PARSHA-PIX - Parshat Emor

Parsha Pix
In case you didn't recognize him, that's the Kohen Gadol in the upper-right part of the ParshaPix. The whole first section of the sedra deals with the sanctity of the kohanim in general, and the Kohen Gadol in particular.
The broken foot is representative of the invalidating defects of a Kohen.
The lamb that is missing an ear represents the blemished animals that cannot be brought onto the Mizbei'ach.
In the lower-right are a mother sheep (ewe) and her newborn, which may not be taken from its mother to be used as a korban until it is at least 8 days old. AND, the sheep and lamb also represent OTO V'ET B'NO, the prohibition of slaughtering an animal and its offspring on the same day. The former prohibition of this paragraph refers to korbanot; the latter to both sacrificial and profane (non-sacred) slaughter of animals.
The remainder of the elements in this ParshaPix refer to different parts of the Portion of the Festivals.
Upper-left is a negation circle, indicating the prohibitions of building, sewing, writing - representative of all forbidden Melacha for Shabbat, Yom Kippur, and Yom Tov.
The counting of the Omer is a mitzva from Parshat Emor. So too are the mitzvot of dwelling in a Sukka for the seven days of Sukkot, and the taking of the Four Species on Sukkot.

TTRIDDLES...
are Torah Tidbits-style riddles on Parshat HaShavua (sometimes on the calendar). They are found in the hard-copy of TT scattered throughout, usually at the bottom of different columns. In the electronic versions of TT, they are found all together at the end of the ParshaPix-TTriddles section. Some TTriddles are also presented for call-in solution on Torah Tidbits Audio (Arutz-7, Thursday night). The best solution set submitted each week (there isn't always a best) wins a double prize a CD from Noam Productions and/or a gift (game, puzzle, book, etc.) from Big Deal

Last issue’s (K’DOSHIM) TTriddles:
[1] Could be a description of a mouth with a surprised expression
[2] Five crown wearers mix things up
[3] Egged Agrees
[4] In two five it was four five; in three seven it is five four, sort of.
[5] Five decorated blockheads create a sartorial no-no
[6] 212233 is 21433 each number is a different letter; vowels are odd, consonants even
[7] Head, face, and ...?

And the envelope please...
[1] Interesting. Several solvers answered the same way for this one. PEI’AH, combining the word PEH with AH for an expression of surpise. Not a bad answer, but the TTriddle asked for a description of the mouth, not the sound it makes. The mouth forms a circle when expressing surprise. The intended answer is PIGUL, as in PEH or PI IGUL. Whose answer is better? Theirs or ours? (You don’t really have to answer that.)
[2] Based on the number of correct solutions submitted for this one, we’d have to admit that it was fairly easy. The crown-wearing letters of Torah writing are the letters SHAATNEZ-GATZ. NUN, ZAYIN, and GIMMEL are written with three TAGIM on the topo of the letters. SHIN, AYIN, TET, and TZADI have the TAGIM on the left “head” of the letter. Five of the crown wearers spell SHAATNEZ, which mixes wool and linen.
[3] I get a special thrill when I see signs in buses that ask people to give up their seats for the elderly by quoting the first part of a pasuk from Parshat K’doshim: MIPNEI SEIVA TAKUM. It is nice to see that Egged agrees with the Torah on this point. [Techni- cally, the command to stand in honor of the elderly does not mean that you have to give up your seat to an old person. Rather, that is probably an act of CHESSED, which we are also commanded to do. But it is still wonderful to see the signs with MIPNEI SEIVA TAKUM.]
[4] TWO FIVE is Book of Chumash TWO (Shmot), sedra FIVE (which is Yitro). There, Shabbat and Parents are the subjects of Commandments FOUR and FIVE respectively. In THREE (Vayikra) SEVEN (K’doshim) the order is reversed in the pasuk ISH IMO V’AVIV... a person shall revere his mother and father, and he shall keep the Shabbat.
[5] This TTriddle was an accidental duplication (in different form) of [2]. The parts of the letters that get the three TAGIM are all like the head of the letter ZAYIN. They are squarish. With the TAGIM, they can be called decorated blockheads. The sartorial (of or relating to a tailor, tailoring, or tailored clothing) no-no is, of course, SHAATNEZ. This duplication only threw off a couple of would-be solvers. Others got both.
[6] Several solvers got this one very nicely. It is a new kind of TTriddle, and it worked out well. Believe it or not, a TTriddle must be solvable to be con- sidered a good TTriddle. But it cannot be too easy either. The idea for this TTriddle came from the similarity between the words TATOO and TABOO. I was actually disappointed to find that TATTO had that third T because it didn’t balance with TABOO as well. Still, it made a nice TTriddle. The vowels were odd numbers: 1=A and 3=O. The consonants were even: 2=T and 4=B. Tattooing is prohibited. Or, put in TTriddle language, TATTOO is TABOO.
[7] Back to PE’AH, corner. It appears in the sedra three times. Referring to the corners of the head and the face, the Torah prohibits shaving certain parts of the head and face with a razor. As applied to a FIELD (that’s the correct answer to this TTriddle), it refers to the mitzva to leave the corner (approx. 1/60 of one’s field) uncut, so that poor people might enter and take the produce for themselves. In addition to the positive command, there is also a prohibition to cut all of one’s field. Head, face, and field. Pei’ah.
Although there were several solvers who did well with this TTriddle set, top honors (and two pri - CD from NOAM and a gift from Big Deal) go to EB. Runners- up (CD from NOAM) are ace solvers who are not used to being in second place are the Gersten Gang.
We’ve said this before; we’ll say it again. TTriddles are not for everyone, but they are definitely for more people than just those that manage to solve them. In other words, even if you don’t do so well in the solving department, you can still enjoy reading these reports, which are fun and sometimes educational, as well. And, of course, you can always shake your head in amazement that there are some people whose minds are warped in just the right way to be able to solve TTriddles, week in and week out. In still other words, TTriddling is a participation sport as well as a spectator sport. Enjoy.

This week's TTriddles:
[1] Rainbow, Shabbat, and...what?
[2] In bone sparrow in the name of Me
[3] Bread from the generic, you from a specific - what & where?
[4] Blind, et al; Yom Kippur, Sukkot
[5] Thrice for Yom Kippur, once for 17 Cheshvan, once for 7 Adar, five times for Pesach, once for Pesach Sheni, twice for Shavuot. Still 195 fewer than the body.
[6] In Emor, female; in Divrei HaYamim, male
[7] This one letter is the difference between start and end

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