PARSHA-PIX Parshat Shmini

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Parsha Pix
The CALF was the first of the one-time special korbanot on opening day of the Mishkan (following the seven inauguration days).
The RAM was also part of those EIGHTH DAY korbanot.
8=8 means that the 8th day of SHMINI was the 8th day of Nissan. That is one opinion. The other opinion is that it was Rosh Chodesh, as in 8=1.
The negation circle over the wine represents the "rules of conduct" for kohanim upon entering the Mikdash, which included not drinking wine on the day of their performing Avoda.
The fire is the fire that was used by Nadav and Avihu... It is a strange fire because the flames are blue and green. (If you have only the hard-copy of TT with its black & white ParshaPix, then you can consider the fire the one from the Mizbei’ach, the one they SHOULD have used. Or imagine it being blue and green.
Each year we dipict a kosher and non-kosher mammal, bird, and fish, under the check mark and the X respectively. We change the animals each year. Last year we introduced a play-on-words graphic for one of the animals. It was two padlocks which represented lox as the kosher fish. This year, we changed some of the animals and present you with three plays-on-words. We'll treat each one as a visual TTriddle.
The havdala candle represents the repeated theme in the sedra that a major purpose of many of the mitzvot presented is to distinguish - between sacred and profane, between tahor and tamei, etc.
The big hook, in Hebrew, VAV, is for the big VAV of GACHON.

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 alsopresentedforcall-insolutiononTorahTidbitsAudio(Arutz-7,Thursdaynight).Thebest 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 (TZAV-HaGadol-Pesach) TTriddles:
[1] Dash Cham package to reservists
[2] from all other, exclusively matza, maror, twice, we all recline - and in the Torah?
[3] Raise your cup to a confused Chananison
[4] He in order to fulfill the Torah's words;he in order to gamble
[5] Whose haftara would be rightat home with this week's sedra?
[6] Tzav & Shmini - the best bookends for Pesach
[7] Former/future prince not smart
[8] The korbanot that queue
[9] fourth rest chain
[10] One for the citizen & stranger and for what & what?
[11] Lions and Tigers and a confused Poe-bird
[12] Out of #9; into #2

And the envelope, please...
[1] Second TTriddle on this key word; a few weeks ago, we asked what the favorite brew of reservists was. The answer: ALE MILU'IM. Actually, EIL MILU'IM in some form, occurs six times, including in Parshat Tzav. But for this Triddle, the answer is SAL HAMILU'IM, the name of the DASH CHAM basket of goodies for your favorite reservists... or it should be.
[2] The words HALAILA HAZEH are well-known from the MA NISHTANA. In the Hagada, the words are followed by "all other", KULO MATZA, MAROR, (we dip) twice, KULANU M'SUBIM. The words occur only once in Tanach, specifically, Sh'mot 12:42, part of the Torah reading of the first day of Pesach. There, the words are followed by "to HaShem", this night of the Exodus, is a LEIL SHIMURIM TO G-D...
[3] JEHU Chananison (ben Chanani, that is) was a NAVI during the reign of the King of Israel, BAASHA. His being confused means to mix up the laetters of his name, giving V'HI, as in V'HI SHE-AMDA LAVOTEI- nu... a passage in the Hagada for which we cover the matzot and raise the cup of wine.
[4] The TTriddle gets a big L'HAVDIL between the two parts. The first HE is HILLEL, who made a sandwich of Korban Pesach, matza, and maror in order to fulfill the Torah's words which tell us to eat Korban Pesach together with matza and maror. L'HAVDIL, the person to whom the world attributes the invention of the sandwhich (we know differently) was John Montague, the Earl of Sandwich. The story goes that he was a serious gambler who would play cards for hours on end, often missing meals. He asked that his food, placed between two slices of bread, be brought to him, so he would be able to continue playing while eating and so the cards wouldn't get greasy from his food. By the way, Montague discovered the islands which today are Hawaii. The Hawaiin Islands were formerly called the Sandwich Islands, named by Captain John Cook after their discoverer. Perhaps it was Hillel who invented the Kosher L'Pesach sandwich and [L] Montague who extended it for chametz as well as non-kosher food.
[5] There are several haftaras that are read (only one in any given year) for Parshat Tzav. The most common one is the one for Shabbat HaGadol. The haftara of Parshat Para is sometimes read for Tzav, as is the haftara for Parshat Zachor (which is also the haftara for Shabbat Purim - in Jerusalem - and which can also coincide with Tzav. And finally, Tzav has its own "regular" haftara when it is not sharing Shabbat with a special Shabbat. That, by the way, happens less than 10% of the time. But the haftara of the TTriddle is the one from Parshat Sh'mot, never read for Tzav. Which is CHAVAL (too bad), since it contains the phrase TZAV LATZAV TZAV LATZAV twice. That makes 8 times Tzav.
[6] Tzav is Shabbat HaGadol more often than any other sedra; more than the other two possibles together. We're talking 63% of the time - that's 12 of 19 years. What makes it a perfect pre-Pesach sedra is the mitzva to eat matza and the prohibition of baking chametz. Neither happen to be talking about Pesach, but that doesn't matter, TTriddle-wise. What the Torah is talking about is most Mehachot, but it still makes for a perfect pre-Pesach reading. When Tzav precedes Pesach, Shmini follows it, and that works well because following the seven days of Pesach comes the Eighth day. Get it? Yom HaShmini.
[7] This is a variation of an old one we've used before for Pesach. It is legendary from many a story and joke, that princes are often changed into frogs by some disgruntled witch or other female with the power to cast a spell. Since most of those stories include the return to prince, we can describe a frog as a former/future prince. If such a frog is not smart then we can call him a dumb tzfardei'a, as in the first two plagues. Don't bother groaning - won't do any good.
[8] This is a multilingual play on words. Animal korbanot can be from the cow family, sheep, goats, and doves. PAR or SHOR is/are TOR in Aramaic. And one of the types of doves is the TOR in Hebrew. Both of these TORs are spelled TAV-VAV-REISH, which is a homophone (or homonym) for TOR (TET-VAV-REISH) which means line or queue.
[9] The word VAYISHCHAT, and he slaughtered, appears thrice in Tzav. The first time, the TAAM over it is a R'VI'I, translated as FOURTH. The second time, it has an ETNACHTA under it. ETNACHTA means pause or REST. The third VAYISHCHAT has a SHALSHELET over it (the fourth one of four in the whole Torah, the first three are in the book of B'reishit), which means CHAIN.
[10] The term TORAH ACHAT (one Torah) appears four times in the Torah. Three times it refers to the "regular" Jew and the new convert. One rule for the two. The GER is a full Jew. The phrase appears in Parshat Tzav, where it refers to the CHATAT and ASHAM offerings - same rules apply...
[11] Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! - is the full quote from Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. She might have been describing the fourth plague - AROV. (That is, according to the more popular opinion that the plague consisted of wild animals; swarms of flies is the less popular opinion.) The famous bird from the Edgar Allen Poe poem of the same name, is the Raven. In Hebrew - OREIV. That's an anagram for AROV, hence the confused Poe-bird. Wow, L. Frank Baum and Edgar Allen Poe, how literary can a TTriddle get?
[12] This one is a sneaky TTriddle - the best kind. The numbers refer to the brachot of the weekday Amida. As of the first day of Pesach, following T'filat TAL (actually, as of the evening following the first day of Pesach), the word TAL comes out of the ninth bracha of the Amida - BAREICH ALEINU, and we now say V'TEIN BRACHA instead of V'TEIN TAL UMATAR LIVRACHA. And, the word TAL, in the phrase MORID HATAL, was inserted into the second bracha of the Amida, to replace MASHIV HARU'ACH UMORID HAGASHEM. Out of #9; into #2.
And so we have the solutions to the bumper crop of a neat dozen TTriddles in the Pesach issue of TT.
EB's "humble" submission was quite impressive, even though not all TTriddles were attempted. He still is the winner for this week.

This week's TTriddles:
[1] the two who bypassed the venetian blinds
[2] Add an ALEF for two of them; swap an ALEF for its partner for another; for the other one, only one letter in common
[3] the quintessential worm-catcher/getter
[4] The 8th is the 8th is kosher
[5] Gets a lollipop, and you can quote me on that
[6] Lot, Avraham, and Bil'am, their what? Aharon, his what? The Nation, its what?
[7] Not symmetrical in Aramaic
[8] A mother, her daughter, fire & fire

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