Parshas Vayikra

BS"D

This week (in addition to celebrating my wedding to Miriam, mazel tov!) we have the great merit to start a new book in the Five Books of Moses, the Book of Vayikra (which is also the name of the first parsha), which literally means, "And he called out", from the verse which states, "And He called to Moses, and the Lord spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: When a man from [among] you brings a sacrifice to the Lord; from animals, from cattle or from the flock you shall bring your sacrifice" (Leviticus 1:1-2). As we see already in the first verse, this portion deals primarily with the laws of animal sacrifices, and the Book as a whole contains the greatest number of laws of all the Five Books, and is the most technical. In the verse quoted above, we find something very interesting in the Hebrew text, which should literally be translated as, "When a man will bring a sacrifice from you" (note the change in the order of the words), which seems to imply that the individual (and not the animal), is the one being brought as a sacrifice. If we also render the word for "bringing a sacrifice" literally, than the verse will actually read, "When a man will come close from you". From this verse we can now take many teachings about someone who wishes to "come close" to the spiritual, and connect with holiness. First and foremost, it should be from [amongst] YOU. YOU have the ability and the opportunity to come close and make a connection, and YOU were given all of the strengths and placed in the proper circumstances to achieve this goal. Therefore, we can never say, "When will I reach that level of the Forefathers [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob]", but rather right now we all have everything that we need to "come close". Secondly, it should be FROM you, a piece of you that you are willing (or sometimes not willing) to sacrifice in order to come close. And this is why the verse continues, "from animals, from cattle or from the flock". Each of us has a body, an animal, with certain habits and tendencies, some of us are like cattle, big strong animals, and some us are like sheep, meek and quiet, each one of us knows in ourselves. And this means we're going to have strengths and weaknesses, maybe I'm like an ox with a bad temper, or maybe I'm lazy like a sheep. Whatever it is, we have to take FROM this "animal" and try to burn it up on the alter with spiritual fire and get it excited to come close, and the best way to do this is through study and stimulating our intellect in topics of spirituality and holiness, in general Torah, and in particular ChaBaD (an acronym for Knowledge, Wisdom and Understanding) philosophy. So I encourage everybody to go out an explore something that interests you. Chabad.org is a great place to start and of course Google, and I am always happy to answer questions.

Most importantly, I wish everyone a very meaningful and a restful Shabbos!
Eli

Candle Lighting in NY 6:48 PM (note the change of time to to Daylight Savings)