Chullin 134

The Gemara is talking about the gifts given to the Kohanim, to the priests from the Korbanos, from sacrifices.

And the Kohanim get a certain portion called the Zeruah, the foreleg, the Lechayyim, the jaw, and the Keva, part of the stomach.

And the Gemara gives a homiletical interpretation comparing it to Pinchas.

Pinchas, one of the first Kohanim, who receives from Hashem the Brit Shalom, the covenant of peace, after defending Hashem's honor during the incident with the Moabite women.

So it says that the Zeruah, the reason we get the Zeruah, the foreleg, is that's like the hand.

kind of like the hand of the animal, so to speak.

And the l'chaim, the jaw, corresponds to the tefillah, that's a Pinchas parade.

So that's l'chaim, the part of your jaws, what you move your mouth with.

And the keva, the stomach, is where he stabbed the victims viciously.

But ultimately, he gets the brief shalom, and that's what he was doing.

And I was thinking that perhaps as representative of three elements of our relationship with Hashem, which is our hands, which represents action, our mouths, our tefillah, the way we express our religiosity, and also like our gut that we need to feel a certain amount of religious feeling.

Perhaps you would say also another way of thinking about it is that there's three parts there where There's the tefillah, where Pinchas talks to Hashem.

There's the kevah, where Pinchas is relating to others, albeit in this case in a pretty harsh way.

And there's the yad, which sort of represents Pinchas himself.

And that's sort of a way of thinking about how we have three different types of relationships.

Ben Adam l'makom, people relate to Hashem.

Ben Adam l'chavirot, to other people.

And ben Adam l'atzmo, people relate to, of course, themselves.

And those are three things.

And I remind you, we also have another group of three.

If anybody's been in Akiva, we say, you know, I'm Yisrael, Be'er Yisrael, I'll be Torah Yisrael.

So we have the people, ourselves, we have the land that we relate to, and ultimately relate above to HaKadosh Baruch Hu as well.

May all of us merit to use all the different aspects of our personality to improve our religiosity, our relationships with others, and of course, our relationship with ourselves.

The Gemara is talking about the gifts given to the Kohanim, to the priests from the Korbanos, from sacrifices.

And the Kohanim get a certain portion called the Zeruah, the foreleg, the Lechayyim, the jaw, and the Keva, part of the stomach.

And the Gemara gives a homiletical interpretation comparing it to Pinchas.

Pinchas, one of the first Kohanim, who receives from Hashem the Brit Shalom, the covenant of peace, after defending Hashem's honor during the incident with the Moabite women.

So it says that the Zeruah, the reason we get the Zeruah, the foreleg, is that's like the hand.

kind of like the hand of the animal, so to speak.

And the l'chaim, the jaw, corresponds to the tefillah, that's a Pinchas parade.

So that's l'chaim, the part of your jaws, what you move your mouth with.

And the keva, the stomach, is where he stabbed the victims viciously.

But ultimately, he gets the brief shalom, and that's what he was doing.

And I was thinking that perhaps as representative of three elements of our relationship with Hashem, which is our hands, which represents action, our mouths, our tefillah, the way we express our religiosity, and also like our gut that we need to feel a certain amount of religious feeling.

Perhaps you would say also another way of thinking about it is that there's three parts there where There's the tefillah, where Pinchas talks to Hashem.

There's the kevah, where Pinchas is relating to others, albeit in this case in a pretty harsh way.

And there's the yad, which sort of represents Pinchas himself.

And that's sort of a way of thinking about how we have three different types of relationships.

Ben Adam l'makom, people relate to Hashem.

Ben Adam l'chavirot, to other people.

And ben Adam l'atzmo, people relate to, of course, themselves.

And those are three things.

And I remind you, we also have another group of three.

If anybody's been in Akiva, we say, you know, I'm Yisrael, Be'er Yisrael, I'll be Torah Yisrael.

So we have the people, ourselves, we have the land that we relate to, and ultimately relate above to HaKadosh Baruch Hu as well.

May all of us merit to use all the different aspects of our personality to improve our religiosity, our relationships with others, and of course, our relationship with ourselves.