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Friday, February 22

The Weekly Shtikle - Ki Sisa

Two questions:

Towards the beginning of the parsha, we are given the recipes for two important concoctions: the "shemen hamishchah," the anointing oil, and the "ketores," incense. Each is followed by a prohibtion against the rebroadcast, retransmission without the expressed written consent... (sorry, still in Purim mode.) But there is where we find an interesting discrepency. The prohibitoin against reproducing the shemen hamishchah (30:32-33) is regardless of purpose. That is, it appears that one has transgressed simply by remixing the ingredients in their exact proportions. With the ketores, however, although the prohibition (30:37) is stated in similar, genric terms, the punishment in the very next pasuk seems to apply only to someone who mixes the ingredients for the purpose of smelling it.
Additonally, in the case of the shemen hamishchah, there is a clear prohibition against the mundane use of that which was created for the proper purpose. There does not seem to be any similar prohibition against the burning of the incense for mundane purposes. Why these differences?
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And a An old but unanswered one:
Rashi (34:32) goes through the process by which the Torah was taught to B'nei Yisroel. Moshe learned the Torah from HaShem. Aharon came in and Moshe taught it to Aharon after which Aharon sat at his left. Then his sons came in and learned from Moshe after which Elazar sat to the right and Isamar to the left, etc. The simple question is, where were Nadav and Avihu? It seems clear that this process is referring to events that took place right after Yom Kippur. If so, Nadav and Avihu were still alive and well and we know that they were tzaddikim. So where were they? And if this is talking about after their death in Nissan, then what is this pasuk doing here?

Have a good Shabbos.
Mishenichnas Adar marbim be'Simchah!

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