Parshas Vayikra - A Covenant of Salt

2:37 Don't hold yourself back. Don't discontinue. Don't waste any of the salt of your God's covenant. What is this bris melech? Where did this come from? And there's a third question that's not in this week's parsha, but it's relevant to this week's parsha. It has to do with this bris melach. There is a tosafot and brachot. And these tosas and brachos quote a medrash, and this medrash is brought down la halach. Girls, every Shabbos, what do we do? We have lechem mishna. We go, we wash And then we play this not talking game. You seen this? You know that move. There is a ma'isa. With a very famous basketball player That was African American, not Jewish. And he had an agent that was an Orthodox Jew. And his Orthodox Jewish agent invited him to come to this Jewish family for Shabbos lunch. And he came and he fell in love with challah.

3:46 He fell in love with challah. Challah is amazing. So he started becoming a regular at this family's lunch. The family had a child that was not super observant. I wouldn't call the kid off the derech, but he was not super observant. He was not the type of kid to wake up on Shabbos morning and go daven. He was the type of kid to come downstairs whenever he wanted. One time he comes downstairs And he sees this NBA basketball player in his house. And he goes to this NBA player. He goes, Yo, what's up? So this African American six foot eight power forward for the New York Knicks looks at the guy and he goes "Do you play that game?" You're like So Taisa says the Sotan is also playing a game in that time. This is what Taisa says. Taisa quotes a Medrash. It's brought down la halacha.

4:39 It's brought down in Shulchan Aruch. You're sitting at your Shabbos table. You've washed And you're just sitting there. So at that point You are doing no mitzvos. You're literally just sitting there. You're not on your phone. You're just sitting there. You're doing nothing. So Chazal say that at that time the Satan comes to Hashem and says, "Look at these Jews. They're not doing any mitzvos." And what does the Medrash say that Hakadosh Baruch Hu does? He points to the salt on our Shabbos table. And by the way, this is why you're supposed to have the salt out on the Shabbos table. Did you know that the salt is supposed to be on the table, meaning it shouldn't just be that you bring it when you wash? You are supposed to have the salt there before you wash, so that the entire time you have the salt there, so that when the Sotan comes and says, 'Look, they're bereft of doing any mitzvos at this time,' Hakadosh Baruch Hu can point to the salt and say, 'There is a Bris Melach. There is a covenant that I've made with this salt.'

5:41 And that's the source. To have salt on your Shabbos table, not the dipping of the salt. We'll talk about that soon. But the idea that you should have salt on your Shabbos table—that's where it comes from. So I think the obvious question is: What in the world are we talking about here? Hakadosh Baruch Hu points to the salt and says, 'I made a covenant with this salt.' The Sotan is saying they're bereft of any mitzvos. What's going on over here? So there's a beautiful gemara in Shabbos. Can we close the door? I feel like there's a lot of movement. I have ADHD, so I need focus. This Gemara in Shabbos thirty one A says the following: What happens when you die? So you go up to a Kodesh Baruch Hu And a Kodesh Baruch Hu asks you a series of questions. You've heard this Gemara before. What are the questions that God asks? Let's go through some of the questions that Hashem asks. Did you deal honestly in business?

6:42 That's a good question. That's the first question. Were you koveya itim leTorah? Did you spend time every single day learning Torah? Did you have children? That's an important question. Zipiseli Yoshua? Did you yearn for Mashiach? That's an important question. The Torah goes on. Did you learn Torah deeply? All these different questions And then. The Gemara says as follows: It's all good, but if you're missing yerushamayim Then all of it's no good. If you did all of those things, see peacefully, Yoshua, you dealt with honestly in business, you learned Torah deeply, you had thirty children, you did all of that But if you were missing yerushamayim, it's not good. The Gemara says, what can this be compared to? It can be compared to a man. Who has a slave, and he tells the slave to take this large bundle of wheat up into the attic. And the shliach, the slave, he goes and he does it. He brings all the wheat up into the attic.

7:50 And then the master says to the shliach, he says, did you mix in a kav of chumtin? We'll talk about what chumtin is in a second. Did you mix in a kav of chumtin? Then it was good. But if you didn't mix in a kav of chumten, then it was no good. Why? Because chumten is a type of preservative. Chumten is a preservative. So if you mixed in a kav of chumten, it made sense that you brought all the wheat into the attic. But if you miss out on putting the preservative into the wheat, what's going to happen to all the wheat? The wheat is going to go bad. So there was no point in schlepping all of the wheat into the attic if you don't mix in the chumten. What's this Gemara talking about? So I saw an unbelievable explanation for this Gemara. Girls, what's the gematria of the word chita?

8:48 The gematria of the word chita is twenty-two. Gematria of the word chita is twenty-two, which is connected to the aleph base. So what's the Gemara saying here? Very deep idea. A person could have every letter of Torah in their pocket. A person could spend a hundred and twenty years of their life dedicating every single moment to tayra. And they could miss the point. They could miss the point. You could serve Hashem by doing every single thing that Hashem tells you to do, and you could still miss the point of Judaism. There needs to be a preservative. There needs to be the chumtin. The chumtin is yerushimayim. But what is chumten? So listen what Rashi says. You know what chumten is? Chumten is salt. That's what chumten is. There's something about yerusha mayim and salt that are deeply connected. And even more than that If a person doesn't have this chumten, if a person doesn't have this salt, this preservative, this yerusha mayim, it means they could have the entire aleph base. They could have all of yiddishkeit in their pocket, but they're missing the point.

10:05 How could that be? So goes the false. There are three properties of salt that I want to discuss with you tonight. We'll go in order. Three properties of salt. The first is that salt does not decay. Salt cannot go bad. What does that mean? When you're a child There is maybe some of you are sensitive to this. When you're a child, there's a question that you ask yourself. It's a really uncomfortable question. But it's a question. You may not ask this question out loud. But it goes like this: Do my parents really love me? It's an uncomfortable question. You say, 'What do you mean? Of course my parents will really love me.' It's crazy that our kids ask the question. But I put you in a little bit of an uncomfortable situation for a second. Did you ever? Don't raise your hands because the answer is yes for everybody in this room. Did you ever lie to your mother?

11:16 Did you ever lie? Did you ever tell your mother something that was not true? Did you ever withhold the truth from your mother? If you did Everybody did. You're the only honest person. But everybody did. I lied to my mother regularly. If it was if I was talking, it was probably shagger. Why? As parents, what do we tell our children? You could tell me anything. As kids, what do we say? Really? How far are you willing to take it? You could tell me anything. If you cross a certain line, you're going to be grounded for two weeks. I'm taking away the car and I'm taking away your phone. But you could tell me anything. So what do kids do? It makes sense. What will kids do? I'm not gonna tell you. Why would I tell you? I had this great line with my mother. If you've ever done this, you'll know how good a line it is.

12:08 I would tell my mother what I like about our relationship because we're so honest with each other, and really I can tell you anything. It's just good. I don't need to lie to you. And my mother would say it's so much healthier that way. And she believed that. She went away the summer I was after tenth grade. My mother went to England for two weeks and left me in charge of my little brother. I sent him somewhere else. I said, "You go to a friend for two weeks" And she gave me a lot of money to take care of him. That was all mine. That was all my money for two weeks. We don't need to go into the details of what happened in those two weeks. I remember my mother going. It's so good that I could trust you to be on your own summer after tenth grade for two weeks while I go to England on a vacation with your father. I was like, 'It's so good. It really is.'

13:03 But of course, my parents love me. If they had found out what I was doing in those two weeks, would they have loved me? The answer is, of course, they would have loved me. But I'm not going to tell them what I'm doing in those two weeks. Why not? Because I don't know if they love me. And that's it. What does that mean? You don't know if they love you. Of course, every kid. Do your parents love you? Of course they love you. But I still don't want to get in trouble. But like, what do you? What do you mean? Come to me afterwards. So it goes like this. This is the hard part. As parents, you cannot possibly understand what I'm talking about. I'm planting a seed. Then, God willing, in a couple of years, in a short amount of time, you'll be able to understand what I'm talking about. Right now, you're going to have no clue what I'm talking about. There's one person. Thank you. Q. The Amein. There's one person here. That understands what I'm talking about. They have no idea what we're talking about. You can't possibly understand the love that your parents have for you until you're a parent yourself.

13:53 But I remember when my oldest daughter was born And I held her for the first time. And I thought she was beautiful. I look back at pictures and I'm like, how did I think that? But But not because she wasn't, but because every child is like they're so beautiful. She's a wolverine. She's like hair and I'm holding this baby. And the thing that I felt and this is wild and you cannot explain this. There's no logical explanation for this. I'm sitting there holding this baby and said I'm going to do everything for you. I would die for you. I was a little bit of protoplasm. It's barely human. It was born like two minutes ago. You're holding. You're like I would do everything for you. I would give over my entire being for you. As parents, it's devastating that our kids can't trust us. Of course, they can't trust us because it's our job to be disciplinarians. It's our job to be able to set boundaries and borders and trellises so that healthy trees can grow up.

14:49 But to the extent that we really know that our parents love us infinitely Unconditionally, and eternally Is the foundation for every relationship. And without that, you can't move forward. A couple years ago, one of the boys in yeshiva had a good question. He said, 'Rebbe, if Hashem loves us unconditionally, infinitely, and eternally, why should I do what He wants me to do? It doesn't matter if I do a mitzvah and I do an avera. It doesn't matter. He's going to love me either way.' I said, "It's that's that's like the saddest question I've ever heard in my entire life. If somebody loved me infinitely, unconditionally, and eternally, you know what a healthy response is? How can I participate in this relationship?" But it's become such a vending machine type of relationship that we have with God. I put in my dollar, I press A seven, you give me the chips.

15:42 I davened. It's a trade off. It's a partnership. It's not a relationship. It's not a union. It's not a marriage. There's no intimacy. The beginning of every relationship is the salt of the relationship. This relationship does not decay. This relationship is a preservative. That's the beginning of our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Step one that a person needs to know when they're serving Hakadosh Baruch Hu is: you are not serving Hashem in order to earn His love. You have His love. You're serving Hashem to participate in the relationship. People like I have to serve Hashem not to be punished. I don't want to go to Gehenna. That's terrible. That's like saying I have to do what my mother wants so that I don't get grounded. You should do what your mother wants because you're participating in a wonderful relationship with your mother. Not because you don't want to get grounded.

16:38 Anybody who says that is betraying the lack of relationship, but your mother's relationship, her love for you is infinite, unconditional, eternal. Does that make sense? That's step one. Step two, and I only learned this recently because I am not a I am not a baker. I'm a cook. I barbecue. I'm not. I'm not a baker. I'm not a baker. So it turns out that if you do not put salt in your challah, it will not be delicious. Does anyone know why that is scientifically? What does the salt do? It doesn't rise. Why? But you put yeast in it. Yeast makes things rise. You like that? I knew that. You have no. You should know. I'm one of the only men in the world that knows anything about this. I learned this for this year. Did you know that yeast makes things rise? You knew this.

17:33 Only your segment of the population knows this. None of my people know this. Really, men don't know that yeast makes things rise. I just learned it today. It's not true. I knew that. I can't believe. I can't believe you were like Oh my God, he's crazy. I'm not a moron. Why does yeast make things rise? What does the salt do? It brings out the flavor. It acts as It acts as an activator for these. Do you know what that means? No. What was that? The sugar. That's true. But it's not the only thing that's true. I learned this. I spent some time today studying what salt does in challah, and it turns out that it's not only about bringing out the taste. There's something that salt does. I wrote it down. Salt strengthens gluten. By the way, I also know what gluten is. I'm learning that I have to be gluten free.

18:36 It controls the action of the yeast. And it's a huge part of the flavor. Let's focus on the first two things for a second. What does it mean that it strengthens the gluten and controls the action of the yeast? It turns out that if you just put in yeast and you don't put in salt. The yeast will go everywhere and actually destroy the bread. So the second thing that salt does, for the purposes of this sheir Is the discipline. It's the rigidity, the boundaries and borders that are necessary for challah to become challah. So explain what this means. Too much salt. What happens to the bread? Too much discipline. What happens if the boundaries are too strong? The chala doesn't become chala. Too little, it just explodes all over the place. There's another valuable concept here in salt. If you're trying to build a relationship that exists within healthy boundaries and healthy borders.

19:42 I think I've told you this before, but it's a good one. A girl comes to me and she says, "I'd like you to counsel me and the guy that I'm dating." We're on the verge of getting engaged. This meeting with you is going to decide if we're getting engaged or not. So I said that's a big deal. I happen to have been in L. A. So I said I'll sit down with this couple. So I sat down with the couple, and the guy says to me, he goes, I don't understand what her problem is. I don't understand. I'm ready to get engaged, and she's holding back because she's not sure. I don't understand the problem. I said to the girl, what's the problem? She said, he told me he only wants to be married to me six and a half days a week. I said, "Come again."

20:26 She said, "He only wants to be married to me six and a half days a week." The guy's rolling his eyes. He goes, "That's an exaggeration." I said, "Okay, what did you say?" He said, "I only want to be married to her six and a half days a week. That's true, but I told her I'm going to be the best husband six and a half days a week. I'm going to give her everything. She doesn't have to work. I'm going to provide for everything." She'll never. I will run to the store at midnight to get her pickles and ice cream when she's pregnant. I will serve her hand and foot. There's nothing I won't do for her, but it's true. Half a day I can't be married to her. One half of one day. That's all I'm asking. From eleven o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock at night, we're not married. So I said, "Just help me understand what's going on from eleven o'clock to eight o'clock." So he goes, "It's not even the whole year."

21:13 It's just for a couple of months, for half the year. So I said, 'What's from 11 o'clock to 8 o'clock for half the year?' He goes, 'It's football season.' From 11 o'clock in the afternoon, that's when the first game is, to 8 o'clock at night, we're not married. I said, 'What do you mean you're not married? You mean you want to watch the game?' And he goes, "No" I've seen this. This is what women do. This is what he tells me. He goes, 'This is what women do.' You knew it wasn't going well because he's talking about the whole species. This is what women do. I want to watch the game. She's going to come to me and she's going to say, 'Can you just do this one thing for me?' So these men, they do it because they're married. I'm just trying to say, from eleven o'clock to eight o'clock, don't ask me to do anything for you. It's football season, and at eight o' one, I will be the best husband in the world.

22:01 And at ten fifty nine, I'll be the best husband in the world. But from eleven to eight, we're not married. I'll be in the basement. I'll be doing my thing. Giant screen TV, chips, fries, whatever it is. I'm not asking you to do anything for me in those hours either. Do whatever you want. You want to go shopping, do whatever you want. But from eleven to eight, I don't want to be one of those husbands that's fending off his wife when he's trying to watch football. And the girl, the entire time, she's sitting there like this. Do you see? Do you see this? Do you see what's going on? So he said to her, 'He goes, "Tell me what the problem is exactly."' She goes, 'Because we're gonna be married. That's the problem.' He goes, 'Well, we'll see. It's not so posh.' And it was a real thing. It took a lot of work for him to understand that there's a very big difference between saying one thing that's really important to me is from eleven o'clock to eight o'clock to watch football And I don't want to be put in an uncomfortable position where I'm choosing between you and football.

22:58 That would have been one statement. He said we're not married from eleven to eight. He looks at me. He goes, "What's the difference? Either way, I just don't want to be in that position." I said because one there is a relationship and the other there isn't. You can't ignore the other person from eleven to eight. She's either a part of your life or she isn't. He goes, but I'm being upfront. I'm being honest. By the way, if you say that, that doesn't make it all better. That's like a thing that I see kids doing. Rabbi, I'm just being honest with you. Honest could still be terrible. I'm just being honest. I murdered three people, but at least I'm honest. I'm being honest with her. From eleven to eight, we're not married. You're a sick person. Where are the boundaries and borders of the relationship? A relationship has another property. It's another salt type of property. Within healthy and appropriate boundaries, things can flourish.

23:53 If the boundaries are too strong, things die. If the boundaries are too loose, things explode. Does that make sense? A husband who's controlling doesn't have healthy boundaries. He's flattening another person. A husband who says we're not married from eleven to eight, the relationship is too loose. The second dimension of our relationship, Alakadosh Baruch Hu, and this is uncomfortable to talk about, but it makes sense. We have rules. We follow rules. These are not bad things; these are good things. Yesterday, I flew back a day early so I could get here for Shira. I get on the plane. I was in America Sunday, Monday. So I get on the plane Monday night. I'm like the last person on the plane because that's the way I roll, and I go to the plane and I know that people in my row are upset to see me. You ever do that? You know how you can walk on a plane and you know people are like hoping not me, please not me. It's not even the overweight with a beard thing. It's more like I would rather have the seat next to me open, and there's this couple sitting there. I don't know them from a hole in the wall. Nice man and woman. In their twenties.

25:03 And they're sitting in this. The window seat is open. I know that you're bothered by my existence right now, but that is my seat. They said, 'No, it's okay.' They're from Colorado. They're really nice people. Turns out they're Christian ministers. And they're coming to Israel to see the Sea of Galilee and the Church of the Holy blah. And they're on this whole mission, and they start talking to me about Christian theology. They're ministering to me. And I'm like, I just want to go to sleep. And it ended up becoming a three and a half hour theological conversation about the differences between Judaism and Christianity. And in the context of that conversation, this is amazing So I said to them, "I'm like, so what do you do to be a Christian? What do you have to do?" And he's like, 'Well, you have to follow in the ways of Jesus.' I'm like, 'What does that mean? You walk old ladies across the street?' He said, 'Jesus would walk old ladies across the street for sure.'

25:53 So I'm like, 'That's awesome, but you don't need to be Christian to do that.' He goes, 'Right, that's for everybody. Everybody can act like Jesus.' I'm like, What are your halachos? What do you do? What are the rules? And he's like, "Well, that is one area where I think Judaism has a leg up on us. We don't really have rules." He's like Jesus did not come. He's really ministering to me. He's like it's very sweet. He was trying to save me. My soul was damned. Did you know that? He told me last night. He was very sweet about it though. I said to him, "If I act like Jesus my entire life, but I just don't accept him as my Lord and Savior, am I damned?" "Oh yes." I said, "Well, that really stinks for me." They were very kind about it. I said, "Your soul isn't damned. You could be a nice person. You could have a place in the world to come in my religion."

26:41 He goes, 'Well, that's really open-minded of you.' We're an open-minded people, anyway. So he said to me, 'Jesus did not come to take away the law.' So I said, 'So, do you keep Shabbos?' He goes, 'Well, no, we don't keep Shabbos.' I said, 'How about kosher?' He goes, 'Well' We don't keep kosher. So, what happened to the law? So he's like, "Yeah, that's an area where I think maybe we're not as good as we should be." Because it doesn't mean anything to say you're in a relationship if you can't tell me what the rules of the relationship are, and there are rules of the relationship. Everybody has rules of the relationship. Do we not have rules of the relationship? We have rules of the relationship. Now you can articulate every couple has different rules, but there are rules. There are boundaries and borders and things that are supposed to be in order for the relationship to develop. That's also a salt idea. And then the last one And this is my favorite one, salt brings out the flavor of things. Have you ever seen this in Israel? I don't think they do this in America. Have you ever seen this in America? Do you ever see them cut up watermelon and put salty cheese on top of watermelon?

27:45 Sounds disgusting. It's amazing. It's amazing. If you put it, you could do it on your own. It could be like an experiment that you do here in Tomer Zvori. You could buy a watermelon. And you could have a watermelon. If you put salt on a watermelon, it's delicious. It's delicious. Feta cheese on a, is it delicious? It's so good. This is going to be a new thing we're bringing here together. If you're lactose intolerant, welcome to my world. It's worth it. Take a pill. It's like pizza. I'm lactose intolerant, but without the pill, I'm a man. I suffer through it. I'm gonna eat pizza anyway. Three hours later, I realized that was such a bad decision. The next day, I was going to eat pizza anyway. The salt brings out the flavor of things. No relationship should be bland. Every relationship has the capacity to fall apart because you're going through the motions.

28:40 But you're missing the excitement of the relationship. Every relationship has that. You show up. You want to see. You want to know what it looks like when you go on a date with your husband, fifteen to twenty years after you're married? You talk about your kids. That's all you talk about. That's all you talk about. It's the am I right? What are we going to talk about? When you're kidding, you got on a date. You talked about your hopes and your dreams, and I see what he aspires to be, and I also want to be there as part of that journey. I feel like we complement each other. And then you got on a date ten years later, and he's like, 'What are we going to do with that kid?' 'What are we going to do with that kid?' And I was up all night with that kid. And then you say to each other, 'Let's go on a date and not talk about a kid.' So what do you talk about then? Other people's kids. How they're messing up your kids.

29:29 We don't even have other things. And it's possible for a relationship to become boring. It's possible. Why? Because at some point At some point. You're not participating in the relationship anymore. You're just going through the motions. And how many of us feel that way in our Judaism? Show up, I daven, I do chesed, I dress appropriately, I speak appropriately, I make brachos, I go to sleep, I say Shema before I go to sleep, I wake up the next morning, I wash negel vaser, rinse, and repeat. And at some point in life, you're looking at it, going I was excited about it when I was in seminary. It was new, it was fresh. I was in Yerushalayim, it was beautiful. I walked to the Kotel. Then you get cut off, like in the mundane aspects of life. Where'd the sweetness go? You know what the answer is. You need to add that salt on to bring out the sweetness. Let's go back to that. Kamaria and Shabbos.

30:21 You come up after a hundred and twenty. What does God say? He says you have the whole olive base. You did the whole thing. But what's the question? Where was the salt? What's Hashem want to know? Three things. Number one Did you appreciate the eternal relationship that we have? Number two, did the relationship exist within boundaries? Because this is what preserves us. And number three, were you passionate about your Judaism? Was it real to you? Were you authentic about it? Why does the satan come on Shabbos and say, "Look at these Jews; they're bereft of mitzvos." Hashem points to the Bris Melach and he says, "What?" He says "This relationship is eternal. It's not about mitzvos and averos. This relationship has salt in it. We exist within boundaries. Right now, they're not talking. That's appropriate." He says, 'This salt that they're about to dip that bread into—that's what makes the relationship real. They're bringing out the flavor of the relationship. That's the answer to the satan. That's the bris melach.'

31:21 I saw a very beautiful idea brought down al pi kabbalah. If you ever saw your father dipping the salt, dipping the bread in the salt, how many times does he dip? Three times. Three times. Why three times? First of all, it says salt in this week's parsha, this pasuk, three times. Our table is a mizbeach. Our table is an altar where we bring things to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. There's another reason also. What's the gematria of lechem? The gematria of lechem is seventy-eight. Seventy-eight divided by three. If you take it and dip it into the salt three times, what does it come out to? Twenty-six. Twenty-six is Yudkevavke. It's Hashem's name. You're taking the physical aspects of the world and saying, no. This is not just physical. I'm dedicating everything in my life to Hashem. I want to bring out the godliness of every single thing in my life. That's why we salt our meat.

32:09 The blood of the meat is not allowed to be eaten because the blood is the pleasure for the sake of pleasure. But we take our meat and we salt it to say we're going to have Hashem's world, but it's going to be for Hashem. It's not going to be for our own pleasure. We're taking out all of that blood. Girls, we're a stone's throw away from Purim. Next week there's no school on Wednesday night because it's Tisha B'Av. We're a stone's throw away from Purim. Which means there's probably one or two weeks left before Pesach that we have Sheer. Is there only one? One, maybe two? This is a fascinating conversation. Let's take a poll. How many people think two? How many people think one? We have two. We have two. We have one. But I think it's two. It's two. But some people say it's one. Let's discuss it. We don't have to discuss. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is. Two. Great. It seems that it's an important conversation. Girls It's the end of Chorev Sman and Toma Devora. It's a good time to check in and ask ourselves how we're doing with the salt of our relationship. Girls, have a wonderful Shabbos and a fraylich imparim.