There's something in our lives where we always have to have dignity. We have to know our place. Even then, we do things in our lives to humble ourselves. I'll explain.
You have the Kohen (priest). The Kohanim would go and do the Avodah (work) of the Beit HaMikdash. The Torah says you have to give Kavod (respect) to a Kohen. You're obligated to give respect to the Kohen. For example, he goes first when he gets to the Sefer Torah, or for Zimun (invitation to grace after meals), of course. But we respect him. You give him the Zimun; you give him a lot of Kibudim (honors).
Now, that being said, there's one of the Avodahs, one of the jobs that the Kohen does every single morning. It could be whichever Kohen it is, and that is taking the deshen, taking the ashes from the previous korban (offering). Meaning, you had the ashes from whatever it was. It's all there. He literally takes it, takes it all out. So he says, "What are you doing? Let somebody else take out the ashes. Let somebody else take them out. You're a Kohen." The answer is very simple. Even the Kohen himself has to know his place. Therefore, he's humbled from the first second he's walking into the Beit HaMikdash, knowing, of course, he's proud to do it, but he's humbled doing that job of cleaning up. And that way, his ego won't be tremendously high anymore. He understands his place: "Oh, I'm doing God's work."
And the proof is that sometimes I have the best job, the most rewarding job, and sometimes you have to take out the leftover ashes, right? Now, that being said, the same goes vice versa. So again, we have to do acts that are humbling, and we also have to do acts that are a little bit more dignifying, to uplift the person's ego.
I'll give you an example. Two examples. One example is of a poor man who brings a bird offering. The halacha (Jewish law) says you burn it with the feathers. Now, if you burn feathers, it smells bad. It's just a disgusting odor. Burn a feather. You know, it's—whoa, what a smell. And Hashem says, "This is the best smell. I love this smell." What's going on? You love it? Why? Shave off all the feathers and bring the bird with, you know. So the answer is very simple. Imagine you take off all the bird's feathers. You know how small the poor man's korban is going to be? You know how many feathers a bird has? Take all the feathers and just skin them down, and you have only skin? It's a joke. The guy's going to look at his korban and say, "This is my korban? It's a joke." So we want to keep his dignity. So what do we do? We tell him, "You know what? We'll take you with the feathers." And Hashem says, "I love it." You know why? Because I know the intentions of the people are to make this poor person feel good, not to take away his dignity and make him feel good.
The Gemara in Masechet Chagigah says that if a person gives to a poor person in public—you give him in public—nobody knows that this guy is poor. Nobody knows. He's a poor man. He sits next to you in the shul (synagogue), whatever it is. Who knows? And nobody knows he's poor. And you go out and give him some money. You say, "Oh, by the way, this is your Pesach (Passover) money that you need for—this is for you and your family." You tell him like that. He's embarrassed, red, white, and blue. Nobody knows. All of a sudden, you just revealed his whole situation. He's so embarrassed. It would be better not to give the guy anything than to embarrass him in front of everybody. Therefore, we always want to preserve the person's ego, the person's dignity. A person has respect, self-respect. You have to make sure that's happening.
The same thing also applies. Besides that whole situation, it also applies in the case of Bikurim, the first fruit that blossoms out. Let me explain. You know, with Bikurim, there's a very big statement there: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. And there's a reason they say that. They say, "With Bikurim, why?" Because you bring in a basket, and the first fruits come in the basket. The rich man brings it; the poor man brings it. The difference is that the rich man has a lot of produce, so he has a lot of first fruits. He has a lot of Bikurim, the first fruit that blossoms out. He puts it around the man when it grows. He gives it to the man. So he has a lot of fruits. So what does he do? He brings in a great, great basket, like a gold basket, whatever it is, something amazing. He adorns the basket, makes it beautiful. So when the Kohen gets it, he takes out all the fruit that's inside and gives him back the gold, whatever he's giving it in.
You have the poor man. The poor man, we take the whole basket with it, and we don't give him back his basket. So the question is, why? He brings back his basket? Take out the fruits? No. Because we want to give him that self-respect. If we open up his basket and see how much fruit there is in there, it's going to be very little because he doesn't have that much to give. All right? So we don't want to lose his self-respect. So we take everything with it.
You know, have you ever seen someone giving you a gift, and all of a sudden you open it up and see that half the gift is wrapping paper on the bottom? You know, it's like, "What do you give me, like two pieces? Like, what are you doing?" You know, so there's a lot of wrapping paper. Nobody knows, but inside, deep down... So we don't want to embarrass the poor man. We want to give him that self-respect. We take the whole entire basket from him.
Now, that being said, it's the same thing when it comes to the Passover—Pesach. What do we say? We start off the Seder (Passover ritual meal). "Ha Lachma Anya Di Achalu Avhatana." And we continue saying, "This is the poor man's bread. Anybody who wants can come and eat." So the question is, just say, "Anyone who comes, anybody who wants to come, come and eat." Why are we giving the intro before we invite the guests? "Oh, by the way, just know, this is the poor man's bread. Anyone who wants can come and eat." Just say, "Anyone who wants, come and eat." Why give that intro about the matzah (unleavened bread) before? The answer is very simple. Because if we just say, "Oh, come and eat, come and eat," the guy might be a little bit embarrassed. But if you say, "This is the poor man's bread," what are you having the poor man's bread for? "Oh, because I'm doing a mitzvah (commandment)." "Oh, you're doing a mitzvah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come and eat with me. Come and do the mitzvah with me." So it's more of, "You'll be my partner. Partner up with me in doing this mitzvah." So now he doesn't feel embarrassed to just walk in. "Oh, you need help eating that poor man's matzah because you need to eat with people? Okay, I'll come help you out." So he feels good. "Oh, you're helping me. Oh, you're helping me out by coming." And that's really the purpose.
And I'll tell you, I'll never forget this. A few years back, there was an older rabbi than me. He was a few years older, I would say, like 15, 20 years older than me, and I'll never forget he was running a project, and the project was very, very successful, extremely successful. When I was speaking to him, I said, "Listen, do you need help? Can I help you?" I'll never forget what he said. He said to me, "Yes, we're going to partner together to build it together." We were going to partner together. He didn't make it like, "Oh, I'm helping." Yeah, it's great that you're helping, but here you're partners with me. The way he said it was like, "Wow, he needs me. I need you to be my partner in building it. Yes, I need you to be my partner, not to help me. I need you to be my partner in building it." I felt so good. I felt like, "Wow, I'm his partner." I felt amazing. I felt amazing. It was like a different level of wow.
It's the same thing. You always have to have that self-respect. So this is the great lesson that we're learning from this week. This week, you remember the Kohen was the one who would remove the ashes. Why? To understand that, yes, we have to give you the utmost respect, yes. But just know what your place is, just know you're doing it for Hashem, and just know, these are the ashes that you also have to take out. Aye, it's a pleasure taking them out as well. You're right, but when I... And the same thing as well: self-respect for everybody else. To the poor, to the wealthy, to everybody else, you have to give that utmost respect. It's amazing to talk about now because we know the Omer (counting period) is coming up and other things are coming up, and we have to show as much respect as we can. Giving respect to people is free. You don't have to pay money for that. And everybody feels good. Make the person feel good. Give them a good smile. How you doing? How's everything? Anything I can do for you? Can I make you a coffee, whatever it is, make the other person feel good. And when you do that, you will feel good yourself.