As many of you know I am the proud father of two birds. For many years these feathered friends took care of themselves. All I would do is make sure they had food, water and enough air space for them to spread their wings. About six months ago one of the older birds passed away. I always felt the need for having two birds so they could have each other because most of the day the house was empty. Therefore, I purchased a new young whitish parakeet named Spunky to keep DoeDoe company. A few weeks ago we noticed this white scaly stuff growing on his feet and beak and the beak became a little disfigured. After consulting with the greatest veterinarians on google we found out the bird has mites. If this condition is not treated it could lead to the demise of the bird.
I was able to treat the bird by giving him a warm bath every morning and soothing his feet with Vaseline. Within a few days his feet were back to normal but during the illness he lost two nails and they will hopefully grow back. The bigger issue was the beak. The mites have gotten onto the beak as well and therefore Spunky had stopped trimming and filing his beak. (Remarkably, birds and most animals take care of themselves). Since he wasn’t filing it down it kept growing like our nails do. One major problem was that birds use their beaks to climb and swoop up their food and in combined action with their lower beak, crack the seeds and grab the food with their tongue and discard the shells. I now have to wait and see if he can still eat despite the beak being overgrown and out of shape. If he cannot eat, then the question will be do we take the bird for some expensive treatment or just let it be. Finally, the sound of his chirping is altered due to the over growth of his beak.
I now began to realize the importance of how perfect Hashem makes something and how easy it is to mess it up. We are also blessed with our own type of beaks and that is our mouth. This week’s Torah portion begins with “Eileh HaDevarim asher Deeber Moshe…” These are the words that Moshe spoke. The coincidence of the birds mouth problem and Moshe “speaking” to the Jewish people and reminding them of all their sins that they committed in the desert by not mentioning the sins themselves but rather the places they occurred. Moshe wanted to be careful not to speak in such a harsh way and embarrass the people, and therefore chose a more delicate method of rebuke. Parshas Devorim is almost always read the Shabbos before Tisha B’Av the ninth day of Av. We are all aware that the second temple was destroyed because of sinas chinam, unwarranted hatred amongst the Jews. Sinas chinam is fueled by lashon hara, evil speech.
Unfortunately, we don’t realize that as we speak negatively against our fellow Jew, our beaks start to become deformed. Our mouth piece starts to lose its original beauty and shape. We need to constantly trim and refine our lips, tongue and even clean our teeth in order that only nice things about others are said. If we don’t take care of it and work on it then we forget about how it is even supposed to look and what its function ought to be.
When the Torah says about Moshe Rabbeinu “These are the Words that Moshe spoke” it is not only directed to the context of his rebuke, but also to the actual WORDS. These words are a reflection of the entire Torah, the words of the Torah must be spoken in a special holy manner.
Remember when we speak what it can do to our mouths and face. If we speak evil then the parasites affix themselves to our mouths and face and disfigure it and it forces us to continually speak evil. We must rather clean it, sharpen it and keep it healthy so that only Lashon Tov, good speech is formed and not Lashon Hara. Of all the days of the year to take care of our beaks, oops I meant our mouths it should be during these nine days and hopefully our words will be able to build the temple one brick at a time and be able to rejoice in the building of the third Temple speedily in our day.
Ah Gut Shabbos
Rabbi Avram Bogopulsky
www.bethjacobsandiego.org
0 Responses to “DEVARIM – CHIRP, CHIRP, CHIRP”