Good morning, everyone. I’m Chazak, Baruch Hu. Thank you for joining us on this beautiful Tuesday morning, as we are in the month of Adar. Mi she-nichnas Adar, marbin besimcha—we increase in our joy. Be'ezrat Hashem, we should always have reasons to smile and celebrate. We should have Besorot Tovot, all the good news. Amen.
My friends, a Midrash (rabbinic teaching) in this week’s parasha, Parashat Tetzaveh, begins by discussing our minoah and our parasha’s commandment of lighting the Menorah (lampstand). That’s how the parasha begins: God says to Moshe (Moses) to command the lighting of the Menorah.
We had a Temple. We know the Temple was a beautiful home, a house for God, and inside it were different pieces of furniture. There wasn’t a couch or a dining room table, but there was other furniture. There was the Shulchan, a special type of table—not a table that was long. It was a high table with different stacks, different rows and levels, to put bread inside. You had the Menorah that you lit, which had seven branches. You had the Mizbeach (altar), both the small and the big one. You had the Aron, which is the holy ark in the Holy of Holies. It had the tablets inside it, and on top of it were the golden keruvim (cherubim). So you’re talking about a very detailed, complex, beautiful, magnificent house for God, with different pieces of furniture.
Our Midrash begins this week. Take a look at what the Midrash says, quoting a Pasuk (verse) in Iyov. The Pasuk says—what do those three words mean? They mean that God craves His handiwork. God craves His handiwork. What does it mean that He craves His handiwork? The Midrash says, “You know what that means? Hashem asked us to do four things in this world, which are really things that He Himself already did.” Again:
“Be'arba'ah devarim nit'avah HaKadosh Baruch Hu lema'aseh yadav.”
In four places, we find that Hashem desired for us to provide for Him something that He Himself already does. It’s His handiwork. God desired in four places that we give Him something that He Himself already exemplified.
“Ve'elu hen.” And here they are.
Number one: God carries the world. God is a carrier. God is the running back. He carries the ball. He holds the world, like the Pasuk says in Yeshayah. God says, “I carry.” And what did He command us down here to carry? Let’s play a game. What did God command that we should carry down here? He commanded the Levim (Levites), the sons of Kehat, to carry the Ark, the Aron. The sons of Kehat had to carry the Ark. Okay. So God carries the world, and He commanded us to carry the Ark. Amazing. He didn’t need us to carry the Ark. He could carry it Himself, but He commanded it. So write this down or remember it, because we’re going to go into today’s class with a beautiful idea elaborating on these four things.
Number one is that He commanded us to carry the Ark. Number two, God is also a protector. Like the Pasuk says, God is a shomer and He protects us. God watches over us, you. It’s an amazing thing: when we sleep, God’s watching over us. When we’re awake, He’s watching over us. When we go running, He’s watching over us. Wherever we are, God is protecting us. God is constantly watching over the world. Not only that, but even when we are sleeping, He’s awake, watching. It’s a wild thing. You would think that the king’s job is not to watch over the people; the people watch over the king. But Hashem is the opposite. God says, “No, it’s okay. You go to sleep, and I’m the king. I’ll stand outside, I’ll watch over you, I’ll protect you, and I’ll make sure no one comes in the house.”
This is actually one of the arguments used by Onkelos the convert. Onkelos was a huge scholar in history, a big rabbi. He wrote one of the most important translations of the Chumash. He wrote it in Aramaic, called Targum Onkelos. He had Ruach HaKodesh (divine inspiration). Very, very deep. But he wasn’t always Jewish. He was once a non-Jew. He converted, and his uncle was the Caesar of Rome. When his uncle, the Caesar of Rome, found out that his nephew Onkelos had converted, he sent generals to bring him home and snap him out of it.
When they got to his house, Onkelos started debating them, trying to convince them to become Jewish themselves. He tells them, “You guys, you’re the guards of the king, right? Let me ask you.” He shows them the Mezuzah (doorpost scroll) and says to them, “Tell me, who stands outside the door, and who’s inside the house sleeping?” They said, “Of course, the king’s sleeping, and we’re watching him by the door.” So he says, “You see this Mezuzah? This is God. God’s standing out here by the door, and I’m inside sleeping. My God protects me. You, your king—you have to protect him. You see the difference between me and you?” The guards were amazed; they converted. This is a beautiful idea: God is a watcher, a protector.
He asked us as well to watch. Amar the Yisrael in Bamidbar, he says, “Veha-chanim lifnei haMishkan (Tabernacle).” “Kedmah lifnei Ohel Mo'ed mizrachah.” “The guardians of the charge of the sanctuary.” So the Pasuk says over there that they had guardians. He asked us to guard the Mishkan.
Number one: carry. Number two: protect. Number three: ma'ir. God is an illuminator. It says in Yechezkel that the earth shone with His glory. So God illuminates, and He tells the Jewish people in this week’s parasha, “I want you guys to light, to illuminate.” Number four: God is a provider. God is a feeder; God feeds. God feeds the world, and yet He asks us to feed Him, so to speak, to bring korbanot (offerings).
So this is a beautiful Midrash. The question is: What is the lesson? What is the idea? What is the point? The Shem MiShmuel, the great, amazing commentary, explains something very deep and very beautiful. To understand, he says, let us turn together to a Mishnah in Pirkei Avot. The Mishnah is in chapter 4. He says as follows. It depends on which version you have; it’s in the middle of chapter 4. Rabbi Shimon says there are three crowns, and we’re going to see that all three have to be respected.
Number one: Keter Torah, the crown of Torah. Number two: Keter Kehuna, the crown of priesthood. Number three: Keter Malchut, the crown of royalty. And all of them have to be respected. You have to respect and honor Torah. The Torah comes in the room; you stand up for the Torah. A Rabbi comes in; you stand up for the Rabbi. We know that we give the Hacham Kavod (honor), right? Beautiful. That’s Keter Torah.
The Pasuk says—but it’s actually one of the mitzvot (commandments) that the Rambam codifies. If you’re studying Rambam Yomi, you maybe saw it yesterday, right? So this is the Keter Torah. Beautiful. Then we have the Keter Kehuna. We also have to respect and honor a Kohen (priest). We know that the Kohen gets the first Aliyah (first Torah reading). The Pasuk says that you have to sanctify him. Give a Kohen. You cannot ask a Kohen to do something laborious, something that may be derogatory. That’s Keter Kehuna.
Keter Malchut, of course, is the king. We know we have to respect the king. We cannot argue with the king. We cannot ride his horse or wear his clothing, right? Keter Malchut. So it says there are four crowns—there are three crowns: the Keter of Torah, the Keter Kehuna, the Keter Malchut. And then it says that the crown of a good name rises above all three. That means that, at the end of the day, becoming a Torah scholar requires intelligence. Not everyone can really rise to be a Torah scholar. Not everyone was given that head; some people weren’t born with those capabilities. Kehuna—not everyone can be a Kohen. You have to be born from Kohen Aharon, Aharon, Aharon, all the way back up. A Melech (king)—definitely not everyone can be a Melech. But a Keter Shem Tov (crown of a good name) is not something you necessarily have to be born with. Anyone can come and grab a Keter Shem Tov. Anyone can be a good person. A Shem Tov, your name, your reputation—that’s something that is for everybody.
We know that, actually, in the Mishkan, our rabbis say that three of the pieces of furniture had a crown around them, a tiara. Okay, the Aron. I want you to maybe Google a picture of the Aron. You’ll find that the Aron had a little tiny crown all around it, like a small, pointy fence going around. That’s called a keter. The keter of the Aron—the Aron housed the tablets, the Torah. So that’s the Keter Torah. Keter Torah is represented by the Aron, and it had a Keter itself. The Aron, the furniture, had a crown of its own.
The Malchut, the king, is the finance, is the economy of the country. That’s represented by money, by the Shulchan, by the bread, by the sustenance. So the Shulchan also had a crown. That’s for the Melech. We know that the small Mizbeach had a crown. Of course, that symbolizes the Keter, the crown of Kehuna, of the Kohanim, of the Mizbeach—the only ones who were allowed to offer. But for Keter Shem Tov, a good name, there was no fourth tiara. There is no crown that represents the good person, because being a good person is not always something you can see. You can’t always tell. You can tell who’s a rabbi. You can tell who’s a Kohen. You can see the Shulchan, wealth. But Shem Tov—maybe that’s why there’s no tiara, because being a good person is something that’s on the inside. It doesn’t have an external. Of course, if you’re a good person, you have to do good things. But character is actually making sure that I don’t only fake good things on the outside. It’s more important to make sure that I’m real and sincere in my good nature. So Keter Shem Tov is not necessarily a crown for that. The Mishnah says that, as great as the three are—Torah, Kehuna, Malchut—the Keter Shem Tov has to be on top of all of the above.
That means—and, by the way, which vessel is represented by the Shem Tov? We skipped this part. If the Kohen is the Mizbeach, the Aron is the Torah, and the king is the Shulchan, which one is left? It’s the Menorah. The Menorah is the Shem Tov. Light. The Menorah did not have a tiara. So all three—all the other three—need to have a Shem Tov.
It’s worth zero if you are a rabbi without good Middot (character traits). If you ever met a rabbi who’s nasty—worst of all, a Kohen who doesn’t have good Middot. There was once a Kohen, the Gemara says, who embarrassed Shemaya and Avtalyon, two Kohanim—two converts, excuse me. This Kohen said to them, “Oh, you guys are converts. I’m from Aharon.” Shemaya and Avtalyon told him back, “It’s true, you come from Aharon, but at least we act like Aharon,” right? Okay, you come from Aharon, very nice, but you act like you’re disgusting. You insult people, you’re rude, you embarrass them, you make them feel uncomfortable. You tell us that we’re converts as if you’re better than us. At least we act like Aharon. So a Kohen who doesn’t act like Grandpa Aharon, who doesn’t have Rodef Shalom (pursuer of peace), is also not worth anything.
A king—the Pasuk says, “Nasi be'amecha lo ta'or.” You’re not allowed to curse a prince, for sure a king. Be'amecha. The Pasuk says only if he’s ammecha, only if he’s with you, only if he’s doing good things. If a king is a nasty king, he’s not a good king. It’s not worth anything. So all three need a Shem Tov, need to have a good reputation, have a good name, and be good people on the inside, or else it’s not worth anything.
There’s actually a beautiful idea here. When we read the Megillat Esther, we know that in the story Haman comes to speak Lashon Hara (gossip) about the Jewish people. He wants to convince Ahashverosh to kill us, to wipe us out. No matter what you say, at the end of the day, if you want to wipe out an entire people, you have to have some excuse. Even today, people who are parading with Hamas and terrorists do crazy things. Who would ever think that such a thing would happen? You can have people in universities, so-called smart people, right? But at least, as wrong as they are, they have something they’re saying: “We’re killing, we’re occupiers,” whatever they want to say.
What was Haman’s excuse? I want to know: how did he convince Ahashverosh that it’s okay? How did he justify to himself wiping out the people? That’s what I want to know. So here the Rabbis tell us, look at this: he says to Ahashverosh, “There’s a nation that’s scattered; their faith is different. They don’t care about your faith, and about—it’s not worth it for you to keep them around.” Why? He starts speaking gossip about the Jewish people. He tells Ahashverosh, “Look, if a fly falls into wine, the Jew will take the fly out and drink the wine. But if you put your finger in the wine, they won’t even drink the wine. They’ll throw the whole wine bottle out.” We know this: if a goy (non-Jew) touches the wine, we throw it out; we can’t have it. If it’s cooked, then it’s okay. But the point is, he had an interesting point. He says, “Look, they treat you worse than a fly, than a bug. A bug is not as bad as you. A bug touches the wine, they won’t even drink it.” So he told Ahashverosh things like this, and eventually Ahashverosh says, “Here’s the ring. Get rid of them.”
The question is: What did Esther say back? What did Esther say later on in the story when she’s fighting for her people? What was her argument back? How did she defend her people? She says to Ahashverosh, “If we were sold as slaves, then I would be quiet, but we’re being sold to be slaughtered.” What’s interesting is that you don’t find that she debates any of Haman’s arguments. She doesn’t try to counter his argument. She doesn’t say it’s not true, that you would drink your wine. She doesn’t say any of that. You know why? What she says to Ahashverosh is very powerful, very brilliant. She’s saying to Ahashverosh, “Haman’s right. It’s true. It’s true. We’re different. We keep kosher (ritually permissible). We’ve got these rules about how we dress. We can’t necessarily party on the same days that you guys party. We have Shabbat. We do this thing called Brit Milah (circumcision). Yeah, we can’t touch—we can’t drink wine that you touch.” All of her mindset is true, and I’m not here to argue any of that. That’s what Esther says. But you know what she adds? So what wasn’t true? What wasn’t true was his last sentence. His conclusion is false. Everything in her mindset is right. They’re different, they’re spread out, they’re all over the place. They don’t keep like us, they don’t dress like us, they don’t talk like us. They speak other languages. They study a different book. All of that is right.
And therefore, says Haman, it’s appropriate to wipe them out. And therefore, we don’t gain anything from them. So let’s get rid of them.
Esther is like, “Oh, one second, I lost you there. How did you get from there to there? I missed that jump.” This is her whole argument. She says, “It’s true. It’s true we’re different. But I’m different. I’m a Jew. I do all those things. I keep kosher. I keep Shabbat. I don’t have wine.” And she says, “Look at me. I’m Esther. You picked me, of all the women. Why did you pick me to be the queen? Because I’m the prettiest? There are other pretty women. Ahashverosh was with many women. Even married, he was with many women. Why did you pick me? Because you saw something beautiful in me. You saw something in me that was marriage material. You picked me, not despite my religion, but because of it. All the things you saw in me, all the things you picked me for—I’m kind and I’m patient and I’m a good wife and a good mother. That comes from my Torah. That’s because of my religion. It comes from this. This is what makes me a better person.”
So it’s true I’m different. But so what? Am I making America a worse place because I’m different? Am I hurting the country because I’m different? Am I bringing violence to the country? Am I bringing attacks to the country? Am I making crime go up in the country? What negative statistic am I contributing to? Everything you said is true. Yeah, it’s true. We’re very different. And therefore, we make every country better that we move to. We bring up the level of education. We bring up the level of wealth. We bring income to the country. Every place Jews went to, it was a golden era for that country. Jews went to Spain; they experienced a renaissance. They went to Iraq—a renaissance. And the second that country kicked the Jews out, what happened? They became a nobody. This is what God said to Abraham: “You’re going to bring the beracha (blessing).”
So Esther says to Ahashverosh, “I don’t understand what his problem is. Yeah, we’re different. And so what? Is it hurting the country that we’re different? Is it hurting the world that we’re different? Is it hurting you that I’m different? Am I a bad wife? What have I done to you because of my religion?”
This is something that is not only Esther saying to Haman and Ahashverosh, but every one of us has to remember. We are all growing; we become more religious, we become more observant, and sometimes the people around us will say, “Look, they’re different. You’re black hat now. You’re fanatic now. Oh, you’re all kosher now. Oh, so you can’t eat at the restaurant anymore. Now look what you did to my daughter. They brainwashed you,” this, that, this, and that. And all of that—the truth is, it’s true. I’m not going to deny it. It’s true. I can’t eat over there anymore. I have to dress differently now. But we have to be able to say, “And therefore what? What’s the problem? All that religion, all the fanaticism—is it making me a worse person? Is it making me a worse son or daughter?” We have to be able, like I said, to say loud and clear and proudly: all of the religion is only making me a better Jew, a better husband, a better wife. You don’t lose from me being more religious. You only gain. My religion is not hurting you. My religion is helping the relationship. My religion is helping the company. Now I’m more honest. Now our customers believe in us more because of my religion. It has to be that our Torah, our Kehuna, and our Malchut come with Shem Tov, come with a good name. It has to be that as we grow religiously, we’re also growing in our reputation. Or else, if we don’t have the reputation, the other three are worthless. Then Haman is right. Then Haman could defeat us and destroy us, and Esther has no argument. Esther’s only argument is: it’s true, all of the above are true, but I’m only a better person because of it.
How many people have a son or daughter who goes to Israel to seminary, to yeshiva, and they come and say, “Rabbi, it was the best decision. My son is the most respectful of all my kids.” That’s a person who, five months ago, was afraid, shaking: “What are they going to do to my kid? They’re going to make me lose my kid.” And he realized, “Not only did I not lose my kid; I found a better version of my kid.” They brought out the best Derech Eretz (proper conduct). They brought out the best Middot. That’s what religion does to a person, and that has to be the response. We create a—or else people point and say, “Look, look what yeshiva teaches you. Look how they talk. Look what they do at the Purim party. Look how they talk to the bartender. You see that? That’s what the Kippah (skullcap) gets you.” That’s a... We have to be able to make sure, to other Jews and to non-Jews, that we are able to show that our rules and religion don’t alienate us. They don’t cause the host country to lose. It’s only providing. It’s only benefiting you. You gain. I don’t know what your problem is, Haman. You’re gaining from us. You’re not getting hurt from us. Everything you said is right. We’re different. And therefore, we don’t benefit? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? How is that a therefore? That last sentence says Esther is dead wrong.
And so we have to make sure that we are always carrying the Shem Tov. I think we understand now why a Shem Tov is represented by the Menorah. We said that Hashem has four jobs that He gave to us. He carries, and He told us to carry. He watches, and He told us to watch. He brings food, and He asks us to bring korbanot. And He lights, and we light. These four correspond to the four different crowns. God carries—that’s the Keter Torah. He carries the Ark; we carry the Ark. That’s the Keter of the Ark of Torah. Hashem watches; that’s the job of a king, to have watchers. That’s Keter Malchut. God feeds; that’s Keter Kehuna. Those are the korbanot that we bring. But for the Keter of the Shem Tov, God illuminates, and we have to illuminate. It has to be that our good name, our growth, our religion is only bringing light. It’s only bringing families closer. If you’re growing and you’re causing machloket (conflict) through your growth, that means you’re not growing properly. It shouldn’t be causing machloket. It shouldn’t be. If you’re getting more religious and it’s causing people to like you less, there’s a problem in your growth. Maybe you’re doing something wrong, because the Shem Tov has to be like a Menorah. It has to illuminate. It has to bring light, love, camaraderie, and friendship, and it’s only helping America. It’s only helping my country. It’s only helping my family. You don’t lose when I grow my religion. It helps you. You benefit from that. So that’s the Menorah.
Our parasha begins, “Light the Menorah. Light the candle.” Every one of us has to light a candle. We have to make sure we are being a Menorah. We are carrying a Shem Tov. We are carrying a good name. Wherever we go, people will point and say, “Look at that Jew. Kid, I want you to be like him. Look how he acts, look how he talks. Look at his integrity. Where did he go to yeshiva? I want you to go to that yeshiva. Where did she go to seminary? I want you to go to that seminary. Look at her ba'alat chesed (woman of kindness): modest, humble, kind, respectful. I want that for my kid.” Everyone should be able to look at us, see the light, see the Menorah, see the Shem Tov, and light a path of grace, love, and peace for all those around us.