Intentional Judaism: From Small Aleph to Elevated Offerings [Parsha Pearls: Vayikra] 5786

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You're listening to Rabbi Arya will be of torch in Houston, Texas.

This is the Partial Review Podcast.

Good morning, everybody.

Welcome back to the Partial Review Podcast.

This week's Partial's Partial's Viicura.

We begin the book of Leviticus as we remember.

The book of Genesis is about the family of Israel.

The book of Exodus is about the nation of Israel.

The book of Leviticus is about the holiness of Israel, the spirituality, the connection with God of Israel.

And then we have about the travels of Israel, which is by Midbar,

and then the review of the books of the Torah in Turanami.

We begin the portion of Ayyikra with Ayyikra, El Moshe, Veidabir, Hashem, a Love.

And he called to Moses, and Hashem spoke to him, may oil moid lame are from the tenth of meeting saying.

So there's a couple of very important things.

The first is that one we've mentioned previously is that if you look at the alif of Ayyikra,

the first word in the book of Leviticus, it has a small alif at the end of the word.

A smaller than normal alif.

And Arsage just tells us that Moshe on his own didn't want to be prominently displayed in the Torah

as someone who was frequently engaging with God.

It would seem arrogant.

So he had it instead of it being Veidabir and God called him, God summoned me.

As he's writing it, he says, you know what?

I'm going to make the alif a small alif, which is Veidabir and it happened to be.

It was happenstance.

It happened upon that I was called by God, but not that it was, I'm so holy,

I'm a whole year than everyone else, and therefore God called me.

It was a sign of humility.

But then we see that Arsage just teach us that Moshe didn't go into the tent of meeting until he was called.

Moshe, the leader of the Jewish people, who had the rights and access to everything, says, no, I'm going to wait.

When God calls me, then I'll go.

So I say to tell us here something very, very important that this is the definition of intentional Judaism.

You know, in prayer we have a concept of Kavanaugh.

That is the same idea of intentional prayer.

We can say the words, we can be in a habit of saying words, you know, I've given this example numerous times here.

I've had many of our beloved students here at the torch center who have said, you know, Rabbi, it's not fear, because you grew up religious.

So for you, everything is natural.

But for me, it's changing my whole life.

So from one perspective, people were saying to me that it's just not fear.

I have an edge over them.

I said, it's not true, it's just the opposite.

You have the edge over me. Why?

My son is 12 years old right now.

Next year, he'll be by mitzvah.

Do you know that by the time he turns by mitzvah and is obligated to recite the schmah twice daily?

He will have said the schmah probably 10,000 times already.

10,000 times recited the schmah.

What is the likelihood that at the age of 13, he will have the proper intention for the mitzvah that he's about to perform?

Now, the hope and prayer is that we do have intention and that we do understand that we're talking to God, understand the words that we're reciting.

That's the most important elements of prayer.

But when someone does something so frequently, it becomes habit, it becomes wrote, it becomes just...

It just happens.

What we see here is that Moshe did not let that happen.

Moshe says, I'm not just going to walk in.

I'm going to walk in because God commanded me to walk in.

We talk about this a lot in our Monday luncheon learned about intentional Judaism through simplicity.

We need to keep our relationship with God simple.

You know why we put on fulfill in every single day?

Because God commanded us to.

Keep it simple.

If we have that focus, it's very easy.

We're not doing it because, oh, this is what I do every day.

And not even think about it.

I do it because God commanded me to do this.

And that's a very intentional action, very intentional.

I'm doing this because this is the commandment from God.

But then we see something else in this week's Partia.

That I think is equally as important.

We talk about three different voluntary...

The first three chapters talk about all these different voluntary offerings that we have.

The first entire chapter talks about the burnt offering, which is the Ola,

otherwise known as the elevation offering.

And Rashi tells us that the Ola atones for mitzvahs that were not performed.

So if heaven forbid that pair of filling was not worn one day,

a person can bring an Ola for the missed opportunity.

But we also know that we have something called Tushuva.

We have repentance.

So why do we need also an Ola offering?

And Tushuva and repentance.

If repentance fills in the blank, the missing space, the missing mitzvah,

why do I need the Ola? Why do I need the Ola offering?

So we all know that when someone sins against another person,

I do something to hurt someone I love.

A friend, I offend them, I embarrass them.

So we all know that you can apologize.

And you should apologize.

But sometimes the apology doesn't allow that relationship to get back to where it was.

You hurt me.

You insulted me.

It's great that you apologized.

But I don't know if the friendship is repairable to the level that it was before.

Or say, just teach us that Tushuva is an apology.

And you're forgiven.

But an Ola, when someone is able to bring an offering to God,

that repairs the relationship to its intentional state.

You're able to get it to a higher level, to a much higher level,

through the offering.

More than just repentance can do.

Okay, so what do we do today when we don't have a temple?

What do we do today?

How do we repair for things that we missed out?

We missed out on a mitzvah.

How do I repair that?

So I say, just teach us that by reciting the prayers of the offerings,

which we do every morning, and we study this in our prayer podcast,

by bringing the Ola offering in our words, in our prayer,

which is the carbon note that I recited every day in the introduction of our morning prayers,

it's as if we brought the offerings.

So it's as if we brought the offerings.

So even though we don't have the offerings today, we don't have a temple,

we can't actually bring the offering.

And we see by Abraham, that Abraham questioned God,

he says, what's going to happen with my children?

How do I know that my children are going to get the land of Israel?

How do I know that they're going to deserve the land of Israel?

Maybe they'll sin.

So God says, bring these three offerings, the three heifers and three goats.

Bring these offerings, and this will be an atonement for what they may do in the future.

But then the Abraham says, what's going to be when the Jewish people don't have a temple?

They'll be able to recite it.

And this leads us back to the first thing we said, intentional Judaism.

Doing things with the right intention.

You see, if we just do things out of road, do things out of habit,

and I think the worst thing in any relationship and any marriage

is for things to just become habit.

It just becomes habit, it becomes ordinary.

You get busy with life, you get busy with your job,

you get busy with, you stop investing in that relationship.

You know there's a guy who wants to confess publicly that even though he's married,

he still dates his wife.

That's what we need to do.

Don't let it become just mundane and ordinary.

A person needs to invest in that relationship every day.

Find a way, I tell young guys, when they're about to get married, I give them $50.

Say, go to Walmart.

I just saw recently that they raised the prices a little bit.

But it used to be $0.94 a card.

You know there's little love cards.

I love you. You're so dear to me, so special.

Whatever they have, these beautiful drawings or paintings,

they are Walmart cards.

So buy 50 of them.

With tax, $0.94, with tax is a dollar.

Buy 50 cards.

That's not the only thing, of course.

We have a Mitzvah right before.

Paisach, I'll just let you know right now.

There's a Mitzvah to buy your wife, jewelry,

and or special clothes for the holiday.

Tora says, you're obligated to make the holiday special for your spouse.

And my wife and I, we have an agreement.

My wife does not like when I buy her jewelry without her seeing it first.

So I said, no problem.

Tell me what you want, and I'll get it.

No, I don't think we need it now.

I don't think it's like it always goes like,

but I have to do my job.

So I said, you know what?

You can go and you can buy it, but it's for me.

That's the deal, okay?

But the Tora obligates us to make the holiday special

because at least three times a year before the festivals,

Paisach Shavot and Sukot make it unique, make it special.

Don't let it just be a habit.

I've heard from so many couples.

Again, I'm not a therapist,

but sometimes as a rabbi, people come and talk.

They want advice, they want whatever help I can help

as a non-professional, as a friend.

And I say, what have you done

to make your relationship special, to make it sparkle?

It's like your car.

If you just leave it and you're not going to take it for a car wash,

it's going to look very muddy.

It's going to look very dirty.

You have all the pollen here in Houston.

Your car is going to get, it's not going to look nice.

It's not because it's dirty, but it becomes, you know,

like every time you get into a new car,

you say, okay, this car I'm going to keep clean.

This car I'm not going to have junk hanging around any place.

I'm going to keep it so organized I'm not going to have my papers here.

I'm not going to have my coffee cups here.

I'm not going to have my rappers here, but it becomes ordinary.

At the beginning, it's very exciting.

But a person needs to refresh their relationships.

A person needs to refresh and keep it fresh,

particularly our relationship with God.

A relationship with God cannot become habit.

A relationship with God cannot just be,

whatever I go pray, and I don't even think about what I'm praying.

I don't even know, I don't even recognize that I'm standing in front of God,

that God is right there listening to my prayers.

I'm thinking about this, and I have to call that guy back,

and I have to do this, and maybe I should remember to do that

when I get home, I'll order this, and I have to go pick up that,

and I have to get the cleaners, and I got to go,

you know, make sure I call that person.

We're busy, and by the time we're done prayer,

our ordinary prayer wasn't intentional.

We have to make it special,

which is why one of the things that I love about our prayer podcast,

is that first, there are a lot of parts of the prayer

that I never even understood what I was saying,

to just understand the words and to have meaning behind it,

but also to now that I understand and hopefully understand

to some degree, after doing a tremendous amount of study and research,

and learning about it, to have in mind,

when I recite these words, these holy words,

connect my emotions, my feelings with it,

to say it with meaning, to say it with intention,

to say it with focus, because to just stand and recite prayer,

yeah, very nice, but it was just without heart,

it was without Kavanaugh, without intention, without focus,

and that's what a person needs.

In every part of life, in every part of life,

never, ever allow your life to become a life of habit.

We talked about atomic habits, that's changing our habits,

investing in good habits, but even then,

don't let it become a habit that doesn't have intention.

Why am I doing this?

You're trying to become healthier, change your eating habits,

change your exercising habits, so that I have a healthier body,

so that I can serve God, not so that I idolize my body,

so that I'm able to be a better person,

because I'm healthier, I have less ailments due to neglect.

Our relationships are exactly the same.

Our relationships, I don't want to say this,

but I sat with a couple, and it seemed to me like

there were two roommates living under the same roof for decades.

There's no harmony and love.

Why did they get together 30, 40 years earlier?

Because at that time, they met each other's needs,

but then they just became two people dorming

in the same house together,

without there being a relationship that's growing,

that's special.

It's mundane, it's just ordinary.

It's not a growing relationship.

What we see here in our Torah

is that we need it to be intentional.

We need to have Kavanaugh.

Moshe didn't just walk in.

When God asks me to, I will.

We don't just do things.

Oh, this is what I do every day.

God is asking Moshe to do it.

Now I can go in.

When we go and pray,

what we need to declare in our mind,

my grandfather says before you go and stand to pray,

sit for a minute and just contemplate the idea

of what you're about to do.

I'm about to talk to God.

That's it.

I'm about to talk to God.

Think about it.

Stop, sit, close your eyes.

I'm about to talk to Hashem.

It's a different prayer.

Oh, you're rushing in.

Oh, you get the prayer.

We have a million great.

Let's go.

I'm talking in the front of God.

It's a different idea.

It's a different concept than just saying words.

And again, yes,

someone who grew up in a religious life

and has been praying since they're two years old.

Their first words were blessings.

They have to retrain themselves

to become intentional Jews.

Retrain themselves that I don't just do this

because these are the habits I picked up growing up in my home.

I'm doing this because this is the will of Hashem.

I'm talking to God.

The offerings, that's what the offering would do,

it would repair that was missed out.

I didn't just say, I'm sorry,

you're repairing it because you're showing an extra level

of commitment of dedication.

It's taking it up, saying,

I'm going to do this intentionally.

We talked about the beginning of this year,

2026.

Our focus this year is to become intentional Jews.

I'm not Jews of habit.

I'm not a Jew of habit.

I'm Jew of intention.

We do Jewish things.

We're involved in a Jewish community.

We learn Torah.

We go pray.

We're a member of this society and that society.

Why?

Just because.

It makes me feel like I'm Israel Khai.

There's more to it.

I want to build my relationship with God.

It's intentional.

I'm doing this so that I can come closer.

Our say just tell us that eating seems like a very physical act.

I'm eating.

Why am I eating?

Why am I eating?

Why am I eating?

Why do I need to eat?

Just to indulge in my own physical desires,

my own physical pleasure?

Why am I eating?

I say just tell us you should have in mind when you eat.

I'm eating so that I have strength so that I can serve God.

It's a totally different reason.

Now it becomes with a purpose.

It becomes intentional.

So now I can navigate between eating and indulging

and eating for my health so that I can sustain myself.

We all know all too well how eating can go away out of that realm

and become something onto its own.

Have its own life.

Whereas nothing to do with us being healthy,

it has to do with us being indulgent

in our own desires.

And that's not where we want to be.

When we, there's a cost in a person doing a sin.

We talked last evening in our Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

We talked about fear of heaven.

What's the fear of heaven?

Fear of heaven means I'm afraid

is what it should be at least.

Fear of missing out.

FOMO.

I have an opportunity to do a Mitzvah.

If I do a sin instead, I missed out on the Mitzvah.

Opportunity cost.

The Ola would repair that.

The Ola would repair that

and give a person the closeness that they missed.

While Tushuva is an apology that's accepted.

But it doesn't repair what was missed.

It's taking it a notch beyond.

A dear friends.

We're now in the season of Pesach.

When the season of Pesach

we're in the preparation time of Pesach.

Pesach in two days we have Raschodesh.

On Thursday this week is Raschodesh.

Where we bring in the month of Nisan.

Nisan is the month where the Jewish people became

in new people.

We didn't yet receive the Torah.

We received that in Sivan, which is two months after.

But it's the time that the Jewish people were taken out of Egypt.

It's the time that the Jewish people declared our desire to serve God.

It's the time that the Jewish people declared

that they're not going to give in to their captors.

Where we brought the offering of the Carbon Pesach

and they needed to grill it so that the smell goes out

so that the Egyptians would smell that their God,

the sheep, is being slaughtered by the Jews.

Don't bake it in the oven.

It's got to be grilled so that the aroma goes all around town.

I think it can smell the barbecue grill.

This is our time to declare a change.

It's our time to declare.

We went through a whole winter of one day, another day,

another day, and thank God we've had an unbelievable winter here

at the Torch Center of learning day and day out,

one book after another book, one topic after another topic,

one ask away after another ask away in our everyday Judaism podcast.

So many beautiful opportunities to learn and to grow.

Is there perhaps one thing that we can make intentional?

And I think, you know, we all sit by our Pesach Seder

and we have a Haggara.

And I find myself, and I'm sure many people feel the same,

that we resort back to the same basic understanding of the Haggara

that we had when we were children.

This is what my dad used to say, my grandfather used to say,

and we're just suffice with that instead of looking further and deeper,

into new ideas and making it hours, not theirs,

hours connecting with that on a new level.

So that's what I want to do for the next couple of weeks

till Pesach is take some time to invest in making the Pesach Seder our own,

making it intentional that when we come to the Pesach Seder we come prepared

that it's our Seder.

My dear friends, have an amazing Shabbos.

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Thank you, Rabbi.

I understand there's a fundraiser going on.

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It's a very, very good question, very valid question.

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Thank you, Mark.

I appreciate your question.

Now, I want to talk about giving to torch.

Okay.

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