We're holding, folks, דף מ״ד עמוד א׳. תנא דבי רבי ישמעאל, it's taught in the ישיבה of רבי ישמעאל: על מה קטורת מכפרת? We know that these קרבנות forgive for different things. What עבירה does קטורת forgive? על לשון הרע. Now, it doesn't mean you can speak לשון הרע and rely on קטורת. If you happen to speak לשון הרע, it forgives. Where do we see the connection? יבא דבר שבחשאי ויכפר על מעשה שבחשאי. I hear. In the middle of מ״ד? In the middle of מ״ד, no. מ״ד עמוד א׳, yeah. That's right, the beginning of a new פרק. This goes back right a little bit before. Okay. Yeah, yeah. קטורת was made very quietly. Not quietly, the דין is that nobody was allowed to be in the בית המקדש, in the היכל. It says: וכל אדם לא יהיה באהל מועד. No one was allowed to be there. Actually, ירושלמי says וכל אדם לא יהיה באהל מועד, no אדם was supposed to be there, אפילו אלו שעליהם כתיב ודמות פניהם פני אדם. It says about מלאכים, called men. Even מלאכים were not allowed to be there, just the כהן and הרבש״ע. Not even other כהנים? No other כהנים. Any reason? Because it's a דבר שבחשאי, it's something כהן גדול? No, what כהן גדול? Not בית המקדש, not in קדשי הקדשים, in the אהל מועד, any time any כהן brought קטורת. And קטורת was the highest level of connection of a איד to the אויבערשטער. Just like קרבנות, you see in the words, קרבנות comes from the word קירוב. What's קירוב? Means you get close to the אויבערשטער.

קטורת comes from the word knot. A קטורת is a knot. So being close is one thing, and then being tied together is another thing. So קטורת is the highest עבודה. And the קבלה says the main עבודה in the בית המקדש is קרבנות, in the קרבנות גופא the קטורת was the highest ענין. And that's why there was never a כהן that repeated it. If a כהן ever did it, he never did it again. They wouldn't let him, they wanted to give everyone have a זכות, because it's so special. And this is something that had to be very quiet, basically it's such a high מדרגה, you're ממש standing with the אויבערשטער, so it forgives on things that you do quietly. Usually לשון הרע you whisper, you know, you say quietly. אמר רב חסדא, רב חסדא said: שבעה זהובים הן. There are seven kinds of gold: There's זהב, regular gold. Then זהב טוב, special gold called good gold. זהב אופיר, Ophir, we'll see in a second. זהב מופז, זהב שחוט, וזהב סגור, וזהב פרוים. I know it's a place, but Ophir, I don't know, Africa? Africa, Ophir, yeah. The גמרא explains: זהב וזהב טוב. Where do we see that there is good gold, there's regular gold and good gold? שנאמר, it says in the beginning of בראשית, וזהב הארץ ההיא טוב. It says that the four rivers came, and they came one to חדקל, and over there, the gold there was good. What does that show? That there is some gold regular and some gold are good. Other places are regular, this place is good. 24 karat. Yeah. 24 karat. Yeah, exactly. So it shows that there is good gold and regular gold and good gold. That doctor that spoke his name is אופיר? Yeah, yeah, אופיר, yeah. Then you have זהב אופיר, what does that mean? דאתי מאופיר, comes from אופיר. זהב מופז, why, which gold is that? שדומה לפז. פז in Yiddish, I don't know in English how it goes, in Yiddish goes פז is גילדן gold, גילדן gold. There is regular gold and גילדן gold, it's a certain type of gold. איז עס מבריק? גילדן gold is a bit בעסער, yeah, אַזעכע כּוחות, higher half, yeah. טייער, טייערער. Nein, that's another. What can be better? Why? זהב, שטייט נישט זהב טהור, זהב טוב. If זהב, זהב טוב, then you have זהב comes from אופיר, which is better, and then you have זהב from מופז. זהב מופז that is דומה לפז, it's ממש like גילדן gold, that's that type of gold. זהב שחוט, why is it called זהב שחוט? So שחוט we always think comes from שחיטה, and here it's not, it comes from the word שחוט. חוט is a thread. שנטווה כחוט. You could weave it like a thread. I guess it's a certain מעלה that you have. ציצית. A ציצית, yeah. וזהב סגור, closed gold. Why is it called closed? בשעה שנפתח, כל החניות נסגרות. If you open a store of selling this gold, all other stores of gold will close. No one's going to go buy it, it's so good that when you see this, no one's going to buy anything else. It's called זהב סגור, gold that closes the stores. I don't know what it is. וזהב זהב פרווים שדומה לדם הפרים, it's red, it's similar to the blood of of the the פרים, of the the bulls. Plating? Up, פרווים, פפר, yeah, so it's red, which means no, פשט is it was red gold. They say, טאקע, the more the higher carat, the red more red it is. 925, what's gold? Does it have a number? There is. No, 24 carat there is. 24 karat and 14 and 10 carat. 10 carat, 14 carat gold there is. The highest is it's red. The real color of gold is not yellow. It's a purity. Yeah. It's very soft. 24 is already Very soft, very soft. Make bend. You could bend it. Yeah, this red, this, what it says, very soft. So the

רבי even says לגבי the ארון, the cover of the ארון, רש״י says, was a טפח thick. Now, in חומש it doesn't say, everything says how thick the ארון, how tall it is, but the כפורת, it says was two and a half אמות long, one and a half אמה wide. That's all it says in חומש. רש״י says, רבותינו דרשו, the חכמים said it was טפח, a טפח thick, this thick. Whatever, the שיחה there, the רבי asks, first of all, why is that נוגע? Doesn't say in חומש. And where does רש״י get it from? רש״י, everything רש״י says is נוגע to פשט. Where, okay, a lot of times he quotes the חכמים as a פשט, but here doesn't answer anything, there's nothing in the חומש that So the רבי says, "Yes, רש״י is asking a שאלה, answering a שאלה. If you have the length of the ארון was two and a half אמה by one and a half and you put a piece of gold there, and especially soft gold, it's going to sink in. How's it going to last? How could it hold it on top? Especially with the כפורת on top." So רש״י says it has to be, it must be very thick gold. So רש״י says, "Yes, the רבותינו say that it was a טפח." But otherwise, it makes no sense. The רבי even wrote later somebody asked a שאלה on the שיחה, somebody So the רבי the רבי answered, "אדרבה, try it. Take a cardboard in proportion, the same proportion, put it down, you'll see it'll sink." Proportion of the of the Yeah, just like two and a half, one and a half, make like it'll sink. It can't hold that way, so you've got to have to It's all it's not like with covered with gold, correct? זהב, best of the gold. זהב זהב gold, it's not a color, it's זהב. The מראה זהב is not pure gold. It's not pure pure. מראה זהב, it's not pure gold. געל, that's מראה זהב. Nein, nein, that's the gold, what's we know. It's a gold. What's a מראה from פרה from דם, it's not a gold, it's a דם. לגבי דם steht it that the דוגמא, what's you give is not a מראה זהב, what's we know. Keiner knows it's pure gold, is too soft, is like ממש it stretches. Nein, say they say it's red like פורים. And does it say it was solid gold as opposed to like wood covered with gold? No, no, no, the ארון was wood covered, this was solid gold. The מזבח, yeah, it was solid. It was also covered with gold. The מנורה was solid. מנורה was solid. That weight Yeah, you could imagine how, yeah, yeah. And how expensive it was! In heutige prices, how how much it how expensive would be a a כפורת! Like when you see even those bricks of gold, those things are heavy. Yeah, a brick of gold is That's why, again, the the the same שיחה, but it's a different פרט. Says by the by the by the ארון, it says, says, ויעש בצלאל את הארון. בצלאל made the ארון. So רש״י says, because he took care of the job, it's called on his name. Because he got involved more than others. רש״י קומט נישט דאָ? It's a רש״י. The רבי asks a שאלה Who said that? רש״י, which רמב״ם? רש״י. רש״י says. So the רבי asks a שאלה on this רש״י, why does רש״י bring רש״י always goes פשוטו של מקרא? ויעש בצלאל, בצלאל made it. Why do you have to say that באמת other people, more people made that, he was involved, that's why it's called on his name? So the רבי answers, "Because he couldn't pick it, no one, one person could do it. It's impossible, it's so heavy that you can't have one person pick it up." Simple, simple. Yeah, he says that's why he said connected to this ענין that it was a טפח. So why did רש״י say a טפח for that reason? If it was a טפח, you know how heavy that כפורת was? Solid gold, this thick, two and a half אמות long, and and one and a half אמה wide, and solid a טפח, this thick I mean, it it weighted tons! And they carried the whole thing? And that, well it says, over there it says הארון נושא את נושאיו, carried carried, the people carried it. That was a נס. But what I'm saying, but this is a פשט. That's why it says רש״י says, it can't be ויעש, he made it. Okay, זאָגט די גמרא ווײַטער, אמרו עליו על רבי ישמעאל בן קימכית, they said about רבי ישמעאל the son of קימכית. Now, קימכית is a famous woman. It's the one that had seven sons who were כהנים גדולים. Never uncovered her Huh? That's what we said, never uncovered her hair. So they

said about רבי ישמעאל the son of קימכית, חם בן ארבע קבין במלוא חפניו. He was able to take in one, in in one hand, four קבין of קטורת. It's a big amount. He was he was very strong and very big. רבי ישמעאל of the No, no, no, no, no. Different רבי ישמעאל. So אמר, and this is what he said. He was big and strong, he said: כל נשים זרדו וזרדי דאימא עלה לגג. All the women have זרד, I'll explain in a second, the גמרא explains, my mother had so much, so much זרד that it went up to the roof, which means, and that's why I was born special big and strong, and I was able to do it. Now what is זרד? איכא דאמרי, some say בארסן, בארסן, ארסן, okay? What's ארסן? ארסן is a certain herb, some kind of food, see, that it's good for a person who's sick. If you eat it, it's like a it makes you healthy. So all pregnant women eat it those days, because a pregnant woman is considered sick, and this makes her healthy. But my mother ate so much of it, and that she got so healthy, that the the birth that she gave to me made made me so strong. כדאבא בר רב יונתן, like אבא בר רב יונתן said, דאמר אבא בר רב יונתן, אמר רבי, אמר רבי יחיאל: ארסן יפה לחולה. It's good for a sick person, and therefore it was good for a pregnant woman and good for his mother. She did Is there a Yiddish on the ארסן, what the ארסן is? Rashi on this page? Rashi doesn't say. But if Rashi says בלעז, Rashi would say the French word, then you have a Yiddish of what Rashi would say, yeah. And איכא דאמרי, some say שכבת זרע. That it means the ארסן means שכבת זרע. That we know that the זרע of a person, there's much, there's what in a child when she conceives, it's only one little tiny drop of of millions of of of little sperm that go. So that's that's what it is. So she said, when he said everyone else is זרד, and and which one comes, which one gets connected to the egg? The best one, the one that's strongest, the best one. So he said like this, that my mother, she had this ארסן, this this זרד, what does that mean? That she had, by her, the the like this one you say the best one goes, it's not always the ממש the best, but the stronger one spreads. By her, when she conceived, this was the strongest of the strongest, the best of all the זרע that was there. And that's why he used this expression went all the way to the roof, I mean it's an expression. And that's why I was born that way. So it's with a ד? Why זרד? You said it's Aramaic? What? זרד instead of זרת. Yeah, must be Aramaic. Physically big. Yeah, he had a big hand and he was a big guy, strong guy, that's why he could hold it. ארסן is Barley.