of work. That is how painful Shabbat is, if you take away the food. Without the food, it is affliction.

With no food, Shabbat is very painful. But we eat and it is beautiful. A day to recognize H' in our world. The Samuelsin family has to repent for not bringing H's recognition to the world...They don't keep Shabbat, Bernie. Didn't we already talk about Lashon Hara, and the sparks of speaking bad, Bernie?! You see what you made me do?...Yom Kippur should be an atonement for their Shabbat.

Not on Rosh Hashana. We do not afflict on Rosh Hashana. That is the day of judgment. We are judged on Rosh Hashana, and then we cry, because we messed up. We celebrate judgement. We don’t celebrate atonement…Why do we atone after judgment? Because we messed up. You saw how messed up the shul New Year’s party was last year…We don't have lawyers between us and H.' H' sees who we are, so we celebrate it. Marcus shouldn't celebrate...Nothing of positive was done by him this year.

(23:29) A soul that doesn't afflict themselves on Yom Kippur, will be cut off from the people.

We afflict together, as a people. As a people, we suffered through the Layning today. How long of a Layning? This isn't your Bar Mitzvah Michael. There is no reason to annunciate every single word.

But it is that affliction, that brings about our atonement. The pain. Only through showing our pain, can we fight against the judgment. A shared affliction.

We are only remorseful when we can see how we messed up something good, as seen on Rosh Hashana with the horrible Shofar blowing fiasco.

How do we celebrate? With rest. Yom Kippur and affliction are not bad. They are maybe even a day that we celebrate atonement. But we need purity for that…We, as a Jewish people, celebrate affliction…

(23:31-32) It is a Chok. It is a law for which we don't know the full meaning. Take backs. We afflict ourselves because H' said so. Affliction might be a way of celebrating and connecting with H' on Yom Kippur. I don't know. It is a Chok. H' said so. It might be that we afflict ourselves to make things worse.

Affliction is there to make us better. Not to mess up our Shul. We don’t need to afflict the Shul and burn more stuff. We must afflict ourselves, not the shul…No.You cannot watch TV on Yom Kippur, Brian.

It is a Chok to not burn things

Rose was thin, she afflicted the community with her constant complaints. She was our atonement. Always worried about our atonement.