As we mentioned yesterday, the dough to make Matzah holds the danger of becoming Hametz if not kneaded quickly and baked immediately.  The Gemara examines a teaching:

And everyone agrees that one may not knead dough (for Matzah) with warm water (which would accelerate leavening).  The Gemara asks: How is this case different from that of meal-offerings?  As we learned in a Mishna: All meal-offerings are kneaded with warm water and are watched so that they will not be leavened. The Gemara explains that there is a distinction: If they say it is permitted for diligent priests to bake with warm water, shall they also say the same with regard to those who are not diligent?

An average man may not be as diligent and alacritous as the priests and let the dough leaven, so we cannot allow warm water outside the Temple.  

The Gemara asks: And with regard to kneading, is it performed only by diligent priests? But isn’t it written: “And when any one brings a meal-offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and place frankincense upon it. And he shall bring it to Aaron’s sons the priests; and he shall take from it his handful of its fine flour, and of its oil, together with all its frankincense” (Leviticus 2:1–2).  From the scooping of a handful and onward, the mitzva must be performed by members of the priesthood. This teaches about the pouring of the oil and the stirring of the mixture that they are valid even if they are performed by any person, even a non-priest.

The Gemara answers that while a non priest could mix the offering, this can only be done inside the Temple.  The man mixing sees the priests working hastily to perform the offerings with all their details.  He is also inspired to be efficient and alacritous with his own work.

Our sages note the same logic applies to allowing soaking and healing the grains for the Omer offering (Lev 23:10-20).  Even though this processing would accelerate leavening, since the grain is prepared in the Temple under supervision of the rabbinical court, we do not worry that it will become hametz.

 

When you have difficulty being efficient and getting things done, put yourself into a place where other men are being efficient and effective.  When you surround yourself with the right people, this changes your own attitude and actions for the better.

If this is not enough, hire a coach or get a friend and make him the man you are responsible to report your progress to.

This is why conventional Jews place tremendous emphasis on learning and praying together as a group, and our young men grow up in a Yeshivah, an institute of learning wisdom together.  We can draw inspiration from those of us who are most effective and motivated and improve our own attitudes.

 

We begin studying a critical Mishnah explaining from what we make Matzah, the unleavened bread eaten during Passover.  Our sages bring the verse Deuteronomy 16:3 that juxtaposes hametz (leavening) with Matzah, and learn from this that only grains that could become leavened are eligible to bake Matzah.

This is amazing because anything leavened is absolutely forbidden during Passover.  A man could be kneading his dough for Matzah, simply leave it alone a few minutes too long and end up with hametz, the total opposite of Matzah.

We see from here that to accomplish important things requires taking risks.  You have to work with what may damage you in order to succeed.  Men struggle to build themselves up, by lifting weights, risking their money and efforts on their own business, and learning to maintain their confidence.

You have to risk loss, rejection, and injury to improve yourself.  In order to win, you must put yourself in a situation where you could well lose, and accept that possibility.  Matzah is a reminder of this fact of life.

We study Genesis 44:18–47:27, “Vayigash” meaning He approached.

Last year we discussed how Judah (Yehudah) risked his life to approach the throne of the grand vizier of Egypt in a bid to save his half brother Benjamin from slavery.  Judah and the other brothers had not realized that this powerful man was actually Joseph, the younger brother they had sold into slavery 22 years before. Judah offers himself as a slave and threatens to murder the vizier and go up against Pharaoh and his army to protect Benjamin.

We concluded that Judah had internalized the ability to take responsibility for his brothers:

Benjamin was a mere half brother to Judah, (we discussed how the 12 tribes descend from one man and four women).  However, Judah accepts complete responsibility for him and proves that he is loyal to the death.  Responsibility is the attribute of a mature man, who is not bothered by the fact the fact that he makes mistakes.  He accepts his capacity for error and acts to correct his mistakes.

However, this aspect of masculinity holds a danger:

The idea of responsibility has been perverted in modern society to shame and blame men for all manner of social ills, and to nudge men into accepting the burden of other people’s mistakes.  This is a manipulative twisting of the natural God-given masculine attribute of responsibility.

The Torah teaches that men and women are equally responsible for their actions, both are liable for punishment for sins (Numbers 5:6) and liable in civil court for damages.  In modern parlance, men and women have equal agency.  They are equally responsible for their actions and choices, both in the temporal realm and before God.

Contemporary feminist society manipulates us to absolve women who make poor choices from consequences and place the burdens onto men.  This is against the truth that the Bible teaches us: every human being is a responsible agent.  The messages from modern culture lead people to conclude that women have less agency than men.  This is contrary to reality and against the Bible.

In the Torah, Judah takes the blame for selling Joseph, and goes into exile.  He learns to take responsibility for his own sons, his biological family.  Then he returns to his position of leadership over his brothers.  Finally, as leader, he owns the responsibility for Benjamin, guaranteeing his safe return to Jacob, and is willing to lay down his life to fulfill his responsibility.  Due to his complete development of his capability for proper responsibility, Judah’s descendants (through Tamar) become our kings.

What Judah doesn’t do is to take responsibility for someone else’s mess.  He knows the sale of Joseph is his fault, he was the leader of his brothers and suggested the sale (37:27).  He realizes that taking full responsibility for Benjamin is his way of fixing his own mistake and internalizing his changed perspective.  But he is not out to take responsibility for someone else’s mess, or step in to fix a squabble that isn’t his own.

See also Brakhot 34. Taking proper responsibility

The ultimate responsibility

Judah has become the worthy ancestor to the Jewish kings by exercising appropriate authority. When Jacob hears Joseph is alive and agrees to move the family to Egypt, he sends Judah down to Egypt first “to instruct” (46:28).  The Targum (ancient translation of the Hebrew into Aramaic) translates instruct as “to clear”.

Rashi in his explanation of this verse says it means as the Targum translates: to clear a place and instruct where they would settle in it. He also cites an ancient teaching of our sages that his mission was to set up an educational institution for the Jewish tribe.

Rashi is telling us that the Torah means both the Targum’s understanding to clear out and the literal Hebrew verb to teach. While Rashi seems to imply these are two different processes, we can also learn from here that clearing is an essential prerequisite to learning.

If your mind is full of incorrect ideas or the environment is distracting, you can’t learn. You must first clear out the influences that are holding you back from internalizing useful wisdom.

We see that Yehuda had a dual mission: to clear an environment suitable to teach. Who was he teaching?

The Torah tells us that the tribe of Jacob coming to Egypt numbered 70.  Some of them were children, but most of them were grown and didn’t need a school.  The children could have learned at home, home school was totally normal for most of human history.  Our sages in the Talmud (Bava Metzia 85, Ketuvot 103b) discuss the first Jewish schools, founded by Rabbi Hiyya, who lived about 1800 years ago:

When Rabbi Ḥanina and Rabbi Ḥiyya would debate matters of Torah, Rabbi Ḥanina would say to Rabbi Ḥiyya: Do you think you can debate with me? Heaven forbid! If the Torah were forgotten from the Jewish people, I could restore it with my powers of analysis and intellectual acumen.  Rabbi Ḥiyya replied to Rabbi Ḥanina: And you think you can debate with me?  I ensure that the Torah will not be forgotten by the Jewish people!

I sow flax seeds and twine nets with the flax, and then I hunt deer and feed their meat to orphans.  Next I prepare parchment from their hides and I write the five books of the Torah on them.  I go to a city and teach five orphan boys the five books, one book per child, and I teach six other orphans the six orders of the Mishna, then I say to them: Until I return and come here, read each other the Torah and teach each other the Mishna.  This is how I act to ensure that the Torah will not be forgotten by the Jewish people.

The Gemara concludes that Rabi Yehuda the Prince, a direct descendent of King David and Judah, praised Rabbi Hiyya as greater than himself.

Naturally Rabbi Hiyya taught orphans because boys with a father already had a teacher.  They learned at home with their parents.  Jews were the first people really into universal literacy.  It was the orphans and boys with an absent father who were in danger of never learning the Bible and Jewish law.  Rabbi Hiyya made all the necessary preparations to write them their own Torah scroll, from beginning to end.

The most critical aspect of Rabbi Hiyya’s work was that he had the orphans teach one another what they knew.  He could have taught all eleven boys every section of the Torah and Mishnah, since he was teaching the whole corpus anyway.  He didn’t, because he understood responsibility. 

He made each boy fully responsible his section, with a desire to become an expert and master of that learning.  Then each boy had to teach his section to the ten others, and became the leader to the other boys while they studied that part.  Each orphan became the rabbi to the others in turn, until all eleven boys knew the entire Torah.

Rabbi Hiyya would travel between his schools and test the students, but most of the actual teaching was done by the boys themselves, who had learned the most important lesson: to take responsibility for their own spiritual life and for one another.  This was the only way to prevent the Torah from being forgotten.

Rabbi Hiyya was following the example of Judah, who set up a school in Egypt before Jacob brought the whole tribe down.  Judah knew that each individual family could teach it’s own sons, as they had before in Israel.  However, creating a central educational establishment in Egypt would be critical to make sure each boy had a full Jewish education.  Each Jew had to be responsible for maintaining the Jewish traditions in a foreign land, and a centralized place to issue rulings for the entire tribe would ensure the tradition continued.

The ultimate responsibility is not only to your brothers, but also to the next generation of men.  When we are gone they will still be here.  What can we give them now to help them succeed?  The greatest gift is to teach them to be responsible for themselves and their brothers and sons.

Conceal your true powers

Joseph takes some of this brothers to meet Pharaoh, and instructs them to tell Pharaoh that they are shepherds, and their fathers were shepherds (47:2-3).  He did not take all of them since Pharaoh would want to draft the strongest ones into the army.  Recall that Egypt was the superpower of the time.  Pharaoh had picked Joseph as prime minister, and would no doubt want to draw more talent from his family to serve Egypt, as he reveals (47:6).

Joseph wanted to avoid this, and keep his brothers in Goshen, away from the Egyptian government.  He understood that having some brothers appointed to positions of power in a foreign nation would have led to more loyalty to Pharaoh and undermined their connection to the Jewish tribe.  Joseph himself had been humble before Pharaoh, hiding his own abilities and dreams of power.

It was also necessary to tell Pharaoh they were shepherds.  The Egyptians of the time worshiped sheep (among other things) and abhorred shepherds who routinely ate sheep.  This was another device to keep the tiny Jewish tribe from being absorbed in the sea of Egyptians.

When you have talents or powers that other people may be able to use, be wary of revealing these.  As we noted above and in detail last year, other people will want to use your abilities for their own ends.  Get busy using your strength for your own ends, your own family, your own tribe.  Then you won’t be tempted to serve others in their own missions.

You say it’s your birthday

Joseph brings Jacob before Pharaoh, who asks what seems to be a trivial question, “How old are you?”  (47:8).  Jacob answers, “I am 130 years old. They were few and bitter compared to my fathers.”  (47:9).

This is extremely odd, Pharaoh was the mightiest ruler of his day, and Jacob was the greatest spiritual leader.  Pharaoh appointed his son as prime minister based on his wisdom, and Joseph’s wisdom was from Jacob.  Pharaoh must be asking something deeper from Jacob.

Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch explains: Pharaoh asked, “How many are the days of the years of your life?”  The word “days” was extra.  Pharaoh was asking about days out of years.  He was really asking “How many days out of your years were really life? What portion of your time was used for real productive ends?  What did you do every day to make if count as a day of truly living life?”

Jacob answers that his days have been few and difficult, admitting that only a small number of his days were lived to his full ability, and those days were hard.  Growth does not come easy.  Jacob had many difficulties in life, with Esav, his wives, his daughter, then with his sons.  His beloved son was missing and assumed dead for 22 years.  Looking back, Jacob realizes that he spent many days in the struggle, coping with all of these issues.  He wished for more time to focus on personal growth.

Keep in mind that our patriarch Jacob was on an amazing spiritual level.  He probably accomplished more lasting personal growth on a day he considered “wasted” than we modern men pull off in a year.  Jacob was judging himself by his own very high standards, and realizing that he had not done as much as he could.  He was hinting to Pharaoh that real development is very hard, and rare.

For us, the message is to make every day count as best we can, not to let any go by wasted.  However, we should be aware that we will rarely encounter deep levels of inspiration and major growth.  Men don’t grow in a day, unless they are confronted by extreme shock, and changes caused through abrupt shock are not likely to last.

The best we can do is to try to use each to to further our incremental changes towards a specific goal.  This is most obvious in the physical realm: if you could squat 135 five times last week and now you can squat 145, Mazal Tov, you grew.  In the intellectual and spiritual realm growth is harder to quantify. 

Conventional Jews are blessed that we study the Bible and Jewish law each day.  Even if you are not religious, you can set aside time for study and reflection.  Don’t live as a zombie then look back and regret all the days you wasted.  Stop and think, set goals, and get to work.  Don’t waste any day of your years.

The Gemara is discussing the danger in having ritually contaminated Trumah around. Trumah is the first tithe that goes to the Cohanim, the priests. They can eat it when it is pure, and use it for fuel if it gets ritually impure.

Eating impure Trumah is a serious transgression. The first advice is to throw it into the firewood pile, but if whole kernels of Trumah grain become contaminated, there is a danger that they will be taken out and eaten.

The Gemara brings a tradition that the only want to keep the impure whole grains around is to boil them then throw them into the fuel pile. Since they are soft they get dirty and no one will come to eat them.

Use the power of disgust for yourself. If there is someone or something detracting from your mission, allow yourself to feel disgusted by this. Modern secular society tells us to accept everyone and everything. When you are a man with important tasks to accomplish and a life to build for yourself, you can’t afford to accept things that waste your time and talents.

One you feel and think about how you don’t want this in your sphere, take specific action to remove it or to set up a reminder not to engage with it anymore.

Today the Talmud teaches us an amazing concept in human psychology.  Our sages are comparing Meila, the crime of usury or misappropriated Holy items, to other sins in the Bible, regarding the level of intent a man needs to be liable for Meila:

…if you argue that one is exempt from an offering with regard to the rest of the commandments, where acting without intent is not treated as though one acted with intent, for example: if one intended to cut something detached from the ground on Shabbat, which is not prohibited by Torah law, and mistakenly cut something that is attached to the ground, the aw is he is exempt because he acted without intent; shall you also say the same with regard to Meila of consecrated items, about which the law is stringent, such that if one intended to warm himself with non-sacred wool shearings, and owing to an error or lack of information he warmed himself with shearings from a burnt-offering, then he has misused consecrated property?

By many areas of law, an act without intention, or while preoccupied or distracted by other matters (mitasek) is not punished in the same way as an act with intent.  Sabbath law is the clearest example: actions without intent or while preoccupied, even if they ‘break the Sabbath’, do not impose punishment per the Bible.  However, our sages comment that if a man is inadvertently committing such acts, he needs to go back and study the laws of Shabbat so he becomes more aware of what he is doing.  Ignorance is no excuse because you can go and learn.

Here is the big picture: people do things subconsciously, automatically, or while preoccupied.  If these things bother us, we can excuse them since they were mistakes.  We don’t have to take it personally.  However, often modern men excuse bad behaviors or a lack of communication from women, by chalking it up to accidents.  She didn’t return your call because she was “too busy” is a common excuse men make on her behalf.

Our sages clue us in that while technically this is correct, the overall fact is that if you were more important to her she would not have been too busy for you.  Her lack of communication, whether she was preoccupied or not, is itself the message from her that you are not high on her list.

Likewise our sages advise a man who accidently breaks the Sabbath to go and learn the rules of the Sabbath, to remind himself of their importance.  Then he will pay more attention and not violate while preoccupied.  When we choose to value certain items or people in life, we make less mistakes and do not get distracted while busy with those.

The Talmud debates if you need to pay back a debt, such as illegally eaten tithes, according to the weight or value.  This issue has massive ramifications for produce that fluctuates in value.

Rav Yosef said: Come and hear an answer to this question from what was taught: One who ate dried figs that were teruma and paid the priest back with dates, may a blessing rest upon him, (as dates are worth more than dried figs).  If you say that one must repay according to the measure of teruma he ate, it is due to this that a blessing should rest upon him, as a se’a of dried figs are worth one zuz and he gave in return a se’a of dates worth four zuz.  However, if you say that he must repay according to the monetary value of the teruma, then why should a blessing rest upon him?  He ate a zuz worth of teruma and he paid a zuz worth as compensation.

Abaye said: Actually, one can explain that he must repay according to the monetary value of the teruma, and why is it stated that a blessing should rest upon him?  This is because he ate an item that buyers don’t jump at, but paid with an item that buyers jump at.

This is a great concept for you to internalize.  A man may have the same “value” as another, measured perhaps by his bank account, bench press, or car.  However, his actual appeal may be radically different due to countless intangible factors.

Learn to evaluate based on what the market seeks, it is not always the same as objective measures.  There are many indicators of value and worth, and other people evaluate differently than you do.  Check out what actually sells on the open market, and how fast it is bought up.

We see this most clearly by women who may prefer the company of a certain man because he is simply more desirable than others, despite his “worth” or bank balance.  You can also evaluate how likely men are to work together with another man, men size each other up based on actual performance.

The Mishnah rules that if a building collapses, burying the hametz in the rubble, so long as a dog would not smell it and dig it out the hametz is considered destroyed.  However, later sages in the Gemara state that you need to nullify this hametz in your heart.

Since you did not actively destroyer he hametz before Passover, you may feel it still exists even after it was buried.

A man can be in a relationship that collapses, burying the future he thought he would have with this woman.  But in his heart his feelings continue, he never gathered the resolve to convince himself it is over.  It just ended by itself, not through his own choice.  So he keeps trying to rekindle a fire that already died out, to make reality align with his emotions.

A man needs instead to sync his mental state with reality and stop digging through the trash.

During Passover we cannot use the cooking utensils we normally use, since they have absorbed leavened food (hametz).  The Gemara mentions that some people would buy new pots after Passover, assuming that the absorbed hametz in their old earthenware had become forbidden during the holiday.

Shmuel told the merchants not to overcharge the buyers, or he would be forced to announce that the law follows Rabbi Shimon, who stated that the absorbed tastes in utensils are not forbidden after Passover.

The Gemara asks why Shmuel didn’t simply make this announcement, and answers because he was then in the city of Rav, meaning Rav was the official Rabbi for the city.  Rav had the power to stop Jewish merchants from overcharging but Rav did not agree to Rabbi Shimon.

Men need to be aware when they are operating in the domain of another man, and not step on his toes.

However, if other people are suffering a loss because of the rules in that place, you do need to step up and express your opinion against the rules.

Today’s learning also discusses glazed china utensils, noting that under the glaze is regular earthenware. This reminds us that many people rely on an outer artificial layer to interact with the world.  Be aware of what is underneath their facade.

Today the Talmud debates if the prohibition on leavened foods, hametz, applies after the end of Passover.  It depends on the Biblical source for the prohibition.  The Mishnah ruled:

Leavened bread of a gentile, over which Passover has elapsed, i.e., that remains after the conclusion of Passover, it is permissible to derive benefit from, due to the verse: “It shall not be seen by you.”  This indicates that you may not see your own leaven, but you may see leaven that belongs to others or leaven consecrated to God.

Technically, if we use the verse “it shall not be seen by you” as the source, then during Passover a Jew could have hametz around belonging to non Jews or belonging to the Temple (ie consecrated).  This sounds crazy to modern Jews, we carefully remove every trace of hametz from our homes before Passover.

However, this hints to an interesting concept in Jewish law: just because you see something in your house, it does not mean that it is truly yours.  Jewish law creates spiritual boundaries so a man will not come near transgression.  Our sages worry a man may come to eat his own hametz during Passover, but there is no concern here.  He would not imagine taking a bite from this food, since it does not really belong to him.

Modern men need to create their own boundaries, whatever rules and distinctions will help them to accomplish more in life and move towards their chosen mission.  Some men may need to give up drinking or watching sports so they have the time and energy for necessary tasks.  You may also create boundaries in time, setting a rule for yourself not to eat before your workout or the like.

Rabbi Yehuda is arguing that leavened foods (hametz) must be destroyed by burning before Passover, drawing comparisons from left over parts of offerings that must be burned.  The other sages refute his comparison by pointing out that he previously stated that leftover parts of an uncertain guilt offering or a bird offering brought out of doubt should be buried, not burned.  This undermines his logic about hametz.

The Gemara brings the reactions of later sages:

Rav Yosef said: This is as people say: In the spoon that the carpenter made, the mustard will burn his palate.  Abaye said another folk expression: He who made the stocks [saddana] shall sit in the stocks; he is repaid through his own handiwork.  Rava said: He who made the arrows shall be killed with his own arrows; he is repaid through his own handiwork.

The Rabbis were not poking fun at their colleague, but pointing out that your previous actions and words can trip you up today.  Be aware what foundation you are building and what it may lead to later.

Our sages, Talmud Sanhedrin 39, also point out that Ovadiah the prophet gave the prophecy against Edom, but he himself was a convert from Edom.  They quip “from the forest itself comes the handle for the ax”.  There is a deep concept in Jewish wisdom that the world is created to function on the lines of “middah cneged middah” a turn for a turn.  Be conscious of your turns and how they may turn on you.