5771 פרשת ויקרא

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah begins to describe to us the different types of Korbanos that could be brought in the Mishkan. When describing the bringing of the Korbanos the Pasuk says” A person from amongst you who brings a Korban” and then goes on to describe the details of the Korbanos.

 The Siforno asks, why does the Torah say “a person amongst you who brings a Korban, why doesn’t the Pasuk just say as it does in other places “a person who brings a Korban?”

 The Siforno explains that the words amongst you is actually coming to exclude a segment of the population whose Korbanos are not wanted. The only Korbanos that are those brought willingly with confession (regarding a sin offering) and subservience to God. The Siforno brings a proof to this idea from a Gemara that learns out from the words amongst you to exclude a Meshumad – someone who left Judaism in total.

 If we look at this Siforno a little bit closer we can ask the following question. The Siforno says that God does not want Korbanos from someone who does not bring the Korban with the proper confession and subservience to God and he learns this idea out from the fact that Chazal excluded a Meshumad from bringing a Korban. It seems that the Siforno is comparing someone who doesn’t bring the Korban with subservience and confession of his sins to someone who has totally removed himself from Judaism. However, the comparison doesn’t seem to be accurate. You would think that a person could be a good Jew who sinned and knew he had to bring a Korban for his sin but like many of us didn’t appreciate the severity of the sin and therefore didn’t bring the Korban with the feeling of subservience and confession that he should have. If this is the case, why does the Siforno compare a person like this to a Meshumad?

 In order to answer this question we need to understand what actually occurred when a person brought a Korban. A person had to actually say the viduy out loud and put his hands on the Korban with all his strength an act called “semicha”. All of these things were done in the Beis Hamikdash, the place that was filled with Kedusha. All of these actions were done in order to create an atmosphere of Teshuva and feelings of remorse for the sins that were done. In such an atmosphere a person would inherently be impacted by the surroundings and would bring his Korban with a proper confession and a feeling of subservience to God. If a person is not affected by everything that occurs in the process of bringing his Korban than inherently he is so far removed from a relationship from God he is on the path to being totally removed from everything the Torah represents. This is why the Siforno can compare someone who does not feel subservience and regret when bringing his Korbanos to someone who is estranged from Torah Judaism.

 This is very important for us also as we must realize that it is of course natural for us not to feel a relationship to God on a daily basis. However God put into this world occurrences meant to inspire us to get closer to Him.  Whether the inspiration comes from a shiur or the davening on Yom Kippur or some other life event and we must capitalize on the inspiration to grow closer to God and not let it just pass us by.

5770 פרשת ויקרא

 There are two ways that that the Torah makes breaks in between topics. One type of break is where there are several spaces in between one topic and the second but the second topic begins on the same line as the first one ends. The second type of break is where the first topic will end in the middle of one line and the next topic will start on the next line.

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us how God had called Moshe into the Ohel Mo’ed and told him over the laws that relate to the Korbanos. Between each different Halacha, the Torah starts the next topic as a new paragraph.

 The Ohr Hachayim explains that the reason the Torah made each new topic within the Korbanos start on a separate line is to teach us that God gave Moshe time to understand all the Halachos that Moshe learned.

 If we look at this Ohr Hachayim a little more closely, we can ask the following question. Everything the Torah does is to teach us something important. Whether it is a Halacha or an idea in Mussar we must be able to learn something from everything in the Torah. What is the lesson that the Torah is trying to teach us by telling us that when God was teaching Moshe the laws of the Korbanos he gave him time between each group of Halachos to understand it before he continued teaching Moshe the rest of the Halachos.

 The answer can be that we have a responsibility to teach our children and in the case of a teacher their students Torah. The Torah is teaching us one of the most important foundations of how to teach Torah and that is that it is not the amount of Torah you teach your students but rather how much they understand. It is to teach us this important idea that the Torah set up the Parsha of the Korbanos in a way where each group of laws started on its own line.

  This idea is even more important as we are coming towards the Yom Tov of Pesach. As an introduction to the telling over of the history of the slavery and exodus the Hagadah tells us about the four sons.

 We can ask the question of why it was important for the Baal Hagadah to introduce the mitzvah of the telling over of the exodus with the idea of the four sons. The answer could be that one of the ideas of telling over the story of the exodus is to ingrain into ourselves and our descendants the idea that God runs every aspect of the world and is involved in our every day individual lives. This idea has to be taught to and ingrained into every person. However, every person is different and has to be taught differently. This is what the Baal Hagadah is telling us. When you are teaching the next generation ideas in Torah, we have to make sure that we teach it properly to each one in the way they will understand it.

פרשת ויקרא 5769

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah begins to discuss the laws of the Korbanos that were brought in the Mishkan when Bnei Yisroel were in the Midbar and would be brought in the Beis Hamikdash when Bnei Yisroel were in Eretz Yisroel. The Torah specifies that there were only specific type of animals that could be brought as a Korban. A partial list includes sheep and goats and doves.

 The Rabbeinu Bechai explains that the Torah specifies that only these types of animals can be brought for a Korban since these types of animals have two specific character traits: the first being that they are not carnivores and the second being that they are peaceful animals and they are at peace with each other.

 The Torah is teaching us that we should have these two traits and we should never look to hurt or embarrass another person in any way and furthermore we should be in peace with our surroundings and avoid getting involved in machlokes and other things that cause rifts between man and his fellow man.

 The question that can be asked is; granted that these are two very important lessons that we need to learn, but what is the connection between the bringing of the Korbanos and the teaching of these lessons?

 In order to answer this question we first must try to understand the idea behind Korbanos. The Rabbeinu Bechai gives several explanations. The first explanation he gives is that the purpose at least for the Korbanos mentioned at the beginning of the Parsha is to help a person properly repent for his sins. When a person brings the Korban and does all the specific actions that are part of the Korban, including the burning of the animal on the Mizbayach and the pouring of the blood of the animal, he begins to realize the extent of his sin and that it should really be him that was killed for his sin. Once a person realizes this he will be able to lower himself before God and repent properly.

 Now that we understand why a person brings a Korban let us see if there is anything about these traits that the Torah is teaching us that relates to the reason we bring the Korbanos. What is the common denominator between the two traits of not trying to hurt someone and always avoiding machlokes? One possible common denominator is that both traits require a person not to be out for himself. A person must not look to try to get himself to the top without regard to the other person. This trait is only found by a person who always lowers himself in front of other people and putting their needs and honor in front of his own. This is also the trait that a person needs to properly repent to God for his sins. If a person does not lower himself in front of God and always thinks of himself as great then he can never properly repent as he will never feel a need to repent. This is why the Torah tells us to bring as a Korban, which is supposed to assist us in repenting, animals who will teach us the lesson of lowering ourselves in front of God and man for without that we can never repent.

 The question then becomes, today when we don’t have Korbanos to constantly remind us of this fact, how do we ingrain these traits constantly into our hearts?

 The answer could be to constantly pray to God to help us with every thing we need to do. Whether it is relationships, work, or any of the other myriad things we need to successfully do every day we will constantly be reminding ourselves that it is not us creating our success but rather God’s great kindness. When a person realizes that, he will inherently understand his position in the world and be able to become closer to God and live a life with true peace and satisfaction.     

פרשת ויקרא 5767

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes the different Korbanos and their respective processes. When describing the korban olah brought from a bird, the Pasuk says the following:

And you should remove the part of the bird that is used for digestion and expelling the food from the body and not bring it on the mizbayach.

 The midrash explains why by a korban olah that is brought from sheep or cattle do we not have to remove the digestive system before the animal is brought on the mizbayach while by a bird you do.

 The midrash says the following:

 Rabbi Tanchuma said this bird flies all over the world and eats from every side and eats from food that was stolen, God says that since the bowel would be filled with stolen food, do not bring it on the mizbayach. However, a regular animal is raised on the trough of its owner and does not eat stolen food therefore its bowels can be brought on the mizbayach.

Let us examine this midrash a little bit more closely. From the fact that the Torah prohibited the bringing of the bowels of every bird shows us that all birds eat from stolen food and that this problem is not limited to a few people. In fact, as we see in many Gemoros, there are many ramifications in halacha relating to the fact that birds in a coop do fly away and come back, again showing that this was a fairly common occurrence.

If this is the case, then the people who had their food eaten by the birds probably knew and accepted the situation even if they weren’t particularly happy about it. Furthermore, the owners of the birds, even though they indirectly benefited by not having to feed their birds as much, did not do it intentionally.

 All this being the case it would appear that the midrash is telling us a tremendous idea that even in a case where the person benefiting has no desire to be taking what is not his and the people who were stolen from had accepted the situation for what it is, the Torah still considers it to be a form of theft and therefore the bowel that has in it this “stolen” food can’t be brought on the mizbayach. If the Torah is so makpid on even this indirect form of theft, certainly any korban brought with money that was earned by a more direct form of theft would not be able to be brought on the mizbayach.

 We can see from this midrash just how much of an abhorrence a lack of honesty is to God where even the smallest most indirect form of theft caused a part of the korban to not  be permitted to be brought on the mizbayach.

Chazal tell us that  that most people are unfortunately involved in some way in the sins of theft.

The question is how do we regular people conquer this shortcoming that we all have?

The Baalei mussar tell us that one of the ways for a person to improve his charachter traits is through what is called ”maaseh hamussar” which is actively doing a good action over and over. If we want to improve our level of honesty, we should start with the little things where the yetzer hara to cheat is very small or even nonexistent.

Where can we find a situation like that?

Let us see if we can find another trait that relates to honesty which has a smaller yetzer hara. That trait is emes. Honesty goes hand in hand with the trait of  truth.

I once heard from a Rebbe of mine that a very easy way to work on the trait of truth is if someone asks you the time, and it is 2:58, don’t say 3:00, and rather say 2:58. We all assume that since people don’t care, it doesn’t make a difference if we don’t give the exact time. It is true regarding them, but it is a great opportunity missed to work on this trait of “truth” when there is no yetzer hara in our way. This is just one example and there are many more that we come upon in our daily lives. We will be surprised that after a few months of doing these types of things how much more sensitive we will be to always be honest. If we can start working on these small things then God will help us until we can even conquer the big challenges and merit once again to bring korbanos on the mizbayach with the coming of Mashiach.