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Shabbat Parashat Ki Tisa 5774

Ki Tisa | 15 Adar I 5774 | 15/02/2014

Parashat Hashavua: What’s a Sacred Purpose?

Toward the beginning of the parasha, the Torah instructs of the use of the special recipe of the shemen hamishcha (oil of anointment) to be used for sanctifying the vessels of the Mishkan and for Aharon and his sons for His service (Shemot 30:22-30). The Torah continues (ibid. 33) that it is strictly forbidden to use this oil for other purposes, including placing it on the body of a zar (a “stranger,” usually meaning a non-kohen).

Ask the Rabbi: Lack of Unity in “Unified” Minyan

Occasionally, I join an ad hoc minyan of 10-12 men for weekday Mincha, in which whoever leads chooses the nusach. Several participants start Tachanun even as a Nusach Sephard chazan is leading Viduy andYud Gimmel Middot (=YGM). Are the following a problem: 1) A noticeable lack of uniformity? 2) The need for a minyan to recite YGM? If there is a problem, does it justify saying something?

Ein Ayah: Moving People on the List of the Unfortunate

Whoever is not crippled or blind and makes himself look like he is will not die of old age until he will be like one of them, as the pasuk says: “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (Devarim 16:20).

P'ninat Mishpat: Replacing a Problematic Shochet Without a Beit Din

The community of Caracas, Venezuela had serious complaints about the reliability of a local shochet, but there was no local beit din that could investigate and rule on the matter. What are they to do in such a situation? In a matter that impacts on individuals, no dayan can decide the matter without hearing the claims of both sides in person. This applies even to a religious matter such as the reliability of the shochet’s shechita and his kashrut supervision. After all, the shochet might claim that the facts presented about him are false and that someone is trying to defame him or improperly remove him from his role. Even if there are witnesses, they must be heard in his presence. Therefore, I cannot make a decision based on the complaints mentioned in your [a local rabbi’s] letter. What I am able to tell you has to do with the shochet’s counterclaims of forbidden competition (hasagat g’vul). If there are ostensibly substantive suspicions about the shechita and the kashrut supervision of the shochet, and because of that people cannot eat the meat, it is not applicable to speak about limitations on competition due to hasagat g’vul.

Refuah Sheleimah

amongst the sick

of Klal Yisrael

for

Mr. Eliyahu ben Sara Zelda Carmel

Mrs. Racheli Bat Rozi Bouskila

Rabbi Yosef Mordechai Simcha ben Binah

This edition of
Hemdat Yamim

is dedicated
to the memory of
R' Meir
ben

Yechezkel Shraga Brachfeld

o.b.m

Hemdat Yamim

is endowed by

Les & Ethel Sutker

of Chicago, Illinois
in loving memory of
Max and Mary Sutker
and

Louis and Lillian Klein, z”l

Hemdat Yamim
is dedicated
in memory of
Shmuel Rozenhak
o.b.m
who passed away
Iyar 6, 5773

A weekly divrei Torah leaflet: A Glimpse at the Parasha, Ask the Rabbi, From the writings of Harav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook, zt”l, Pninat Mishpat (Jewish Monetary Law).