Chassidut on the Torah
The week of Vayikra 5762
This
Weekly Word is dedicated by Dr. Kathryn Hegeman and family, in memory of their
beloved son and brother, Paul Shaul Hegeman,
A”H, whose yahrtzeit is Adar 27.
Overview
(Leviticus 1:1-5:26) Vayikra opens with a
discussion of how to bring burnt offerings of cattle, smaller animals and
birds. It then continues with a discussion of the different types of meal
offerings: burnt, baked, pan-fried, deep fried, and the offering of the first
grain of the season. After these, other types of offerings are discussed. Peace
offerings could be of cattle, sheep or goats. Sin offerings are brought as an
atonement. First described is the sin offering for the high priest, then for
the community, for the king or for an individual. There are some sins that the
Torah delineates specifically as requiring a sin offering. In these cases, he
can choose between smaller animals, birds or a meal offering. The portion ends
with details about guilt offerings brought because of errors, doubtful
situations or dishonesty or theft.
Insights
"A person,
when he will bring from you an offering to G-d" (1/2). The Alsheich writes
that when we sin we distance ourselves from G-d, but an offering in the Temple
atones for this, bringing us close to G-d again. Today, this atonement is
accomplished by reading about the offerings in our daily prayer, and by doing
t’shuvah (returning to G-d). Still, it would be fitting that when we sin, we
should offer our own lives as atonement—"from you an offering"; in His
kindness, G-d allows us to offer an animal instead. The actions in preparing
the sacrifices described in the portion’s first verses are actually processes
of spiritually cleansing ourselves from the sin. This is completed with "He
should skin the burnt offering" (1/6), meaning that the sin-defiled spiritual
garments we wore are removed. Following this, the sacrifice is "cut it into
pieces"—all negative thoughts that originally caused us to sin are eradicated.
They are burnt up by the supernal fire, and thereby the hold of the Heavenly
accuser is weakened, and he will not be able to again drag us to sin.
The Rebbe Rayatz
commented that the word "to offer" can be literally interpreted "will come
close." Then the verse is read "A person when he wishes to come closer to G-d."
When doing so, it is incumbent on us to check our spiritual status to know
exactly what steps are necessary in this spiritual ascent. Nevertheless, such
an inspection will most certainly reveal at how low a level one truly is. This
could lead us to think, "How can such a lowly creature like me come closer to
G-d?" and deter us from any attempt to improve. Therefore, the answer is given
immediately, "from you is the offering"— a spiritual ascent is dependent
completely upon us. Every Jewish person has the inner strengths that will allow
success in a spiritual journey to come closer to G-d, even against the most
difficult of obstacles. This potential is not only for advancing to higher
levels than before, but even to reach the level of "G-d"—the tetragramaton, the
last word in this section of the verse—and signifies a supranatural level.
"He should skin the burnt
offering, and cut it into pieces" (1/6). Rebbe Michil demands of us to
be on guard against self delusions. It is easy to judge ourselves favorably, or
sometimes just ignore our faults in the face of even minor positive traits. (
"I know I am not perfect, but at least I am a good person..." ) In connection
with the above verse, he says that when we become conscious of any positive
trait, we often relax our guard and forget about our faults. Even worse than
this, a person can then be led to false pride, which may blind him or her from
attaining any spiritual growth. The solution is to examine every part of our
body, in its fulfillment of commandments associated with it: Leg—do I walk fast
enough when on my way to do a mitzvah? Heart—do I pray with proper devotion?
Mouth—etc.... If we are honest with ourselves, we will see that the negative
traits we have yet to perfect in ourselves, far outweigh any of our positive
traits. This is the inner meaning of the verse, ‘to skin the burnt offering’.
In Hebrew, the word for burnt offering is ‘olah’, which technically
means ‘that rises’ alluding to arrogance. Read the verse as follows: "to skin
(or remove) the olah"—the false pride—"from yourselves"... so it will not
interfere with your true self assessment...then "cut it into pieces"—check
every body part for flaws, our faults.
Two students of the Maggid
discussed their spiritual status. One said, "Where will all of our sins get
us?" His colleague answered "Don’t worry about sins, for them you can do
tshuvah. What the likes of us really have to worry about are mitzvahs!"
Sometimes in our urgency to repair past mistakes, we overlook the even more
important requirement to increase both the quantity and the quality of
our mitzvahs! Shabbat Shalom, Shaul
For the 5th year, Ascent is asking you to contribute to our Pesach campaign for needy
immigrants. It is gratifying that many people have already sent in funds, even
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