Last Week's PPP (Acharei-K'doshim)

[1] Across the top, The word mob in the form of a dictionary definition. Check your dictionary. The three that I check all find mob as the word that follows moat, making this ACHREI MOT.

[2] Middle. Left to right. There is a kid. On the globe, X marks the spot - the Pacific Ocean. Then there is the Eiffel Tower and the letter U, indicating French for the word YOU. Which is both vous and tu. Here, TU was intended, specifically, its spelling T,U. All together, you have KID-OCEAN-T-U, which if you say it theright way at the right speed with the right intonation gives you the second sedra of the pair - K'doshim Tih'yu.

[3] Bottom. Left to right. The letter D, followed by four different representations of the number three - 3:00 o'clock, the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil monkey trio, a three-leaf clover, and a three-scoop ice cream cone. The letter D in Roman numerals is 500. That gives you 500 followed by 4 threes, which isthe Israel Center's new phone number. Sorry.

Radio Riddles

First asked on Torah Tibits Audio, ARUTZ-7 Thursday night, 10:10-11:00pm.

[A] Big Deal riddle: Bnei Yisrael can't; Yisrael did.

[B] Noam Productions riddle: The poor barber can and can't.

The TT362PPP Report...

Slim pickings again this week. We did have some people who caught the phone number part of the riddle, but that was it. A few interesting attempts. For example, the three monkeys were associated with the prohibitions of speaking (or hearing) Lashon HaRa, and the prohibition of cursing the deaf and placing a stumbling blockbefore the blind. Much more substantive than the "real" answer, but... Also, someone expressed the hope that I had not stooped so low as to use the large three-scoop ice cream cone to represent the Kohen HaGadol. No, not that far. One reader suggested that the mob represented the people who accompanied the Kohen takingthe scapegoat to the Midbar. We'll leave this week's PPP solvers anonymous, for their own protection.

Answers to the Radio Riddles

The similarity between the two riddles was fairly coincidental and uninentional.

[A] Bnei Yisrael cannot marry two sisters. A man's wife's sister is forbidden to him during his wife's lifetime. That means that if a man divorces his wife, he still may not marry her sister, if his ex-wife is still alive. And yet, Yisrael - Yaakov Avinu - did marry two sisters. After the riddle was answered on the air,I asked for listeners' comments as to what Yaakov had done. Basically, three different answers were offered. [1] Although our Tradition tells us that the Avot kept Taryag mitzvot, this was so in Eretz Yisrael, but not necessarily so in Chutz LaAretz. (I'd be interested in a source for this distinction.) Yaakov marriedRachel and Leah outside of Eretz Yisrael, and very shortly upon his return to E. Yisrael, Rachel died. [2] Rachel and Leah were actually converts to Judaism (in a pre-Sinai kind of way). This technically removes their biological sisterhood from a halachic context. Yaakov Avinu did not marry two halachically recognizedsisters. [3] Yaakov had a contractual obligation to take Rachel as a wife. This arrangement was entered into before he was given Leah. Yaakov's obligation to marry Rachel overrides the non-binding (before Matan Torah) prohibition against marrying two sisters. If you know other answers, please send them my way, either byphone, 500-3333, or email: tt@ou.org.

[B] The poor barber's dilemma is related to PE'AH (PEI'OT). He is forbidden (as we all are) to cut the corner of the head and face, but because he is poor, he is allowed to take the PE'AH of the field, left to him (and other poor people) by the field's owner, in compliance with the mitzvot as presented in the beginningof K'doshim. After this riddle was solved on the air, I asked the listeners what was wrong with the riddle. A few attempts at that question did not touch upon what I had in mind with that question, namely, that a poor person cannot CUT Pe'ah either. The Mishna tells us that PE'AH was not to be cut using scythes or sickles,because of the danger of injury caused by an inexperienced poor person using such tools. Pe'ah was to be plucked from the ground by hand. So the word cut in the riddle was problematic. Nonetheless, the riddle was solved.

[The ParshaPix Index][The Emor Homepage]
[The TORAH tidbits Homepage][How to use TORAH tidbits]
[About The OU/NCSY Israel Center][About TORAH tidbits]