Vayikra: What Korbanos Teach Us About Closeness

In this episode, I reflect on Parshas Vayikra and the deeper meaning of Korbanos. The root of korban is karov: to draw close. What looks, on the surface, like sacrifice is really Torah’s language for return: the movement back into relationship with Hashem, with our own soul, and with the parts of ourselves we have learned to fear or reject.

I speak about what it means to stop reading these offerings as something distant and ancient, and to begin receiving them as instruction for inner life now. I explore how anger, grief, pain, fear, shame, guilt, and even hope can be brought to the altar of the heart and transformed into something holy.

I also reflect on what it means to leave survival mode and begin living as though redemption is already near, not only in history, but in the nervous system, in the home, and in the smallest moments of safety and connection.

Lea

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Transcript

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Welcome to More to the Story. I'm Leia Riboshkin Wolf, and in this week's episode, we're gonna go into Parsha Svayakra. This today, tonight feels like a lot of opportunity, a lot of newness in the air. Tonight marks Rush Kodash Nissan, the head of the year, the head of the month.

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And um I know for myself it I feel ready for I feel ready for the beginning of something fresh and new. I feel like I've been running a marathon. And so to find out, to just to pause and center myself and realize that I'm being invited into a brand new energy that's available right now. So for me, what helps me presence myself and center myself is to remind myself of where I've been to backtrack. And that brings me into the present moment. So I'm gonna do that with you so that maybe we can all do that together and find all of ourselves in this space. Um I'll start with Parim. We came from Parim, the holiday, like maybe two weeks ago. And from that energy, the next one that feels um strong, standing out to me was Rebitzin Chayamashko's birthday, which was this past Jabis, Chaf Hey Adar. And then from there, the next two days later was Chaf Zayan Adar, the day that the Rebbe had two strokes in different years. And yesterday was um Chafchas, today Chaptes, and now we're here on at Rosh Chodash Nisan. And um again, like I didn't know, I didn't look at the Hebrew calendar when we were choosing what day of the week we would record and gather, and it's Rosh Chodash, which makes me so um happy and to see Hashem's choice in women gathering together on this day and marking this holiday. And I don't have like a specific feeling, it didn't come through for me yet. Roshchodesh literally just started 10 minutes ago. But what I do want to pause and reflect on about this day is um the first mitzvah that we were given as a Jewish people, the first moment of sacred connection between the brand new Jewish people and Hashem happened in Mitzraim and it happened tonight. Well, it happened around tonight. Moshe Rubinu was given the instructions of how the Jewish people would be able to sanctify the moon, to sanctify time, to mark time in a holy way. And the mitzvah that was chosen was to bless the moon. And so here we are with that energy available to us. There's something available to us of like brand new, like a newness, a clean slate, and also of like deep beginnings, like going back to rituals that are they're not really beginnings, they're like tracing you back to your roots of where we come from, like these deep ancient roots that are founded in in love, in in um faith, in romance between Hashem and the Jewish people. And I feel like with every single breath you take today on Rosh Kodesh, and literally actually because it's the month of Nisan that we're going into, it's the month of miracles and redemption and freedom and liberation and leaving our exiles and leaving our constrictions. Like every breath we take in this month is uploaded with this energy that can go to every organ of our body, to every belief system inside of ourselves. It can literally flood our system with this frequency that mashiach is real, mashiach is possible. We can breathe it in and take it into our beings. And um before we go into this week's parsha, which is parsha's fayukra, again, we're it's we just finished a chemish last week, a Torah, a chemish last week, and we're going into the third chemish. So again, it's this there's something new here, a clean slate again. And um my hope is that the energy that we create in the Torah, the merit of the Torah learning that will happen can be sent to the war that the Jewish people are fighting right now. The Jewish people are are at war. And I'll share a little bit about that. When um I was in Sheol when I found out that Israel attacked Iran on um Parsha Zachar, and um my heart did two things. It went up and it went down. And I realized that it took me a few days to realize that I was off kilter, like I wasn't myself. My heart was harder, I was harder to penetrate, like to break through to my internal spiritual world. And my mom and my brother were talking one one night, and um they were talking about the war. And I had a reckoning with, like a moment of reckoning with myself that I'm so off kilter because I'm in denial that we're at war. I don't want to face this truth. I didn't. I didn't want to face this truth of what was happening to our people, what our our family in Israel are going through, what our soldiers are going through again. And so I thought I can pretend it's not happening, but we're so connected. And if I cut off that reality, I'm literally disconnecting from my own heart. And I started crying at the table, like just letting that part of my heart take its scar down. And I said, it's okay, I can accept this. God is here, we're good. And then I had like within the next few days, like a deeper part of this process was as a child, or not even too long ago, when I hear like the Jewish people are at war, my survival self goes, oh no, like I need to brace myself for the casualties. Like every soldier, every family, every casualty, every it's like, how much can my heart handle this? How much can I, how will I be able to stay functional for myself, my family, uh, my responsibilities if I'm heart wide open to everything that happens in Israel. And um today I listened to Rabbi Y.Y. Jacobson for a few minutes, and what came through to me was I can flip this narrative in my head. The Jewish people are at war. Oh, what miracles am I gonna be privy to? Because that is what's happening here. God is showering our people and this world and this universe with this insanely powerful breakthroughs and miracles, like on every level, what what we what's being accomplished and the support that Israel is getting and the success that thank God we're having, and the miracles and the protection that are coming through. And when you shut your heart out out of fear, like to go into this protection mode, you literally miss out on God coming to you and showing you the most current version of how He wants to take care of you and be connected to you. And so I'm bringing that here. Like, may we all be brave enough, may I continue to be brave enough to keep my heart wide open to truth so that I merit to be in like a current connection with our God and to no longer be a scared little girl who says, Oh, war means casualties. War means God is coming to take revenge on darkness and on people who are fighting against his children and their desire to share his truth down here. We are God's partners and we are have been harassed by evil, and it's a day of reckoning, and so it's payday, and we can stand in the full confidence that we are we are worthy of a complete redemption on every level, and so we can like look and smile and laugh at the miracles and continue to hold space in our heart for the casualties that do happen. Like we're big enough, we're old enough, we're brave enough. I I am, I hope, brave enough to hold space in the part of my heart for those who are injured. And my prayer is that the Torah that we learn here together tonight, and for everybody who's gonna listen at some point, um, may it go towards those who need a complete complete healing or fua if they were injured. And to the to the nervous system of Israel with every running to in and out of their bomb shelters, may their nervous systems be able to come back into safety. May they be repaid for being on the front lines of this battle for us, those in Israel, and may there be complete, complete protection on every level and like the most miraculous um success to completely eradicate this evil from the world. And um with that, we're gonna go into the parsha of this week, which is parsha's fayikra. And I am doing it differently than I've done it in the past. In the past, I've gone like through every detail as much as I could um on the parsha. And when it came to this one, before I even read the parsha, I knew that I'm not going to be doing that. So, um, or maybe I'll do a balance, a hybrid of both. I prepared the notes, we'll see what wants to come through for it. But, you know, just to orient ourselves in this week's parsha, well, last week's parsha, we finally, you know, we had been hearing that Hashem wanted the Jewish people to build a Mishkan, a tabernacle for him. And we heard it five times, the instructions of what will be. And finally, in last week's parsha in Shul, we read how Moshe and the Jewish people they stepped into an action and they finally integrated all of this spiritual um experience that Moshe Urbino happened, had on Harsini. He was able to bring it down into this world, and the Jewish people were able to integrate his divine communication. And there was this huge energy in this world for getting things done, for making things happen, for building. And we finally have the Mishkan and a place where God is going to come and be in connection and deep connection with us. And we conclude that parsha and we strengthen ourselves, we say chazak, chazak, vinis chhazak, and now we step into the experience of um service, the rituals that happen in this divine service with God. And if I'm not mistaken, I think it's actually on Rosh Chodesh Nissan that we have our first day of setting up the Mishkan for the very first time. And Moshe Rabinu is our Kohen Gadal for eight days. And he inaugurates the Mishkan, and in this time, he inaugurates his brother Aron and his nephews and the garments that they're going to wear in this service and the furniture. And finally, in Parshasvayikwa, we're going to hear about what happens inside of this gorgeous home. What were the ways that God wanted us to be connected to him? And most of it is centered around the five different types of carbano, sacrifices, animal and some food sacrifices that are going to be spelled out here. And I'm going to I'll say this and then I'll share the sacrifices. I was thinking on my way driving here how, you know, it's for some people, this parsha is extremely boring. Like they learned it in school, and it's it seems very, very dry. Like my daughter asked me actually this yesterday or today. She said, Mommy, what's the parsha of the week? Because I was preparing. And I said, It's Parsha's Vayikra. And she said, What's it about? And I started to tell her, and she was like, Are there any names? Are there any people? And I'm like, No, no, my love, there's no, there's, yeah, that's Aaron, and there's uh um Moshe, and there's Bitsal, no, not Batsala, not in this week. Like she wanted to know the names and the people, right? And that's like the child part in us. It's like, this is such a boring parsha. Like, what's the storyline here, right? Um, so I was thinking about that, and I was also thinking about how you know the idea of animal sacrifices and blood um makes a lot of people want to distance themselves. It's not comfortable, it's not something that we can easily understand or digest. Like, what part of God enjoys animals dying, right? And um what was coming through for me was more than the animal sacrifices and everything that we're gonna hear in Parshasvayukra, being about what God likes or desires or wants or um allows for us to be in connection, right, through these rituals, God is actually teaching us about ourselves. And I feel that way, you know, when I look at Shabbos, when you want to know, you know, we don't really know our godly soul very well. We've been in a survival state as Jewish people. We have been surviving and surviving and surviving, exile after exile after exile. And so we don't really know how to romance and make connection and take care of our spiritual side. And if you want help and a clue as to what would talk to your inner spiritual world, what will draw her out, what will wake her up, what will talk to her, what will talk to your soul, you are a God, you are a piece of God, and you have five books of Torah, and how many prophets and how many books written by our sages to tell you all about the dimension inside of you that you're just beginning to know as we go into this messianic period of safety. And so I was flipping this whole construct on its head, like no parshasvayikra, yes, it is about service to God, but before we go in, I invite you and myself. Um, what can we learn about ourselves? What can we learn about being in connection to our own soul, our own our own Hashamah? How can we step into service with her? And maybe in us taking care of Hashem and learning about, not really taking care of Hashem, but showing up in service to Hashem in the Mishgan, you get to learn something about yourself as well. Um share that, you know, in preparation for this, before even I before I even went into the parsha, I looked up a few um ideas around karbanos, right? The word karban comes from the word karov, to draw close. And that is what the the sacrifice was there to achieve. It was this process of a Jew was distant from God because he neglected an opportunity for connection, or he outright chose to disconnect himself, right? He missed an opportunity, he chose to miss an opportunity, right? And um there's this gap between him and God right now. And so Hashem teaches him when you take this sacrifice, this animal, and you come close to me, you step into my sanctuary, you step into the Mishkan, you make an appointment, and you, I don't even know if you had to make an appointment, but you make an appointment with yourself that tomorrow I'm taking an animal from the back, the pen, and I'm bringing this specific. I mean, I don't know if you could have done it like on a day's notice, because you had to be very, you had to choose a specific animal, one of three types, which had to be between under a certain age or female and um with no blemish on it, right? There were specifications, so I'm sure you needed some time, but you were like making this um this date for yourself, and you were coming close to the Mishgan and um stepping into connection to become close again, Karov. And I'll I'll share a few ideas around this, but what just like the premise of all of this that I read an idea that it's specifically because we cannot understand the the idea of carbanos that that's what made it so special and endearing to God. Uh carbanos are categorized under the laws of beyond our mind, they're they're beyond rational explanation. There is no way the human mind will ever understand this. As a human being, we cannot relate to this idea. And because we are able to put aside our mind and say, I don't understand this part of God, I don't understand this part of my spouse. I cannot, for the life of me, I do not understand why that would make you feel loved, or that would make you feel seen, or that would make you feel more secure in our marriage or in our home. But I love you. And so here, this is what I can do for you, right? It's specifically when I cannot relate to this, but I am able to do this for you anyway. And that is the bedrock of a of this marriage and this bond that makes this, it says that of all the sacrifices, out of all the mitzvos, this was the mitzvah that brought God Nachas, Nachat, and Reach Nachoach. Of every single mitzvah, this one was the one that was the most cherished by God. Like they're right, and it's the one that most of us will have, like, we have to like imagine it. It's difficult to capture in our minds. And it's precisely when we can do this in our own relationships, when in the name of love, I don't need to understand why you want to celebrate your birthday like that. As long as it doesn't violate the boundaries of this marriage and this relationship, as long as it is as it is respectful and carries the decency or boundaries of our connection, I can do this for you. Here, how can I support you in this? And so that's you know, that that's the bedrock here. But I also did read some beautiful ideas um on the parsha, on this idea of karvana. So I'll share those. Um to to bring this into uh into perspective, when the Jewish people sinned with the Chate Egal with the golden calf, Moshe Rabinu was in heaven in the spiritual realms with God, and he finds out, right? And God starts telling him, I'm gonna destroy the people. Okay, and Moshe argues, no, you were not gonna destroy the people, and finally God says, Um, I'll make a nation out of you. And he Moshe achieves forgiveness, and God says, Okay, but I'm not gonna come down and rest my presence on you, I'm gonna send an angel instead. And Moshe goes for, he goes, he goes all in. He says, if you don't come back and rest on the Jewish people, don't bring us into the land of Israel. Better that we should die in the midbar than go into the land of Israel without you. There is no room, there is no separation between God and the Jewish people. And because Moshe is this fierce advocate for the Jewish people, he literally pulls, he he like brings for us all the light that was hidden under this darkness. In in Chasidic thought, there's this idea of Yurida Litzarachaliyah, we need to have a downfall for the sake of an elevation. Two steps back, one step forward. We go into the dark, we redeem the sparks that fell below, and now we step back into the light and we integrate the sparks that we we manage to pull up. And I spoke about this when I did the last podcast, how maybe Khaita Egel was not really all that bad of a deal, like the way we portray it to be. Maybe it's not our darkest moment in history, maybe it's our bravest moment. Maybe it's the moment where we allowed our humanness to teach us something that we needed to know. And we fell. Our human existence, our survival imprint took us to this really, really, really low place. But because we were connected to Arab, because we had a leader, our leader was able to guide us in that spiritual darkness. And what did he pull forth for us? He pulled forth a relationship with God that was more solidified and more strong and more secure. He showed God that there is nothing that the Jewish people will ever do to you. He showed the Jewish people there is nothing that you will ever do that will be able to stop God from being here with you. And so we had to go down. We went all the way down to that place of darkness. And what did we get for that? What was the reward for that? We got the Mishkan. We got the Besha Mikdash. We brought ourselves the Besha Mikdash with that experience. And now we're here, we're in this week's parsha, and we have the Mishkan. And it's this literally is something down here in this world, not something that we needed a rabbit to go climb up into the heavenly realms. Mosha achieved that a human being, a person, can go step into the Besha Mikdash and watch God's presence come and interact with the world down here. And everything about the Mishkan was so out of nature that when you stepped in there, you were like, you were brought into this like spiritual truth of seeing God here, and you were you were changed. You were just a changed person from watching God take control over nature. Whether it was the arun that didn't take up space, whether it was the fire that came down in the shape of a lion to consume your karban, whether it was watching the holiness of the Kohanim in their domain leading. the Jewish people, like the smell, everything about it. And what's what's so ironic about all of this is that it doesn't get more physical than slaughtering animals, right? You can imagine like the the the the Kohanim are dressed in the most gorgeous outfits with beautiful, bright woven, textured, intricate, detailed they're wearing all their jewelry. They have their crowns on. They look magnificent. They carry themselves with this in in this um in this like how real this is, how serious this is, and what are they doing in their gorgeous garments? Like the most, the least glamorous thing you can imagine, right? And we'll we go through that here. But I I was getting to a point here oh about how this the Mishkan was there was no mistake right and that is exactly what the Mishkan came to teach us that we think that we made a mistake and so therefore we need to make this appointment and we have to show up and bring a karban this sacrifice to apologize to God and to right our wrongs. That's what the karbanos were there to do. And in reality I wonder if really what's happening is that our humanness goes on a journey and teaches us something that we need to know. And we learn the lesson that we need to we sin we fall we go into the very very human realm and domain and then to come back and integrate that to come back and bring that to our the rest of our of ourselves our spiritual selves to God we need to be held and comforted and caressed and like to return home to to our highest highest truth because when you do fall down and you go collect sparks when you're in the mud there's it's painful and it's scary and you're usually isolated and alone when you do it. So when you come out of that space right away you need this moment of stepping into a temple stepping into a sanctuary to like be be made whole again um I have written over here that on a very basic level when you brought an animal sacrifice you were parting with your wealth you were giving over something to Hashem which strips you and I guess this is a little bit another element to like your human self was teaching you something but maybe now okay I'll share this perspective and we can see if it works together. When you sin and you we're calling it a sin right maybe it is a sin. It is a sin when you sin and um you choose to step forward with a carbon what is actually happening back in the day their wealth was their animals right that was the way they amassed wealth. And so when you brought this animal to Hashem and you were giving it up and you were giving it away you were quieting your ego and allowing your godly soul to overflow. You were saying what I value most is the connection to my godly soul. You were reminding it of your highest truth actually for me it flows very well because maybe when you stepped out of your highest your highest self, when you had work to do in the lower realms there are energies that can come through and try to um play with your mind and play with your beliefs when you go back in time right or when you go into dark alleys. And so you come here and you keep yourself safe and you give away an animal and you show I don't need money to keep me safe. I believe that all ever all of my needs my safety my security my comfort everything will come from God. And so I'm not going to worship the God of money and I'm going to be able to part with my wealth and give away a piece that once made me feel secure um I also have here it allows the person to have the awareness of what he truly values with all the choices and the moves that a person makes in it in their day. So what I'm what I'm saying here is that very often we carry these values inside of our head I'm a loving mother I'm a good friend I'm a I'm a kind citizen right but it's not until my I'm I'm pushed into an action do I actually believe in the beliefs about myself right I only know that I'm that I am the friend that I think that I am when I can step into friendship and be there for my friend. I only know what I truly truly value right it's like put your money where your put your money where your mouth is right put your mouth where your money is your money where your mouth is that line where you are like initiated to show yourself what you truly value and what is important to you. And I I find this to be very very real and true um in um I'll share it like in a marriage you know the less needs you have the more difficult you make it for the other person to connect with you. When you do have a need it's so easy for the other person to be it you make it easier for the other person to show you that you that they care about you and that they love you. And it it gives them a way to be in connection to you. And you might feel secure in the love and you might be above having certain needs but what if your spouse needs actions to show themselves what they truly love? What if they're stepping out into the world every single day and they have a million thoughts and a million distractions and a million beliefs that come their way and when you open yourselves up to receiving their gift you give them an opportunity to show like wow I truly value my spouse I truly want to give away this wealth I want to bless you bless you it it really you know sometimes the gift does more for the giver than it does for the receiver. I'll say it that way and I'll teach I'll share two ideas from the Arezal and the Balshamtov about carvanos and then we'll go into the the five carvanos that are listed. So the Arezal teaches that every person has sparks of divine light that are trapped within the physical and the animal dimension of life. And when a person brought a sacrifice each person had specific sparks that were connected through karma and past lives gilgal and when a person burns an animal on the carbon they are liberating the sparks and they're bringing them back up to their divine source. And so when the Kohen had this intention that you know may the owner of this animal achieve complete forgiveness from being bringing it here he was actually helping send certain sparks back home back to their source of where they need to be and um obviously God took this person on a journey to being you know brought into the place where they can finally take the sparks that were in their animal the livestock of their lives and be able to return it back on high. And then the Balsemtov and the Altareva have this idea that our our inner world is our temple and our animal soul is the perpetual offering that we can have inside of us right and when we take our emotions and the energy that our animal soul generates and we hold them we contain them we are the maternal holding to these emotions we have the opportunity to go and flip these emotions and these energies and literally turn it into this divine sacrifice produce godly spiritual energy and you bring your your animal soul to the altar of your heart and the I'll go through the font the core emotions and um briefly share how with maybe an example or two how we can take these emotions and bring them as a sac as an offering to God. So the the emotions that I'll go through are anger grief pain fear shame guilt and hope one two three four five six seven I actually learned this um from Devore Nussbaum and she just released her book called Living with an open heart which I highly highly recommend and um Devore taught that when a person notices the energy of anger on their heart right they can presence with it hold it notice it talk to it how did you come here? What's your story? I'm noticing that you're here I want to hold space for you and be with it. And after it feels so held and seen you can begin the process of bringing well I hope you brought your godly soul to the process to begin with because I don't think we can hold this without it taking over us if we didn't bring our our Nishama our soul with us to guide us, right? And at a certain point this energy will be ready to go from being held to being transformed. And so what could the energy of anger be transformed into it can be transformed into boundaries right if I notice that I'm really really angry and I hear from the part of why it's angry I'm gonna come to conclude that somewhere boundaries were violated. Either I violated my own boundaries or someone else violated mine. And that becomes a godly moment for me to say I choose to bring more boundaries into my life right and we literally take an energy from our animal soul to the our heart the altar and we bring it up as reach nach to God to to pleasantness to food to nourishment to what gives God the greatest joy and honestly what I'm sharing now is the most practical modern day application of carbanos that I can think of. So really this is the mean point of the parsha for me. The next emotion is grief right when you notice grief on your heart and you feel it and you hold it and you'll hear its story eventually you can come to the place of I grieve for this person or for this part of my life or for this thing because of how much I love them or how much I do love them. And you have this moment of how lucky am I to be able to experience love, to channel love. It's a moment of like noticing your capacity for love because you only care to the extent that you actually love. And grief is really just a barometer for how big of an ocean your heart is and for how deep your love stretches. And the next one is pain. You'll hold pain you'll hold pain and you'll come to the godly truth that all pain is the process of birthing something new. And so you can ask yourself what is being birthed here? What am I giving birth to here the next one the fourth one is fear. Every time we're in fear if we become conscious of it and aware of it we have the ability to pause and to step into prayer what do I want to be praying to God with and for about I'm so afraid I'm so afraid I'm so afraid what do I pray for what do I pray for what do I pray for? Transform it the next one the fifth one is shame um when we will catch shame running through our system and we find the courage to not be afraid of it because shame is so so scary to approach and be next to and um when you find the strength eventually you can transform shame into humility and the way that if I remember correctly the way that um Dvory explained it was that the Alta Rebba teaches in Tanya that often the dark side klipa will be able to catch us in a spiral of shame by convincing us that we were such a high person. And so then when it tells us oh look at you look at you're at on this level where you're able to scream at your child or forget about your best friend's birthday or you know whatever fill in the blank the moment of humility is to realize that I was never the person that you that I once thought I was and actually this is where I am holding um and you come to this moment of humility and the other part that I if I remember correctly the the teaching um Devore was sharing about humility that all mistakes come from God and all success is God's too if I'm taking responsibility if I'm personalizing success then I'm also personalizing failure and coming to the altar and sacrificing that truth and reminding myself that my soul's truth is I'm a conduit for God. I am a portal for God. All mistakes are reminders that God is in charge and I'm gonna have this moment of humility to realize everything that comes through me is for for God and from God and it's not me. And the sixth one is guilt and um you know guilt is also a really tricky emotion to work with and I think the first step with guilt is to look at it and say hi I noticed that I feel guilty about something if you are real and true then I'm making an appointment with you meet me tomorrow tonight before I go to sleep when I'm getting ready to go to bed not in the middle of my day when I'm talking to my spouse work meet whatever it is because very often the dark side would like to trap us in guilt. And if the guilt is a real then it will show up to the appointment and if it's not it will not because it was literally a a false advertisement it was right it was trying to catch us in this pulling down energy. And if you do have that you know if the the guilty energy does show up when at the time that the appointment was chosen then it's the way you transform it is that you take accountability right thank you for showing me where I can grow. Thank you for keeping me accountable to my highest standards. And then the last one is hope. And um the Jewish people we carry we're very good at hope. We've been hoping for Mashiach from the beginning of time and we hope for better days and we're hoping and we're hoping and we're hoping and the transformation of hope is joy. And I I I don't I didn't prepare this before but I hope it will come through now I my husband was sharing this idea at the Shabbos table last week and he was sharing how there's an energy in the world where people become like romanced by dreaming. I dream of being a dreamer that was the line he used right and it's like but almost became like an um like a movement of like being lost in a dream of living in the state of hope. And the way he was saying it and I was seeing it was with the Rebbe coming and telling us we no longer have to hope in a messianic time it's here it's here we all we need to do is open up our eyes what does that mean to me it means take back my senses my my survival self trained my touch my taste my my my sight my all of my senses to see scan for danger and it has an objection an objective and it has a filter of how I see life and open up my eyes means take back my senses and allow my godly soul to use them and see them and take the hope and realize that there is so much joy available to us now. Of course we're we're still carrying hope we are not yet in the in the ultimate time of of everything of all of our brothers and sisters being pain free and all parts of our lives flowing in goodness, right? So we still carry hope. But maybe you know to stick to this idea when we do notice a lot of hope on our heart um we can turn it into joy for the blessings that are coming our way for the joy that we can count on for the God that we are even hoping in that's going to bring us all of this joy into our life okay so in this parsha um when someone who sinned witnessed how the animal was slaughtered and butchered and burned it greatly humbled the person and it gave them the chance to reflect on how these actions could so easily happen to him if not for this carbon who stands in his place right when you brought the animal there you have this opportunity to watch life being um you know being directed in another way out of this world away from life and I was going to share this later but um it's it's ahead of I'm going ahead of myself I'll I'll I'll stick to this and I'll share it a little bit later. Okay. It would help a person meditate on what sets him apart from the animal only his divine soul which needs us to follow his ways the intended effect of the karban is to arouse the sinner to heartfelt Teshuva if a person went through the motions without their heart changing directions then it was a pointless it was a pointless karban. And so this person chose the animal and he shows up and he's brought to specific location in the in the courtyard of the tabernacle the Mishkan and he goes through this process where he forcibly puts his hands on top of the head of the animal and has to touch the animal this is not an intellectual experience. His body had to be there to experience and literally touch the energy of the animal himself and he's putting his hands on and he's taking responsibility like I am pushing this animal down because that's what my action did. It it it literally you know put this um this lack of elevation in the world and so he he comes into contact with the animal and he watches how the animal slaughtered in front of him and it gives him this moment to say I chose to live my life last week or whenever it was for my animal soul. And when we let animals run this world look what it leads to and so I'm bringing my animal up to the carbon I will sacrifice this animal in place of my actual soul and it's this very moving process of watching life being taken from this world to show you what happened inside of you when you did not allow life to bloom in the world through your action I want to actually you know circle back for a minute you know the the carbanos are hard for us to understand for some of us we feel like you know this is so rough this is so harsh how could God want this from us but I was reflecting on this right before we got the laws of the Carbanos we stood by Harsenai and we said Nasa Vanishma we were so surrendered we were so trusting we were so sure that God knew the exact laws of and the way of living that would allow us to be our best selves that would allow us to be the most open-hearted godly pleasureful powerful purposeful partners of God in this world and when we say like someone sinned or someone had to bring a karban we're saying that somebody had a moment where they pushed up against the boundaries of God they pushed up against the boundaries that they chose for themselves that they committed to we when you know when you go into when you start a marriage um whether you do this consciously I hope I hope we all merit to be able to do this consciously but you set criteria for how your family is gonna look right we go to sleep in the same home every night I don't live in another state as you or some people right I'm gonna everyone gets to choose the foundations of their home and their marriage we eat dinner together five nights of the week or seven nights of the week you right we we go through this understanding of what will be most respectful loving supportive to achieve your success and our success and to fulfill our our values and our mission for this for this marriage for this love for coming together that when the Jewish people said Nasavanishma they asked for every single one of the mishpatim that we got in Parshas Mishpatim. They said thank you God for teaching me what will bring out my best self and so now when we come to Parshas Vayikra and we hear like a person sinned no one's being punished here. What's happening here is that a person pushed against a boundary of the marriage and they literally they they pushed a wall down and dark energy came through into the home, into the container the world is Made up of light energy and dark energy. We have klipa, we have light. The Jewish people are supposed to be homes of light. The mitzvos establish protection, an iron dome around us. And when we don't live up to our highest self, we invited in an energy. And the process for getting rid of that energy and for bringing that wall back into standing. So we're living in a protected, closed, solid home, is number one, the process of confession, of admitting, hey, I messed up in this marriage. I went against the standards that I agree to, right? This the humility of confession. And this, this, the person actually had to do a vidua, a confession when they brought the animal. And then there was this, I need to part with something, I need to humble myself. I need to come back into deep connection with God. And so when you give siddakah, when you give away your wealth, that by being a giver, you automatically bring alignment back into your being and back into the world. And so here, God says, Here, I'm going to teach you how you can do this. Come bring me an animal. And I will demand and set up my entire spiritual service so that you can have this for yourself, so that you don't have to carry the weight of the dark energy. It doesn't have to pile up on top of you. You you brought it into the world. The moment that you have this awareness and the humility to acknowledge it, come into my home and I'll take it off of you. I will tell my stuns, my Kohanim, my high priests to lift this energy off of you, and I will teach them the codes of how to take this out of the world. And not only that, I will show them the tricks of how to turn this into a greater light than was there before, because of your humility and because of your willingness to do this. So the person comes in with their either their animal or their flower offering or their bird offering, depending on a person's wealth. And they had options and they were all precious and dear to God. And it says that when a person was bringing a sacrifice, there were two sacrifices, whether it was a flour sacrifice, like the grain, the wheat, flour, mixed together with oil and then frankincense, or an animal. They both stood at the same location in the courtyard in the Mishkan, so that anybody who was in the Mishkan would not know the wealth status of another person. To protect the dignity of every single Jew, you wouldn't know whether someone was bringing a fat, expensive offering to God, or if someone was bringing a handful of flour, because that's what was available to them at that point. And it actually like blew my mind how Hashem managed to create one system for all Jews, and it achieved the same exact thing. It achieved forgiveness and transformation, and it didn't matter what your wealth status was, all of like it managed, the system managed to take care of everybody in the most dignified way. It feels like an impossible feat. Like, how many systems can we have in this world that could acknowledge everybody's on the wealth spectrum, from the poorest of the poor to the wealthiest of the wealthy? The king, in this week's parsha, it and the parsha ends off teaching us that what should a Kohin Gadl do if he sinned? And what should a nasi do, a leader if he sinned, and what should um Sanhedrin do if they sinned, right? They were literally touching on every status of a person's spirituality and on every status of a person's wealth and money. And Hashem like warned them, and we have different stories where Hashem said, Don't look down on the flower offering of the woman who brings it. It's more precious to me than the fat ox of the man who has how many in his backyard, and so he's bringing me one. Like the Kohanim were, were they knew that they were in that state. They didn't have to be reminded. It was more for the people walking up towards the Mishkan to have that reckoning with themselves of this offering means more to this person than my animal, and I should have that recognition and that humility.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

Um okay.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

So the animals, what type of animals were brought? The there were three animals: an ox, a sheep, or a goat. And then for birds, there were mature turtle doves or young doves that were allowed. And that was also like Hashem giving us options, whether we could afford a bird or an animal. And I read that specifically the turtle doves were brought in as an option for a carbon because they stay loyal to one mate their entire lives. They don't have multiple partners that they're intimate with, even to the point that if their mate dies, they will not associate with another bird. And that was one of the reasons that the turtle dove was chosen as the sacrifice. Um who was allowed to bring a carban? Every Jew, a man or a woman, um, who was not allowed to bring a karban, someone who publicly desecrates Shabbos and who is a heretic. And it says that a non-Jew may offer an Ola sacrifice. They were allowed to bring an offering to the God of Israel. Um there are five karbanos that are mentioned in this week's parsha: the ola, the chatas, the ashim, asham, and the mincha. Olah, chatas, asham, mincha. I'm missing one. Maybe I wrote it down soon. But I'll go through each one. So the ola was a free will voluntary offering. You would bring it, um, whoever brought it brought healing to the world, and it established connection to the person who neglected an opportunity to connect with Hashem. They, in this case, the person would have um violated a negative, it would negate a positive commandment. So let me see if I wrote that coherently. Um, it's, you know, if a holiday was here and I had the opportunity to connect to God by stepping into it, and I chose not to, right? Well, I actually I don't think a holiday is a good example. The example that was given was, let's say, to say Kriya's Shema at the right time. So time brought me this mitzvah and this opportunity, and I was neglectful of it, and I did not pay attention to it, and so I didn't step into that moment of connection between me and God. So when I would realize this, I have the opportunity to bring this olah. And what was coming to me in our modern day marriages, it's when our spouse or our friend or our mother, someone in our lives, makes a bid for connection and they say, Hey, do you want to hang out tonight? Or do you want to come sit with me here? And whether it's, you know, ignoring them and staying on our phone and scrolling, or it's no I'm like really brushing them off and um ignoring their request, right? They were vulnerable and they put their hand out and they said, Can you connect to me today? I want you. I miss you. And when we look away from that, something happens to the relationship, right? Even though you didn't agree to it before, oh, actually you do, you do agree to it for what I have here, it's attention is created on the relationship when someone reaches out and we step away from that hand that's being held out. And so when we're honest enough to identify what the strain is in the relationship, we can offer a sacrifice and part with our wealth and show up with an open heart and step into the privacy with our spouse to repear the damage that was done. Because wherever there is a reaching out, there's vulnerability and there's missed connection, right? If an opportunity was coming up, it was because there was supposed to be something that was forged, a connection that was forged. And when you ignore that and you bypass that, you are missing a link to connect you. Um, the Olah is also there to help someone who violated the rules of the relationship directly. Someone who steals can return the stolen object, and then they come face to face with God and they own up for the fact that they doubted that God would provide for them, right? So if you stole and you violated Hashem's rules or you cheated or you lied, you would come and bring an Olah after and you would say, God, I'm sorry that I had to resort to this dark energy and I didn't trust this connection with you. Because again, it's this disrespect and this lack of acknowledging Hashem's presence and power in your life. Um the last thing about an Ola was that if a person had a dark thoughts and they wanted to atone for that, they can bring an Olah sacrifice as well and help themselves move that energy out and step into the light. When an olah was brought on the on the altar, it was completely burned with no parts left for the Kohanim to eat or for the owner. It was a complete going up. Um, and I'll just share what I noticed to be so interesting was that after the animal was slaughtered, they would take the animal and like push, pull, squeeze all the blood out of the animal in a special basin. They would collect the blood. It was a very, very bloody um experience. And they would the car the cohen would take it and he would go to the altar and slosh it in four corners and like in this circular motion of encircling it. So blood is like gushing and spilling everywhere. Then he would come back and he would start separating the parts. If it was an ola, then the whole thing was put up, but in a certain way with the head facing a certain direction or the fat covering the head. Um and I was just highlighting the blood part where like this was just bring yourself into that space of like you're almost in a butcher shop watching this happen. Besides for the blood, there was the smell of barbecued meat happening, right? There was there was fire and um an animal being consumed and the smoke rising up and the blood sloshing. Like it was a very visceral experience that really, really impacted a person. Like we learn it in the very intellectualized way, we're reading it, but if we bring it out of our head and we bring it into our hearts, we can realize that this was a ceremony, this was a ritual that had so much wisdom in it to bring the person back into alignment with their highest truth. The next um, it says that the mincha offering, there were five types of mincha offerings, and it gave the person the ability to choose how they wanted to prepare their offering, their gift. Um, the mincha offering was a flower like grain wheat, um, and it was for those who couldn't afford an animal or a bird. And Hashem considered it to be as precious. It was made of flour, oil, and frankincense. The Kohen would take it like a fistful, um, with a three-fingered fistful, a very specific way of holding it up, and he would burn it on the altar, and then the rest of it would go to the Kohanim, and the Kohanim would shear it and eat it with their families. The next offering was the shlamim. The shlamim was called the peace offering, and it promoted peace between Hashem and the world and everybody involved who gave it. And it was it was the offering that someone brought when they wanted to express gratitude to God. When life was working out so abundantly and in such a blessed way, and a person wanted to go and say, Thank you, God, for all the blessings and for all this gladness that I feel in my heart, they were able to bring an animal to Hashem in their gratitude and in their thanks. And the shlumim was actually divided in three ways: a section of it, the blood, and certain parts of it went to Hashem. A section of it went to the Kohanim, the breast and the thigh, and then the remainder went to the owner, and he was able to eat it in Yerushalayim and share that with his family, like from this like holy meal, this holy meal offering. Um, and it was like this, it says that all three parties were enjoying a meal as friends, God, the Kohanim, and this person who chose to bring it. And as I was sharing this, I'm reminded of a story where um somebody made an appointment and they flew in from out of town to they had a health crisis with their child, and so they made an appointment with the Rebbe, and um they wrote in, they made an appointment, they flew in, something to that effect, and the Rebbe guided them, and after their miracle came through, they flew in back into America from out of states, if I believe, to say thank you to the Rebbe. And when the Rebbe Tin heard that somebody flew in to say thank you, she said, Who is this person that knows where to come and reach out to when they have good news and thank you to share? I want to meet them. And so she asked the Rebbe's secretary or somebody in the Rebbe's um office to make an appointment for her to meet these people because she was so moved that these people didn't um forget to come and say thank you from where the blessings came. And I was so moved when I heard this story. Um, you know, it just reminds me, like it's not to shame ourselves for the moments where we forget to give thanks. It's more for the remembering and the acknowledgement that taking the time to be grateful and to express our gratitude is our greatest truth. It is in alignment of who we are. And we see that how there's a space for it, literally in the in the offerings of the Mishkan. Like God wants to hear from us in our thanks. And it's only like dark energy and dark thoughts that would tell us, like, oh, that's not worthy of taking up God's time, or or was that even such a miracle that I even need to go say thank you? Like those are all dark thoughts to play with us. Um, the third type of offering was called a chatas, and it was a sin offering. And it was for doing something that you accidentally um, doing something accidentally that you were not allowed to. You went against the terms that you agree to, and it would have caused you cares. You would have been cut off from the Jewish people, but when you had this moment of reckoning and you chose to bring this animal, it was a female goat or lamb, and you brought it, you would remove this dark energy that had settled on your soul, and it would literally be lifted off of you. I do have here that sins that were done intentionally, um, an animal sacrifice won't heal. Like if you specifically went ahead and you violated God and you said, like, I in spite of, like, I'm angry and I'm gonna sin, the way to rectify that was not going to be through taking the life of an animal to God. Um, our sages tell us that only your spiritual merits, your teshuvah, your fasting, and your good deeds would be able to lift off that energy. Like the animal sacrifice is not gonna be there to help you in your time of directly going up against um the Torah and God. Like that's gonna come from like a very deep inner process within yourself.

SPEAKER_00 59:38

Excuse me.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

I also have here that the khatas and the ola were given in the same location to protect the person. So it wasn't only about a person's wealth, but it was also that you didn't know if I'm showing up to the Mishkan because I sinned or if I'm expressing gratitude. Like why I'm there is nobody's business but mine and the Koens. And um yeah, I thought that was beautiful. And then the it's mentioned how salt was given with every single karban. They would take the animal and they would salt it on the bottom of the ramp. And it was very much connected to in the second day of creation when Hashem created the world, he separated the waters. And the waters cried out to Hashem and they said, Um, now we're so distant from you, we're so far from you. You are up there and you're gonna leave, and um we're gonna be down here. And my sister-in-law Rifki Kaplan from Tsvat, she shared a beautiful teaching on this where Hashem turns to the water and comforts the water and says, Wait for the time when I will tell the Jewish people to erect a tabernacle and with and the base hamiktash, and you will have a place in every single Jew, every person's karban, you will be elevated and you will come back up to those heavenly realms with us, with that offering. And the point that Rifki was making was that God didn't start having an intellectual conversation with the water, the salt, and say, but I'm down here just as much as I'm up there. Like God met the water where the water was at. Like, if this is your reality, if this is what you're experiencing, I'm not gonna start convincing you that there's a greater reality. I'm gonna comfort you. I'm gonna show you how you're in deep connection to me. I'm not gonna put my truth above your truth. Um, and that spoke to me here. And then in this parsha, it speaks about um three scenarios that you would have to bring a katas for. One was if I was in a court situation or in uh in a an illegal situation and you witnessed something, and I needed you to come and testify, and you and someone from the court, the based in will come to you and say, You're being summoned. If the person denied that they have testimony, right, they're denying evidence, they're denying eightos from coming into a court process for truth, that is a violation. And if you do do that, you are obligated to bring a chatas. And that's just showing us again, and there's another, I'll I'll share that idea. The second one was if you unintentionally um create a false oath, you promise that in the future or in the past something happened, or you will do something, and then you forget that you promised it, you made it, you took words and you didn't live up to them, or you you and then the third one was if someone, okay, no, it's this two. The third one was if someone entered into the Mishkan when they were in a state of not impurity. Um, if they do that, and when they come to realize and remember that they didn't show up at the standards that was wanted of them, they can go ahead and bring a khatas. But on the first two ideas, what really what was standing out was the idea that we don't realize that our words are so, so, so powerful. Like literally, our words, if we speak words incorrectly or we deny words, or we give words at the wrong time, we are obligated to show up to God with an animal and apologize for that. And it just highlights that, you know, when you bring an animal on the Mizbayah, what's different about us and an animal? One one big factor, we can speak and they cannot. And we need to take, we I can take responsibility for the fact that I am a co-creator with God, that my words create, we are creating, and every word we speak has an impact in this world, to the point that we need we will have to correct it if we speak um falsely, or we don't speak up when we need to be speaking up. And then the last um, the last category in this parsha is the asham, the guilt offering. And it was for if you stole something, or you had someone's item, their property, they're valuable, and you don't give it back when it's meant to be given back, you would have to bring a karvan ashram. Or if you ate foods or property that was designated for the base samikdash or for the Mishkan and you realized you would bring an asham. The third scenario was if someone sleeps with a betrothed maidservant, you would bring an asham. And then the fourth one was a nuzir who violated his um commitment to not drinking wine or cutting his hair, or maybe it was when he wanted to exit out of this vow he had to bring an ashram. And then the fourth one was um when the someone who had leprosy, tsaras, was in their process of healing, they too would bring a karban ashem. Um, so that's you know the conclusion of the content of this week's parsha that I prepared. Um, you know, look to see if there was anything else that I wanted to share to conclude. Yeah. So when I reflect on this parsha, a parsha svayikra, and you know, the five types of offerings that we can bring to Hashem, um a big part of it is the guilt offering and the sin offering, right? It's centered around I made a mistake and I want to rectify it and I want to show up. And what what what I'm seeing in that is the reminder from God that relationships are built in that way, right? We are going to fall short, we are going to hurt each other, we are going to mess up. And to know that that is godly and that is divine. That is how Hashem set up relationships to grow and to be built. And so if in my relationship with God, I can know that I mess up, then how much more so is it going to happen between me and another person? And God lends Himself to being our greatest teacher. Somehow, there's not somehow, we have the most awe and fear of and love of God. And so when we hold ourselves accountable to that relationship, we learn how to show up to our other relationships. We literally practice on God, and then we can go ahead and bring that energy into our marriages and into our friendships. And so if I know that I can mess up with God, I'm gonna know that I'm gonna mess up with my spouse and with my child and with my mother and my father and my sister and my nephew, right? Like that is the reality that's here. And to normalize that and to not allow clipa and dark thoughts to shame me for being a struggling human, for struggling in relationships. Relationships are complicated. And that's why built into it is the medicine and the healing for it, which was the service that is spoken about in this week's parsha. Um but the the point that I'm I'm leading to in that is that you are allowed to make mistakes in marriage and in a relationship, but you need to know that you are in one and you are held accountable for them. And every one of the relationships that we're in, if we are if we can step out of denial or gaslighting or that we're in it, when we fall short, we know what our next move has to be. And specifically around this idea of, you know, when you're in survival mode, you cannot show up to your relationship with your full being. And you have excuses, like I cannot prioritize this and that and that relationship. I'm just trying to make ends meet, I'm just trying to take care of the basic needs. And so when you're in survival mode, you're you're you're off the hook from this level of connection, from this level of alignment. And my feeling is that in so many ways we are still in survival mode, but in so many ways we are not. And if we want to be honest with ourselves and we want to literally welcome in Mashiach into our personal lives and into the collective, the work that I see here for me, for us, is to show ourselves where we are not in survival mode. To pause and realize that if I can take a shower before Shabbos, there is safety in my life. I have time to clean my body. If I have time to cook food for Shabbos, there is some level of safety. My my animal instinct and the energy out in the world will try to convince me you're surviving, you're surviving. You can't prioritize connection, you can't serve, you can't prioritize relationship. No, you can't do that higher level of relationship or showing up to God. Like you're surviving. It does everything to just move ahead with the survival narrative. And yet, most of our mitzvah centered around Shabbos or a woman going to mikvah or celebrating Rosh Khodash are all ways for us to be able to realize, like, no, I'm gonna push back against that thought and that belief that I'm in survival mode. I'm not. If I can sit down and eat on dishes, I am in a place of abundance. I am in a place of blessing. I am safe. I can be in connection to God's beauty and wonder and pleasure, and that doesn't happen in survival. And you can take a moment to communicate to your nervous system, in this moment we are safe. In this moment, we tap into God's beauty and God's blessing and God's gifts of surviving, right? Of making it to this point in time. Um I feel like, you know, whether it's choosing a modality to help you leave this process of I'm I am in survival, whether it's somatic therapy or working with someone to come back into your body, or right, you know, mashiach is something that we dove in for and we beg and we feel we feel so hurt and sad when other people are suffering. And we can dive in and pray and think that we care so much, but really where we have the most impact is showing, taking ourselves out of survival mode. And that literally generates a messianic, like you become this generator of the messianic frequency. And wherever you go, you bring that vibration into your space. The more and more you redeem yourself and you keep on showing yourself. I'm sleeping on a bed, it has clean linen, there's a washing machine in my home, there's a toilet that I can flood, like from every detail. I go into a car, I didn't have to have a horse and buggy. There's lights here. There's someone built a system for me to be able to drive here from living 45 minutes away in the most efficient, and I have ways to guide me here, right? If we presence ourselves with how many blessings are happening in a given moment, we consistently confront this belief, this energy that wants to convince us that we're still running, we're still on the run. And I feel like the more we do that, the more we come home and we can enter into our into the temple that is within us and hear from our godly soul, because when there is safety and there's quiet, we can hear the voice of the divine guiding us inside of us. And I'm gonna finish this class and share. I thought of this idea earlier today when I was preparing, and then um it came through now again, um, and it's not even on this topic, so it really wanted to be shared here. Um, I was thinking how you know when we learn these partios, there's this, like for me at least, like I had to push against this, you know, habit rote, this is boring, I know this. And um, in many ways, if you showed up to give a carbon and you were doing it by rote, it wouldn't work for you. The entire point was that you had to open up your heart. And our our sages tell us that eventually God took the Besam Megdash away from us because people were bringing, they were literally murdering animals for no reason, because their hearts were staying closed. And God said, Keep your animals alive, I'm taking away my home. So the entire premise was that this should not become a ritual. This was supposed to be not to become a habitual ritual, not to become something that you do by with your eyes closed on autopilot. And I was asking myself, like, what can I do to not to keep that from happening? Like, what can I do? And what came to me is my grandmother, my my grandfather um was Russian and um he was he he ran from the war and eventually he made his way to America because my grandmother told him we're leaving and um he wanted to go with her. So he he followed her. She said, Um, I'm leaving. If you want to come join me. And um he started out working with meat. He was a butcher, and eventually he went on to establish the largest meat packing company, kosher meatpacking company. And it was a it was a big thriving business that was dedicated to bringing kosher meat. And it was a beautiful um, it was beautiful to witness how much love and I don't even know what to say about it. There's so much to say, but what I'm getting to is that this was a huge pro it was a very successful, beautiful business. And um his wife, who was the partner of this company and this empire, my grandmother was married to this butcher man who had this huge, and until today, when my grandmother sits down to eat meat, she washes before, right? She was very accustomed to eating meat, thank God. That was the food that was most readily available, like grab a pack of meat on your way home from work and right, that's dinner. It was probably the cheapest item at sometimes for her to even have. And yet she put a boundary in front of herself. I will never become habituated to eating meat. I will never become careless about consuming life. I will never step into like using the physical world without holding myself accountable. I will stop before, I will wash my hands, I will talk to God, I will presence myself with the fact that I am about to consume life. I will ask God to direct that life inside of me to lead to good. And I'm I was I I've always been so moved by my grandmother for so many reasons. And in this week's Parsha, like I was reflecting on the wisdom that she brings to me in my life. And I feel that that's just one example. Like Torah is set up in a way where there's teachings to help us not fall into habit. And um, I don't, you know, it's hard. It's hard to go from survival mode to being present. In survival mode, most things turn into habit, and then the process of waking up means that you have to find the the beauty and bring it, make, bring it back to life. Literally breathe the life triya sami back into the mitzvah so that it becomes alive again and so that it's not something. And so, you know, my my only guidance for that is to pray, to literally pray, God, help me, help me set up um something in front of these mitzvos so that they don't become mitzvos of habit and that I can show up to them with an open heart. And we're done for today. Thank you so much.