Torah

We will now begin a five-to-six-part series on Birkas HaMazon. We will be presenting a masterpiece written by Rabbi Shlomo Goldfinger, who has also authored very insightful s’farim on tefilah.

One of the daily activities in the Mishkan was taking out the ashes. The Chovos HaL’vavos explains that Hashem commanded Aharon to do this action each day “to lower himself and rid himself of the arrogance in his heart.”

v’al t’vi’einu lo liydei cheit, v’lo liydei aveirah v’avon…

Do not bring us into the power of error, nor into the power of transgression and sin…

Moshe Rabbeinu was the single greatest human being who ever lived. The Rambam tells us that of all the N’viim, he alone was able to speak to Hashem directly. Normally, a prophet must go into an altered state of consciousness to experience Hashem. Otherwise, the experience would cause sensory overload, and he would die. Moshe was able to speak to Hashem in a totally clear, conscious state of mind. At any time, he could approach Hashem and speak, experiencing Hashem as I do a neighbor or friend. Moshe was also granted access to the entire Torah, in all its depths and its secrets.

It is very helpful to spend a few seconds before each tefilah thinking about the precious gift of being able to speak directly to Hashem (“Atah”): that He is listening to what we are about to say and think, and to remind ourselves of what Tefilah is really about.

Moshe was commanded to make garments for the kohanim.

Moshe was commanded to make garments for the kohanim. Included in these was the eifod, a piece of clothing similar to an apron, with two shoulder straps on top holding the avnei shoham, gold settings that contained precious stones. Hashem told Moshe to engrave the names of the 12 sh’vatim (tribes) onto these stones as a remembrance. Rashi explains that this was so that the memory of Reuven, Shimon, Levi, etc. would be invoked when the Kohen Gadol did the avodah, and Hashem would then remember their righteousness.