Parsha: Tzav - Protocols of the Offerings of Zion + Parsha Podcast Appeal

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It's parasha's Sav, and like the previous parasha, the subject of our parasha is almost

exclusively sacrifices, and it begins with the priestly protocol of how sacrifices are

processed.

Last week, we learned about the various different sacrifices a person can bring, and now we read

about, well, when a person brings it, what do the priests do with it?

How do they process it?

What's the protocol?

And it begins with the protocol of the ola of the elevation offering.

Last week, we began with the 10th set of sacrifice with the ola one, and this week, we were

doing with the protocol of the processing of the ola, specifically the tummed ola that's

offered in the afternoon, in late afternoon towards the evening.

That sacrifice is the end cap of the entire day's sacrifices.

It's the last thing that's placed upon the altar, and we're told about what has to happen.

The sacrifices placed upon the altar, on the altar there are various fires, and the sacrifice,

the animal, is burned, and in the morning, you're left with ashes, a pile of ash, and

the first law of our parasha is the mitzvah to clear away the ash.

Before we begin the next day's services, before you even bring the first sacrifice, the

tummed sacrifice of the morning, there is a mitzvah, there is a commandment, to clear

away the ashes from yesterday's sacrifices.

The priest would ascend the altar, holding a shovel, and he would maneuver, he would

jostle the coals a little bit, get a scoopful of ash, and walk down the altar, and deposit

the ashes near the altar.

There is a special place on the eastern side of the altar, where they would deposit the

ashes.

Tama tells us this is one of the miracles that happened in the temple and the tapenarchal,

that these ashes would be absorbed into the ground.

Now every day, the coin would only remove one shovelful, one scoop of ashes, what about

the rest of the ashes, they would be arranged on top of the altar.

And periodically, when there was so much ashes, it was hard to maneuver on the top of the

altar, then there would be a second process, where the ashes would be removed, not to that

spot on the eastern side of the altar, but they would be removed out of the city to

a pure place that was not done every day.

That's the beginning of our parasha, the removal of the ashes in the morning.

Next we read about the fires, there must be fires atop the altar, they can never be

extinguished.

We always think of the fires as being a means to process sacrifices, but the truth is,

there must be a steady fire maintained atop the altar, whether or not there are any

sacrifices to process.

The priest would arrange logs each morning to maintain a steady fire.

The rashi observes that if you read the first six verses of our parasha, it says the term

fire or fire atop the altar four times, and he says the Talmud, which says that there

were at various times, there were four different fires atop the altar.

Rashi tells us something very interesting, even though the temple and the tabernacle certainly,

there was a divine fire that descended from heaven.

In the first temple, there was a fire in the shape of a lion that was crouching at all

times, like a wound up lion, ready to pounce.

That was the shape of the divine fire atop the altar.

In the second temple, it wasn't quite as powerful, it was shaped like a dog.

So you didn't need to have any human-produced fire in order to burn the sacrifices.

Nevertheless, it's a mitzvah to supplement the heavenly fire with a human-made fire.

You have a heavenly fire, but nevertheless, you must arrange the lodge atop of the altar

to perpetuate the fire as if there was no miracle.

This is the protocol of the Ola that opens our parasha.

Next we read about the protocol of the Mimha, the meal offering.

These again are offerings not made from animals, but from flour and oil and frankincense.

As we saw last week, it could come in a variety of different ways, either raw, so you have

just the flour and the oil and the frankincense, or it could be baked or fried in a variety

of pans.

And this is processed atop the altar.

The priest takes three finderfuls of the meal offering and burns it atop the altar and

the leftovers, and this is true for most meal offerings.

There are some meal offerings that are burned completely, namely the ones brought by the

Kohanah by the priests.

But the leftovers of ordinary meal offerings are eaten by Aaron and his sons in the courtyard

of the tapenectrel and the temple.

There were three different types of offerings brought by Kohanah.

There was the initiation offering, the first day of a Kohanah's service to the temple

of the tapenectrel.

He would bring a special offering that was burned in its entirety.

There's the daily high priest offering, and then there's the first day of a high priest's

tenure as high priest, he brought a special offering.

Those are all burned atop the altar in its entirety.

But even a priestly meal offering that's burned in its entirety, it still has to have

the three finder process of burning that amount atop the altar, separate from the rest

of the meal offering.

Now when the Kohanah is doing it, it must be in its mouth, the verse tells us, it cannot

be rendered into chameis and even the leftovers that are not burned on the altar are eaten

by the priests, can't be made into chameis.

We read how very interesting, what happens if a meal offering that's going to be eaten

by the Kohanah, it touches a different food or a different item like a vessel.

It touches it in a way that some of the taste or flavor or consistency can be absorbed.

Some are brought to a meal offering, and they do the process of offering the three finder

falls on top of the altar, and the rest can be eaten by the Kohanah, right?

So the Kohanah has a lunch, it's a meal offering.

But he also brought a sandwich from his house or a donut, and the two touched each other.

Now the donut adopts, it absorbs the stringencies of the meal offering that it rubbed against.

Who could eat it?

When can they eat it?

Where can they eat it?

All of these stringencies that were true to the meal offering get conferred onto whatever

it touched again in a way that it can absorb.

The donut may have been permitted to anyone to eat, provided that their dietician approves,

whole thirty approved.

But now because it absorbs some of the flavor, some of the texture, some of the particles

of the meal offering, all the stringencies of the meal offering are conferred upon this

item, it now is elevated.

As you mentioned, the Torah then tells us about the various meal offerings of priests,

and thus concludes the protocols of the Mincha.

So we had the protocols of the Ola, and then the Mincha, the elevation offering, and then

the meal offering, and then comes the protocol of the Sin offering.

It's slaughtered to the north of the altar, the food that can be consumed, or the part

of it that can be consumed by the priest.

It's eligible to eat by any priest who was eligible for service at the time of the service.

This is complicated.

The whole subject is complicated far into us, but Annie Cohen, who could have done the service

at the time of the service was done, could eat from the meat of the sacrifice after it

was processed.

Meaning, if there was a priest who was impure at the time of the slaughtering of the Sin offering,

now part of the meat is now eligible for koan and to eat, because the priest was impure

at the time of the slaughtering of the sacrifice, even though subsequently he became pure,

he is still ineligible to eat from that particular sacrifice.

Protocol of the Sin offering, protocol of the guilt offering, and finally the protocols

of the peace offering, of the Shlumim.

There are three different types of peace offerings.

There's the peace offering brought by the public.

And there are three different peace offerings brought by individuals.

You have the Khadigah and Simkhah peace offerings brought during the pilgrimage season to the

temple.

You have the Shlumim, the peace offering brought by the Nazir at the conclusion of his

Nazir period, and the peace offering brought as a thanksgiving offering.

In Judaism, we don't need turkey by thanksgiving.

We bring to sacrifice a peace offering, a carbon slumim, specifically the verse tells

us if a person has a reason to thank God if they survived a perilous journey through

the sea or through the desert, if they were extricated, released from a dangerous prison

sentence, if they were deathly ill, God forbid, and were healed, they must thank God and

they must bring a thanksgiving peace offering.

And with this we're told, they bring bread, lots and lots of bread, four different types

of bread, three of them are different types of lots of bread, and one of them is a type

of Comet bread, and they bring ten loaves, a piece of these four types.

So do the math, with a person's peace, thanksgiving offering, they bring forty loaves of bread, and

they got to eat it all within the specific time period.

You do the math.

It's not possible to know by yourself.

Please tell us the reason why someone who has a thanksgiving offering, brings forty loaves

of bread that you have to finish, you can have any leftovers, it's because the only way

to do that is to make a bit party, and you bite everyone, if you bite forty people each

one has a loaf of bread, bread either, matsu bread or Comet bread.

And the reason why is because you have a party to celebrate and to publicize the miracle

that God did on your behalf.

The partial proceeds talk about the sacrifice leftovers.

Every sacrifice that can be consumed, of course there's the Ola offering which is not consumed

by any one, and every sacrifice has its laws, but the peace offering that we just mentioned

or the sin offering that's consumed or part of it is consumed by the priests, each one

has a limited time frame in which it can be eaten.

And it's forbidden to have any leftovers, and when there are leftovers past the deadline

they must be burned.

We learn about the laws of piggul, that's the word, and there's no English translation.

You go to artstroll, it just says piggul, p-i-g-g-u-l.

This refers to incorrect intentions done during the procedure of the sacrifice.

So to do a sacrifice you have to slaughter, you have to take the blood and do the blood

service.

You've got to walk to the altar, you've got to sprinkle atop the altar.

Any one of these processes done with the incorrect intent for something which is a dance

to protocol, like for example, I am thinking about the fact that this is going to be eaten

beyond the deadline, or outside of the location where it is permitted to be eaten, such a sacrifice

is invalid and may not be consumed, read about the prohibition to eat sacrifices when

you're impure, or to touch sacrificial food when you are impure and the prohibition against

eating forbidden fats and against eating blood.

The parcia ends with the inauguration week of the tabernacle.

So just to orient ourselves chronologically, the Exodus happened on the 15th day of Nisan,

and they leave in the splitting of the sea, in the ward at Tamale, to the eating manna,

and they go to Mara, there's nothing to drink, 50 days later they're at Sinai, Sinai

revelation, 10 commandments, national prophecy, there's a fancy word, Theophany.

The entire nation experiences prophecy together as one, and they survive.

The next day Moshe ascends the mountain, he tells them you guys take care, I'll be back

in 40 days.

I'm going to get the details of the Torah.

When it comes back, of course, the nation has been a terrible mistake.

They made a golden calf, Moshe shatters the tablets, and the next day he goes up the

mountain for a second, 40 day stint.

This time it's not to get tablets or to learn Torah, it's to secure for diviness.

After the second stint, he comes down, and God says, I want you to come up a third time.

Make me stone tablets, replicas of the ones that you shattered.

And I will etch upon them what I wrote on the first tablets that you shattered.

Moshe ascends the mountain, goes up to the next realm for a third, 40 day stint, and

Moshe descends from the mountain on Yom Kippur, the first Yom Kippur of our nation's history.

Next on the nation, achieved full forgiveness, we once again are bearing tablets from God.

The following day, the day after Yom Kippur, so it's almost half a year after the atonus,

the tabanacle project begins.

Fun raising, get all the materials, appointing Bitsala, son of Uri, son of Hura, Trabajuda

to lead the project, him and his lieutenants and his helpers.

And they begin to build a tabanacle.

According to our sources, the construction of the tabanacle, it took a little more than

two months on the 25th day of Kislav, which not coincidentally is the first day of Hanukkah.

That's when they finished assembling all the different parts of the tabanacle.

The tabanacle was not immediately erected.

It was held on ice for almost two months.

Excuse me, for almost three months.

Kislav, the Tevis, Tevis, Tashvat, Shvat, the Adar.

Nearly three months.

On the 23rd day of the month of Adar, that's when we have the week of inauguration.

And that's described in the partial.

Moshe is going to serve for seven days as the interim high priest.

And every single day of these seven days, he's going to assemble the tabanacle by himself

in the morning, do all the services of the tabanacle, plus additional inauguration sacrifices,

and disassemble the tabanacle at night.

And while Moshe is acting as the interim high priest, Aaron and his sons are on the tabanacle

grounds, and they're not allowed to leave for seven days.

They're there watching and participating with some of the activities.

That seven day process is detailed at the end of our partial.

And the next partial, which we will only read, of course, after Passover, we're going

to have a week off.

Not a week off, but a week where we won't have the next ensemble of the partial because

of a Pesach.

The next partial following Pesach, following Passover, this year, is called Pesach Shemini,

which means the eighth, it's the eighth day.

That's the crossover day, it's the first day of Nissan.

It's two weeks shy of a full year from the Exodus.

And that's the day of the handoff, where Moshe is going to resume being an ordinarily

vit, and Aaron and his sons will forever be the priests.

And that, of course, tragedy strikes when Aaron's two eldest sons make an unauthorized offering

and die and the population of priests in the whole world goes from five to three.

So our partial ends off with a description of these days.

Moshe is told to the Aaron and his sons and the garments and the anointing oil and the

various sacrifices.

And Moshe is told to anoint Aaron and his sons and anoint the tabernacle and everything

inside of it.

Do all the various different ceremonies, some done in tandem with Aaron and his sons,

some alone.

For seven days, Moshe did all of these elaborate ceremonies with Aaron and his sons present.

That's part of self.

Let's do a bit batch stage, and we'll start at the very beginning.

The protocols of the Ola.

When the tour begins, the description of the protocols of the Ola of the elevation offering,

it speaks about the first activity done in the temple, done in the tabernacle each morning.

You got to clear with the ashes, wealth of a priest with a shovel, walk up the altar,

the jostle of maneuver, the coals, get a scoopful of ashes, walk down, go to the east, place

it at the foot or near the altar.

And once that activity is done, that ceremony is done, the day can begin and we read about

how all the priests would run up to the altar and arrange it, prepare it.

The full day's activities can commence.

Which coin was in charge of doing this process, this truma sedation?

So Tama tells us that there was a lottery, there was a lottery, because all the kohanam,

they all wanted to do it.

It was a highly coveted activity, and Tama tells us it used to be a race.

This is a free for all, where we regret the first come, first serve.

And the temple would all run up the altar, the ramp to get to the top.

And Tama tells us two awful stories that happened that made them change their policy.

The first story is so outrageous, Tama tells us that there were two kohanam that were

neck and neck, they're running up the altar, the ramp to get to the top, first come

for a serve.

And one of the priests did something unconscionable.

He pulled out a knife, crazy.

He stabbed the other priest, so that he would get there first.

Which is obviously completely unconscionable, and just horrifying, a homicide in the temple.

Now that's insane enough, but the story gets even more insane, because the knife that

this murderer used was actually a knife from the tabernacle, or from the temple at the

time.

It was a holy sacred knife.

And Tama tells us, you have a hard time believing what I'm going to tell you, just in a second

or two.

The Tama tells us that the father of the victim who's girdling blood, who's about to die,

he's alive, but he's not dead yet, but he's dying.

The father runs up, and he sees his son convulsing.

And he tells the murderer, may my son's death be an atonement for you.

Okay, or he's saying maybe to the whole nation.

Then he meets an observation, which is hard for us to believe this.

He's saying, well, the boy's not dead yet, and therefore the knife has not become impure,

because a dead body is the epitome of impurity.

And therefore if there's a knife stuck into a cadaver, God forbid, then the knife becomes

impure.

But the father says, whoa, he's not dead quite yet, the knife's still pure.

And the Tama says, this is just an awful story, because it shows that people were so careful

about ritual matters, which is good, of course that's commendable.

But the fact that that was even something that you could mention when there's someone

there who is dying.

Tama says, this is an example of a character flaw that was rife, before the temple was destroyed,

where the sanctity of life was diminished in the eyes of the people.

There was so much murder that had happened, for sure, relative to a baseline of zero.

This is an example.

And it happened because the Tutorhanim were running neck and neck to be the first one

to take the scoopful, the shovelful of ashes.

Now, this was not sufficient grounds to change the policy.

Tama says, this is not what they changed the policy.

This story is too outrageous.

It's an aberration.

There's something wrong here.

The family or the murderer, there's no justification.

We don't expect this to be a pattern.

Someone's mentally unwell, maybe there were some safeguards that could have been installed,

but there's not a reason to stop the policy of first and first serve.

But there's the second story.

Again, neck and neck, a close race down to the finish line.

So one of the contestants shoved the other one off the altar, off the ramp, and he broke

his leg.

And that was the reason why the sage has decided this system is too dangerous.

Such a tragedy or such an accident or such a crime, if you will, can happen again.

Such a tool lottery system.

It's too dangerous.

So they had a lottery, but you read the story and you see how the sages or the priests,

it's four in the morning and they're running, they're running up the ramp to the altar because

they want to do this.

There's something very desirable about the removal of the ashes from the top, the altar.

And it's not immediately clear to us what is so special about this.

Okay, there's some ashes left over from yesterday's sacrifices.

And you're someone going to take a silver shovel and take off a little scoop of it and

bring it down.

Why is that so covetous when I made the announcement, it's time to take out the garbage.

We don't have a risk of fist fights, we may have fist fights for other reasons.

But in our family, no one's fighting for the rights to do the chores of removal of

the garbage.

It's time to sacrifice some very holy, but what's the secret?

I want to suggest two ideas, and we'll frame it like this.

There's a person in the Torah who is compared to ashes, there's only one person that I can

think of.

He's one of the greatest of all time.

And he said about himself, and of course we would think of that as being hyperbolic.

We have to know there's no hyperbole in the Torah.

Abraham, chapter 18, verse 27, he said, Anohi, offer, waifah, I am dust and ashes.

If he said that, there must be truth to it.

If the Torah records it and canonizes it, it can't be just some exaggeration, some hyperbole.

There's something about Abraham that's comparable to ashes.

If we knew why, maybe we would know why the priests, they always made a sprint to have

the privilege of engaging with the ashes.

I want to suggest two approaches.

We'll start with a Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel.

He made dynamite because so much death.

I don't want that to be my legacy.

He made an endowment.

All of his wealth will have a prize.

And we'll once a year give the prize to the most fantastic accomplishments in all these

different fields, physics and chemistry, literature, the peace, prize, medicine.

We look at this prize as like the pinnacle of accomplishment, no-brell prize laureate.

But I once read a study of a description of a study.

What happens to the careers of Nobel Prize winners?

After they win the coveted desirous prize.

There's a phenomenon called the Nobel Prize effector, the Nobel Prize dip.

Someone reaches the absolute peak.

There's no higher, more prestigious prize.

And they won.

Invariably their output suffers.

Their accomplishments suffer.

Their innovation, their novel ideas, it drops.

They start to coast.

The speed team circuit.

Or very incremental improvements to their theory.

But groundbreaking accomplishments.

Massive accomplishments.

It's rare to find it once people already achieve greatness.

There's something to mark about Abraham.

We read about Abraham in the telera.

He is already 75 years old.

And the first thing we're told about him, or the first thing we're told about him specifically,

is that he's told by Abraham to leave Lechlechha, the part.

Leave the place that you're in now.

Leave Kharan.

Then go travel to London that I will show you.

Abraham at the time was already the most highly decorated person in human history.

Before he's even in the telera, before his story is told in the telera, before that,

he's already the most accomplished person in history.

How do I know that?

Because the sources tell us, first of all, it tells us that he brought with him the souls

that he made in Kharan.

Now, you and I don't know how to make souls.

Well, I mean, that's a bit for you.

Most people don't know.

I don't know how to make souls.

Abraham was a soul maker.

He knew what I made souls.

But actually, it tells us, it means he brought people back to God.

He converted the masses.

How many people do they have in his movement?

How many followers did Abraham have?

So the realm gives us a number.

10s of thousands.

Abraham had tens of thousands, tens of thousands of followers.

And he made their souls.

He taught them about God.

He taught them about faith, about myths, about righteousness.

The whole world is swimming in idolatry.

And one man is this bright beacon, this bright light, this incredible force who's bringing

the masses back to God.

It's a brand new phenomenon.

The world's since the animal, since the animal has been 2000 years.

And no one has accomplishments like Abraham.

This is before he's even told to leave.

What does God tell him?

Leave.

You're a middle of turning over the whole world.

You're a middle of accomplishing fantastic, unprecedented things.

You already have achieved immortality.

But there are far greater things that you're destined to achieve.

This is the 1st of Abraham's 10 tests.

He's being challenged.

You have enormous accomplishments.

Are you going to be content with that?

Are you going to be content with what you've accomplished, hitherto, or are you willing

to accept God's plan for you that there's far greater things, far greater accomplishments

awaiting you in the future?

Abraham, you're going to change the entire world.

You're going to change all of history.

You'll be the father of many nations.

And of course, the progenitor of God's nation who will receive Torah, who will rectify

the entire world, who will rectify the entire world.

Abraham could have coasted.

Abraham could have said, I've already accomplished more than any other person since Adam.

Abraham left.

This is the lesson of the ashes.

The ashes that we find in the morning are not related to today's activities.

Yes, it was an amazing day.

Tremendous service of God.

Tremendous dedication to God.

And you worked really hard.

At the end of the day, you brought a sacrifice to God.

You achieved the highest level of closeness to our Creator.

There's an enormous rest waiting for you in the morning.

The greatest rest to today's greatness is reveling in yesterday's greatness.

If you dwell on your previous accomplishments, that's the enemy of your future accomplishments.

You coast, you rest on your laurels, you fall into a pattern of complacency, you plateau,

cruise control.

The Torah tells us, before you begin anything today, you must clear away yesterday.

Before you begin doing anything from today's agenda, you must dissociate yourself from yesterday's accomplishments.

We have the altar, symbolizes what we're trying to do, what we're trying to accomplish.

And I have some remnant of yesterday's accomplishments.

I go to the altar and I remove it.

I take a stupeful and I demonstrate before I even start whatever happened yesterday.

It's been removed. I'm casting it away.

Because if I ruminate upon it too much, I'm going to imperil the likelihood of tremendous accomplishments today.

But maybe the Almighty wants you to have just accomplishments of yesterday.

No, if you have life today, if your heart is beating within your chest today,

that means that the money wants you alive today.

And he has expectations, great expectations of you today.

If your mission was done yesterday, you wouldn't have a mission today.

But today, you must accomplish today, you must build today, you must push yourself to achieve further greatness.

One of the great Russian shevas, maybe really one of the great sages of the last hundred years,

he was in his day, he was the God of the Lord, he's known as the greatest of the generation.

He was Rabbi Shakhraf Shakhraf.

And he was head of the great Yashiva in Punovic, which is one of the premier Yashivaos in Israel.

And the way the Yashiva Talmud cycle is studied, this may be counterintuitive.

There are 36 butch of Talmud.

But only 10 or 11 of them are studied on a consistent basis in the cycle of the Yashivos.

Once someone graduates from the Yashivos, they are encouraged to study the entirety of the Talmud.

But there are 10 or 11 or so different butch of Talmud that are studied in all the Yashivas.

Almost all the Yashivas shall we say.

So it's basically a five or six year cycle, you learn one or two butch of year,

and then you repeat them every five or six years, somewhere longer, somewhere shorter and so on.

So if you're a Russian Yashiva, you're giving lectures in Talmud,

you have your notes from five years ago, and from 10 years ago, and from 15 years ago, and from 20 years ago.

My grandfather, the bus member used to tell us, he would say,

the Yashiva has two leaders, two heads, the Yashiva, who gives the Talmud lectures,

and the Majdiyach, who's like the spiritual dean, who gives the ethical lectures.

It's much easier to be a Yashiva.

Do that, do that, why?

Because you work for five years, and you really invest all of your efforts into all the books that you will ever cover in the Yashiva.

And then you could just say what else to say, give a lecture idea five years ago.

You give the same lecture, and it's great.

But if you're the ethical dean, you're the spiritual dean, it doesn't work like that.

Every single week, it's going to be a brand new lecture.

But someone came to Rabbi Shachat and I don't understand.

Five years ago, when you spoke about this exact subject in the Talmud,

you said something completely different than what you're saying today.

I don't understand.

I have the notes.

I listened to the tape, real to real.

Why are you saying something different than what you said last time?

So Rabbi Shachat, what do you think I've been doing the last five years?

I'm trying to study and grow in my Talmudic prowess every day.

So I spent five years studying.

I think I achieved the higher level of Torah knowledge and Torah understanding and Torah insight.

And now I see it differently.

He could have coasted and been one of the great Talmudic lecturers in the world.

But he pushed himself.

Take a little bit of the ashes, a little bit of yesterday's accomplishments.

Those ashes symbolize yesterday's accomplishments and that's amazing.

But if you focus on it too much, you're emparaling today's accomplishments.

So the very first thing that you do today says Rabbi Hirsch,

before you start any new activities, you have to make a conscious and concerted effort

to remove some of yesterday's accomplishments.

Don't fall into this terrible and dreadful trap.

Abraham says about himself, I am ashes.

You could find a little hint to how Abraham became Abraham in the story of the ashes.

He was already the greatest person the world had ever seen before his story of Miggins the Torah.

He pushed himself.

He never stopped pushing himself.

And that's how he changed the world.

I want to suggest another idea.

We're talking about sacrifices.

It's the second week in a row.

And last week we spoke about the mechanism of sacrifices.

Torah is like a drawdown of blessing from heaven.

We have to have a corresponding push up of something below,

something lowly to God.

A very profound idea that our ability to draw down

to receive blessing from heaven is directly commensurate

to the amount that we are pushing up to heaven

in the form of sacrifices and sacrifice equivalent, namely prayer.

I want to suggest a different idea.

Man is a hybrid,

half animal,

half angel,

half body, half soul.

The truth is it's more stark than that.

Our soul is holy or the angels.

Our body is less holy than the animals.

Sacrifices are a big part of our religion

because they symbolize what we're trying to do.

You sacrifice an animal.

The animal is a different species, right?

But there's something about the animal that's very similar to us.

We are also half animal.

Just as the animal has animalistic tendencies,

we too have an animalistic side.

We too have an inclination to be very instinctive and impulsive.

The animals resistant to change, resistant to elevation.

Stop burn, focusing only on the physical agenda.

And once I think I read it,

that you never see, never animals looking up to heaven.

Never doesn't exist.

Your puppy that you love,

your cat that provides you comfort and companionship

never looks up to the never gazes at the cosmos.

Why? Because the animals, it's very physical.

Its entire universe is the physical perspective.

And we have a tendency to that as well, not entirely.

We're a hybrid.

This is the tension of our lives.

This is the challenge of our lives.

And a sacrifice where we take the animal

and we elevate it to God.

We sacrifice it to God.

That's symbolizing us or our attempt, our yearning,

our hope that we can consecrate ourselves, all of ourselves.

Body and soul to God Almighty.

It's a form of dedication.

It's a form of purification.

We want to take our physicality and refine it.

It too should be elevated towards God.

We should clear away our animalistic tendencies.

We're trying to find holiness.

We're trying to find purity.

We're trying to find something special, a spark within us.

That's what life is about.

You can say that a sacrifice is almost a picture

and a symbol of what we're trying to accomplish in life.

We're trying to take our physicality

and make that be dedicated and elevated and channeled towards God.

And what we have left are the most refined of refined things.

There's something about the sacrifice that's not combustible.

It's not consumable.

You put on the hottest fire all night and it still doesn't get transformed.

It's something which is beyond the ability of fire to destroy or to elevate.

That's the ashes.

There's something non-animalistic that's embedded inside this massive animal.

This most animalistic animal has something which is not animalistic,

which can't be consumed.

That's holiness.

That's a spark of holiness.

What does it suggest an idea?

It's a bit of a spiritual idea.

Abraham said, I'm butt ashes.

Maybe this is describing the mechanism

by which Abraham became who he became.

You read Abraham's story in the Torah.

He's so selfless.

He's 99 years old.

Recently circumcised.

It's so hot outside.

God appears to him and he tells God, I have three paintings.

I got to run and raise running and running and running.

Let's make them fresh and the best and three different cows and tons of cow in mustard.

Where's the animalistic tendency of being selfish?

Of being self centered.

I need some me time.

Doesn't it just with Abraham?

He is butt ashes.

The animalistic part of him is gone.

The Torah tells us, of course, that,

Tomatels us that this is also humility.

Abraham said, I'm butt dust and ashes.

Moshe and Aaron said, we are nothing.

David said, I know he told us,

below ish, I'm a worm.

Not a man.

But maybe on a deeper level,

the ashes symbolize what remains

after all physicality.

All animalistic physicality is removed.

Abraham, he overcame all of his animalistic tendencies.

The scripture calls Abraham,

the great giant Adam.

He was a replica of Adam.

Adam before his sin.

Adam before there was evil attached to him.

Abraham was ashes.

And everyone wants those ashes because they symbolize the goal of life.

Total dedication for God and all of our animalistic tendencies.

Elevated God and all that's left.

Is the non animalistic side.

What remains after all physicalities removed.

There's something that just can't be destroyed, can't be burned.

It's not physical.

It's spiritual.

We have a mitzvah with ashes.

It's a red heifer.

It's the only way to hit someone which is impure and make him pure.

Only way to do it.

Someone comes into contact with the dead.

They are impure with the highest level of impurity.

There's only one way to transform them into being pure.

A red heifer.

Specifically, you slaughter, you burn the red heifer,

and you produce a mound of ashes.

Those ashes are the only way to transform someone who is impure

because of contact with the dead into being pure.

And the commentary is done.

The red heifer.

It's red.

That's the color of a self.

And it's a cow.

It somehow resembles the golden calf.

And it does have a yoke on it.

It's refusing to submit itself to God.

But there's a process by which we can transform that,

even that, into ashes.

We can isolate the spark, the spark of holiness and purity

from something which is so animalistic,

more animalistic than most.

And those ashes.

They're actually the highest level of holiness and purity.

All this is part of the mitzvah of clearly where the ashes.

We don't clear them away, really.

We go and we want them.

We're desirous of it.

You take a stoopful of it, bring it down the ramp,

and you place on the floor of the temple and of the tabernacle

and it gets absorbed into the ground.

This is something we don't want to get rid of.

We want to absorb it.

Abraham is ashes.

Abraham managed to shed from himself all vestiges of physicality.

All that was left were ashes.

When someone with a coin did this ceremony,

he's doing something which is invoking something very lofty.

And it's no surprise that all the Kohanam,

they were all very desirous of the mitzvah,

the great privilege to demonstrate this idea.

This is what life's about.

Sacrifices are a major part of our spiritual lives.

And here we see the protocol as it's known,

the protocol of the Ola.

It's captured in the ashes.

The ashes are Abrahamic.

And that's something we want to take with us.

That's the goal.

Now here's the steering part.

Let's do the steering part at the end of the podcast

because most of the people will be frightened away.

They're not listening anymore.

They stop after 35 minutes for him to make some ashes.

It's what count me out.

A little bit scary.

You ready?

The Tomah tells us.

Po Che Yisraba Goofan.

The sinners of Israel in their body.

Listen carefully.

Every word of the Talmud is gold.

The sinners of Israel in their body.

It's possible for an Israelite to be a sinner

and still have an association with their body.

They go to a place called Gihendom,

purgatory,

and they're burned for 12 months.

And afterwards, their body's gone.

And a wind comes and scatters their ashes

underneath the feet of the righteous.

This sounds so unpleasant.

And I'm about to surprise you.

In the last page of my grandfather's final book

that he wrote in his lifetime,

since he passed, has been many books published,

posumously, but in his lifetime,

when he was almost 90 years old,

he published a book called,

How Mitzvos Hashtulos,

the Mitzvos that are equal,

about the seven Mitzvos that are representative

of all of Torah.

And on the last page,

he cites this Tomahd.

And he says that Rabbi El-Yahu Lapyan

was one of the great stages of the last 100 years,

who had a visitation from Elijah the Prophet,

or likely had a visitation from Elijah the Prophet.

When he read this Tomahd,

he said the following frightening and counterintuitive thing.

He said this description of spending 12 months sing ahead of him

and the body's gone and all that's left is some ashes

and a wind comes and blows up underneath the feet

of the righteous.

This is a very lofty level.

And I hope that I am worthy of this level.

And all of a sudden they can,

we'd rather avoid it.

We don't want the Ghanom.

That's why it's very surprising.

But regardless, we have a description here of Ghanom.

Ghanom is something which is done for our benefit.

And the Tomahd strives it as transforming a person into ashes,

Abraham in his lifetime,

said about himself and the Torah records it and canalizes it.

It's true. It's not hyperbolic.

I am ashes.

He's star off as we all do.

He's like a sacrifice.

Is that there's physical and animalistic tendencies

that can be offered to God,

that can be elevated.

There is a way to turn an animal into ashes.

That's a sacrifice.

That's the goal.

Abraham did it.

He did it in his lifetime.

Sinners of Israel with their body,

their body is still playing a big part in their lives.

They too will become ashes.

They too will have this incredible benefit

of having their physicality removed

and that kernel of holiness that's always within them

to be unearthed,

to be distilled out of that mass.

We all look at ourselves

and for honest,

we find a lot of animalistic tendencies within ourselves.

A lot of flaws,

a lot of impulses that don't seem to be very angelic.

We're stricken with all sorts of character flaws,

character maladies and defects.

Do we feel like we're worthy to stand before God?

It's a frightening question.

The Torah spends a lot of time talking about sacrifices.

It's a major part of the Torah.

It's a major part of our spiritual lives

and our part begins with the protocols of the Ola.

The Torah of the...

What's the objective?

It's the ashes.

We are trying to sacrifice ourselves for God.

Not self-harm, of course.

Refinement, elevation.

Overcoming our impulses.

We are animalistic, yes.

Must we remain animalistic?

Abraham, he's the paradigm.

He's the exemplar.

He's the portrait of greatness.

He is ashes.

And we will become ashes as well.

We too will be refined as well.

One way or the other.

I appreciate you listening to this edition

of the Partial Podcast.

Everyone should have a wonderful

hot crush of a Samarra, a kosher and happy and joyous

Paesach.

The fundraiser is still ongoing.

Givetorch.org.

You'll find the link in the description.

Have an amazing rest of your day.

An amazing rest of your week.

Of course, a magnificent and terrific and powerful

and meaningful Shabbos upcoming this week

is called Shabbos Haggadol, the great Shabbos.

It's a very special Shabbos the week before

Paesach have an amazing Passover.

A kosher Passover.

It should be a Passover of joy,

of redemption for all of us,

whatever we're going through,

whatever challenges we're in,

whatever Egypt we're trapped up in.

We should receive education and redemption.

Have an amazing day.

Have an amazing week.

Have an amazing festival.

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