"The Smallest Woman Was Greater Than Ezekiel the Prophet" • The Daily Lesson

Before you is the full daily lesson as delivered by our teacher, the Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a – yesterday after the Ma'ariv (evening) prayer, Sunday, Parshas Emor, the night of the 5th of Iyar:

"Every day five are killed in the north, five in the south—it is all because not every woman lengthened her skirt. Because women did not sin with the [Golden] Calf. Now we are in Parshas Emor, the portion of the Mekalel (the Blasphemer). [The mother of] the Blasphemer used to say 'Shalom' to everyone, even to every gentile. Consequently, such a child was born, and Moshe (Moses) told him, 'You cannot be in the camp.' 'According to their families, by their fathers' houses' (Numbers 1:2)—he didn't know at all; he didn't even know he had a gentile father. Suddenly Moshe says to him: 'You have a gentile father, what can I do?' Regarding 'by their fathers' houses,' he wanted to be in the tribe of Dan; he had always been in the tribe of Dan. He said, 'I belong to Dan.' Dan is the most important tribe; it is the 'gatherer of all the camps.'

And therefore it is written, 'Vayikov' (and he pierced/blasphemed)—'Vayikov' implies that he opened the World of Yetzirah (Formation) and the World of Beriah (Creation), just as Ezekiel opened the World of Yetzirah for them to see the Merkavah (Divine Chariot). He was like Ezekiel the Prophet. The Rambam (Maimonides) says at the end of Chapter 4 that the smallest and lowest woman [at the splitting of the sea] was greater than Ezekiel the Prophet. The Rambam writes this explicitly. Every woman was once a prophetess; every woman knew prophecies.

Serach bat Asher—they placed her under a cherem (excommunication/ban), asking, 'Why are you revealing such secrets?' It was decreed that they must not reveal it—whoever reveals that Yosef (Joseph) is alive shall die on the spot. How could you deceive your grandfather for twenty-two years? He sits on the ground for twenty-two years and cries, and you don't care? She said, 'I don't care; I am revealing the secret, even if I die, even if there is some divine hakpada (strictness/displeasure).' And then she took the harp and sang: 'Yosef is still alive and is king in Egypt, and he has two sons, Menashe and Ephraim.'"‏.