The Parsha deals with a spiritual disease caused by lashon hara, gossiping. Lashon hara is true but negative. It is bad for everyone involved.

There is a spiritual and physical connection between the laws of kosher animals. It reminds us that as humans we are both spiritual and physical beings.

Passover is the holiday of Jewish freedom, yet we have very strict limitations on what we can eat. This is to teach us that freedom has limitations.

We are encouraged to ask questions at the Seder. The reason is that this is a sign of being a free people.

When we look at the 4 sons as 4 generations, we get a deeper understanding what the Hagadah is point out. How the wise son leads to the wicked, who leads to the simple who then leads to the one who doesn't know how to ask.

The questions asked by the four sons reflect how we handle them. The wise son needs to be reminded that the Seder is to be experienced. The wicked son needs to be exposed as a disrupter.

We rely on God's protection, but we have to remember that first we have to prepare for the worse. Without God's protection, we would have been destroyed long ago.

We call the 1st of Tishri the "Jewish New Year". This is wrong. The 1st of Tishri is when man was created. It is the beginning of the world. The Jewish New Year is the 1st of Nisan, when the Jews became a nation.

The Torah says that when a leader sin. It assumes that the leader will make a mistake. It is the nature of the position. He then has to bring a sin offering to atone for his mistake.

Moses was the humblest of men. This might sound strange but if you asked him, he would have said that he did what had to be done. That he just happened to be in place at the time.