Parsha for Kids: Emor 2023
Apologies for the delay in sending this out. The podcast episode was up, but I couldn’t get to emailing out the transcript till now because of a family simcha. Additionally, I am going to be pressed for time during the next few weeks, so it is possible that future parsha episodes may be a bit shorter/ consist of fewer segments.
Below is the transcript for the past week’s episode of Parsha for Kids, Emor 2023.
You can listen to the podcast on Spotify (link to this week’s episode), Apple, Audible, iHeartRadio and a variety of other places. (Some of these might only update with the new episode content tomorrow.)
Please give it a listen and share it with the kids in your life. Additionally, I would very much appreciate it if you would be willing to subscribe, rate the podcast on the app where you listen to it, and leave a review.
Season 3 Episode 8:
Hello! My name is Chana and this is Parsha for Kids. The Parsha of the week is Emor. Emor means “speak.” In this context, it refers to Moshe speaking to Aharon and his sons and explaining that kohanim are not allowed to be around dead bodies.
Why is that? Well, we mentioned last week that everyone in Bnei Yisrael needs to be kadosh, holy. This means to live in a unique and different way from other nations, and in a way that makes a person closer to God. But the tribe of Levi, and specifically the Kohanim of the tribe of Levi, had even more rules that set them apart and made them kadosh. One of the rules for the Kohanim was not to go near a dead body because a dead body is tamei, or spiritually impure. In general, life is associated with taharah, or spiritual purity, while death is associated with tumah, or spiritual impurity. This is why living water, like a stream or rainwater, is able to purify someone who has become tamei- water provides life.
Kohanim cannot touch or carry a dead body. They cannot be under the same roof as a dead body. They cannot go to the part of a cemetery where there are graves, and they cannot touch a grave. However, there is an exception to these rukes-it is a mitzvah for kohanim to bury their seven closest relatives. These are: their wife, their mother, their father, their son, their daughter, their brother and their unmarried sister. If a kohen's married sister God forbid dies, her brother the kohen cannot bury her because the Torah expects her husband to bury her.
These laws apply even today. This means that if you have a kohen in your class, you may have noticed they cannot always come on field trips with you. For example, sometimes a field trip might be to a museum where there are mummies, which are dead bodies, and a kohen is not allowed to be in the buikding with those dead bodies.
A kohen gadol, high priest, is even holier than the regular kohen. He isn’t allowed to bury even his seven closest relatives. He is only allowed to bury a meit mitzvah. A meit mitzvah is a Jewish person who died in a lonely or forsaken place. There is no one else around to bury them, even after the kohen calls out in hopes that someone else will come to bury him. In that case, for the dignity of the abandoned dead Jew, the kohen gadol must bury him. The Kohen Gadol would then need to purify himself with the Parah Adumah, or Red Cow ritual in order to serve in the Mishkan or Beit Hamikdash again.
Once again, many of the ideas in this week’s podcast are from The Little Midrash Says.
TRANSITION
All kohanim have rules regarding whom they may marry. A kohen can only marry a woman who has never been married before. This means that if a woman is widowed, which means her first husband died, or divorced, a kohen cannot marry her. A kohen also cannot marry someone who converts to Judaism. These laws still apply today, which means that when a male kohen is ready to get married he must be careful to look for a wife who fulfills these criteria.
TRANSITION
God then instructed Aharon about the rules regarding which Kohanim could serve publicly in the Mishkan and Beit Hamikdash and which could not. If a kohen had a mum, which means a physical defect or blemish, he was not permitted to serve within the Mishkan. Examples of a mum could include someone being blind, lame, or who has one leg that is longer than the other.
This seems puzzling. We know that Moshe himself was described as arel sefatayim, having uncircumcised lips. The Midrash understands this to mean that Moshe spoke with a speech impediment or a stutter. Clearly, God had no problem entrusting an incredibly important job to Moshe despite his stutter. So why does God not want kohanim who have some kind of physical difference to serve Him in the Mikdash?
I think the answer is that it’s not about God so much as it is about human beings. Human beings admire beauty and they especially admire perfection.
Going to the Mishkan or the Beit Hamikdash was meant to be an overwhelming experience for humans. When humans stood within that building, which was made of gold, silver and various colorful tapestries, they were meant to feel a sense of awe. We know that God can be found anywhere, and that God could just as easily be found in a forest, or a cave, or a small cramped room, as in the Mishkan. So why did it matter so much that the Mishkan be beautiful, and include gems, gold and silver?
I think it mattered for us. As humans, we tend to be influenced by our surroundings. We can be distracted by a place that looks dilapidated. We might similarly be distracted from our spiritual experience in the Mishkan by the person’s disability. When we are in a place that is gorgeous, it uplifts us. When we see the kohen who is performing the avodah and offering up our korban is a physically perfect human specimen, that might also deepen our sense of awe or of feeling impressed. For this reason, God decided that the kohanim who would be interacting with the public could not have any kind of physical difference, or mum.
However, these kohanim were still allowed to eat the teruma, which is the portion of grain given to the kohen. They were also allowed to eat their portions of the korbanot and the other gifts the kohanim received. This shows kohanim who had a mum were considered every bit as holy as the kohanim who served in the public-facing roles in the Mikdash. Additionally, a kohen who had a mum could still have a role within the Mishkan; it just was not a public facing one. One of their duties was to sort through the firewood that would be burned on the Mizbeach. They checked every branch to make sure it did not contain worms, because a branch that had worms would not be appropriate to burn on God’s altar.
TRANSITION
God then explained that if an animal has a mum, or defect, it is not allowed to be offered as a korban. This makes sense because korbanot were gifts to God. We would want to give the nicest, most beautiful gift, not a gift that had something wrong with it.
For example, let’s say you were invited to a friend’s birthday party. You went to a local store like Five Below and you bought them a toy. After leaving the store, you noticed the toy had a dent or scratch on it. Maybe if you had bought it for yourself, you might not have cared. But since you were giving it as a gift to your friend, you would probably go back to the store and ask to exchange it for one that is not dented or scratched.
Examples of mumim, defects, that disqualify an animal from being a korban include: blindness, being lame, heaving a tail that is too short, having a cut in its tongue or mouth, or if it is trembling from old age or sickness.
The goal was to bring God the most beautiful animal, not one that had flaws. This is an idea that applies even nowadays when it comes to the concept of hiddur mitzvah, or making a mitzvah more beautiful. Many people use special dishes and kiddush cups on Shabbat in order to show that Shabbat is the most holy and special day of the week. You may even have special Shabbat clothing that you wear to demonstrate that this day is different from other days. This applies to other Yamim Tovim, or holidays, as well. For example, you may decorate and beautify your Sukkah even though it would be sufficient just to build the temporary dwelling and not fill it with decorations. But you fill it with decorations to make it more beautiful as a way to honor God. In general, as much as possible, when it comes to serving God, we should use the best items that we can.
TRANSITION
In this week’s parsha God teaches about all of the Jewish holidays.
God begins with Shabbat, explaining that for six days we may perform creative work, but we must rest on the seventh day, which is Shabbat.
God then talks about Pesach, Passover, stating that we must offer up a lamb to God as a Korban Pesach, and also that we must eat matzot, unleavened bread, for seven days.
God then taught about the Omer offering. In the time of the Beit Hamikdash a special korban baked from barley was offered on the mizbeach on the second day of Pesach, the 16th of Nissan. Watching the barley being cut and harvested for this special offering was an experience. The workers needed to reap about 16 pounds of barley. In the yard of the Beit Hamikdash, the barley is threshed, the kernels roasted over a fire and ground to become flour. The barley flour is sifted over and over until only the finest flour remains. This korban is called an omer because only an omer which is about five pounds is needed for it. The kohen mixes the omer of flour with oil and puts a handful of levona spice on it. He puts the dough in a pan and waves the pan in all directions. A handful of the dough is burned on the altar while the rest is portioned out to the kohanim to eat. Additionally, we count seven weeks from the day the omer was brought until the 49th day, which is the day before the holiday of Shavuot.
On Shavuot, we are not permitted to do forbidden melacha, creative work, on Shavuot. We also eat special yom tov meals. In the time of the Beit Hamikdash a special offering was brought on this holiday called the Shtay HaLechem, or two loaves. They were baked from the first wheat of the new harvest. They were shared among the kohanim. After the Shtay HaLechem had been offered, all other korbanot of new grains could be brought.
Our Sages explain that Shavuot is also the anniversary of when the Aseret HaDibrot, or Ten Commandments, were given to us at Har Sinai. However, this is not written in the Torah. According to the Midrash, one of the reasons for this is so that a Jew shouldn’t think he only needs to take Torah seriously once a year, on the anniversary of when it was given. Instead, Jews should remember to care about and keep the Torah each and every day.
God continues teaching us about the holidays by describing Rosh Hashana. He explained that every year on the first day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, Jews must observe yom tov. They will blow a shofar, ram’s horn. When we keep Rosh Hashana, we say verses declaring that God is our king. We understand Rosh Hashana to be the Yom HaDin, Day of Judgement, when God decides what will be allotted to us that upcoming year. While Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot are joyous festivals, Rosh Hashana is a more serious celebration.
God then spoke to Moshe about the holiday of Yom Kipur. This yom tov would be different from others because one would not be allowed to eat, drink, cook meals, or carry in the street as one does on other yamim tovim. Yom Kippur would be like Shabbat and the same rules that apply on Shabbat would apply on Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur would be a day of atonement, when God would forgive our sins.
God followed this by telling Moshe about Sukkot. On the fifteenth of Tishrei, we must celebrate Sukkot for seven days. (Outside of Israel, like in the United States, it would be for eight days.) On Sukkot, we must take four kinds of plants and wave them. They are an etrog, or citron, lulav, or palm branch, hadassim or myrtles and aravot or willows. We are also commanded to live in sukkot, or temporary dwellings that are booths, during this festival. Sukkot is a very joyful time of the year.
God does not talk about Chanukah or Purim in the Torah because those yamim tovim took place much later. Chanukah, for example, took place in the time of the Second Beit Hamikdash, more than a thousand years after the Torah was given.
However, if you look at the section in the Torah that follows the explanation about each of the holidays, you will see that God tells Moshe to tell Bnei Yisrael to take pure olive oil to light the Menora. This is seen as a remez, hint that after Sukkot there is a holiday on which it is a mitzva for Jews to light menorahs.
The Midrash notes that after this section about menorahs, the Torah says “Take fine flour and bake it,” which might be related to the idea of having a seuda or festive meal, on Purim. Then the Torah mentions a man who cursed God, a hint that on Purim we call out Arur Haman, Cursed be the wicked Haman.
TRANSITION
Our parsha ends off with a peculiar story. It is about a man whose father was an Egyptian and whose mother was Jewish. This man got into an argument with another Jewish man. He then pronounced God’s special and holy name and cursed God.
Bnei Yisrael were not sure what the punishment for this man should be. So they placed him in a house that was guarded and Moshe waited to learn what God would do.
God explained that this man who cursed God had to be taken outside of the camp, and all who heard him curse would need to lean their hands on his head. Then, they would kill him by pushing him off a high platform and stoning him.
You may remember that one of the Aseret HaDibrot has to do with not taking God’s name, which is like God’s property, in vain. If you are not even allowed to swear that you will do or have done something using God’s name if it is unnecessary, and all the more so you are not allowed to lie and swear by God in order to convince someone that you are telling the truth, you are certainly not allowed to curse God, either. This story shows us how important it is to treat God’s name respectfully.
Nowadays, you may have heard of the terms kiddush Hashem and chilul Hashem. Kiddush Hashem literally means sanctifying God’s name while chilul Hashem means desecrating God’s name. The way we act in our lives is a reflection on God, who made us- we are all created in His image, all created b’tzelem Elokim. If we do things that are wrong, whether it is murdering another person or cheating by using false weights and measurements, we are engaging in creating a chilul Hashem, or desecration of God’s name. We are misrepresenting God on this earth, and acting as if we think He would approve of our wrong choices, when of course He would not. In contrast, when we do things that are good and kind, especially around people who might not have heard about or know much about the Jewish God, that is a kiddush Hashem, or sanctification of God’s name. A kiddush Hashem could be something as small as making sure to thank your bus driver after they drop you off at your stop, or something as big as saving someone’s life. Wherever you go, as a Jew, you are a representative of and ambassador for God. It is important to realize you are always making an impression, and to do your best to make sure that you make a kiddush Hashem, continuing to sanctify God’s name.
TRANSITION
So here’s what we learned this week!
Even though every Jew is kadosh, there are extra laws for Leviim and Kohanim. Some of these extra laws, in the case of a Kohen, govern their ability to be around dead people and also who they are allowed to marry.
God does not permit kohanim who have physical defects, or mumim, to serve in the Mishkan. Even though they are not allowed this public-facing role, they are still considered just as holy as any other kohen and are still allowed to receive the same gifts and privileges as the other kohanim.
When we give a gift to God, we should give from the best of our possessions. Therefore, we are not allowed to offer up an animal that has a mum or defect.
God teaches Moshe about all of the holidays in this week’s parsha. The Midrash even finds hints to the holidays that would be created by our Sages in the future, Chanukah and Purim!
We learn about how important it is not to make a chilul Hashem, or desecrate God’s name, and instead to make a kiddush Hashem, sanctify God’s name.
If you have any questions or comments on this week’s episode, please email me at parsha4kids@gmail.com. That’s parsha the number 4 kids at gmail.com. Good Shabbos!