Acharei Mot Excerpts

אחרי מות

Shabbat Shalom

Location is important. Where you celebrate. Where you don't let your children run around...There is a reason to come to shule...Not to see your friends Sharon. Nobody else likes them...You talk enough with them...This is not time for a conversation with me. Sharon. Do you realize that other people are around? We know you do not when you walk in and ask why everything is so quiet...It is the silent prayer. Not the time.

(17:3-4) Somebody who doesn't bring their sacrifice to the Tent of Meeting, and slaughters it somewhere else, is cut off from his people. How many of you here have made a decent Kiddush? How many have shared some decent meat with the congregation? Bat Mitzvah? Bringing out cookies?! Is that a celebration? Cut them off.
Is that kid doing summer-salts? Middle of the sermon...I knew the carpet was too thick. It is a tumbling mat. It stains too easily. Next time we are getting a thinner carpet. Can somebody get him? Does he have parents?...You better have meat at his Bar Mitzvah.

Back to cutting people off from the nation. Rashi teaches that it is slaughtering Kadshim. Stuff that was designated for the Mishkan. It is for the Tabernacle, for H.' That cannot be slaughtered somewhere else. You cannot renege.
How many of you flipped the card at the Yizkor Appeal for the deceased last week? It is easy to flip those 500 tags. We can all flip tags...
Cut them off...The money belongs to the shule.
(17:5) In order that the people will bring their sacrifices to H'...If it wasn't for this rule, people would be bringing their sacrifices to the park. Like the Schwartzman family, they would bring them to the country club, on Saturdays. They would bring them to the deli, which hasn't had a kosher certificate in 12 years, like the Zwantzers....When you can do it anywhere, the community loses people like the Zwatzners, who have no commitment or understanding of what is going on in shule. When you don't have meat at the Bar Mitzvah...

There are other reasons to cut people off: Not holding the door. Not saying 'thank you' for holding the door. Shaking hands when you have not dried yours. Too many mishebeirachs. Children fighting to open the ark...Random slaughtering must stop.

You do this thing once, you never come out to do it again. You pray at home. Or do you? There are places and times for things and we have What do you do behind closed doors? We don't know. The question is, what do you do behind closed doors?...Bernie. Please stop. Nobody wants to hear it...Certain services have their location. Shule is where you pay your dues, Mrs. Appleman. 
You cannot slaughter everywhere. Even more so, sacrifices...

Why is Hanna doing cartwheels behind me?...cartwheels at home...This is not the place for tumbling.

***These are excerpts from the sermon. For the sermon in its entirety, come see David Kilimnick perform at the Off The Wall Comedy Basement, in downtown Jerusalem.
David also tours as a Maggid around the world, with very few stories.
Shabbat Shalom

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