Parsha: Vayikra - Push-Ups and Drawdowns + TORCH Fundraiser 2026 Pitch

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We have a brand new book, the book of Vayikra, the book of Leviticus and its Parshas Vayikra.

And there's only one subject matter in this week's Parshas and that is sacrifices.

It starts off with the Ola chapter one, we read about the Ola sacrifice, that's the elevation

offering, all the details, the animal can't be stolen.

It can't be an animal that since we're done to it or worship for it, idolatry or designated

for idolatry.

It can't be an animal that gourd and kill the person.

It must be a male, it must be blemish lists.

A whole long list of criteria for what constitutes a kosher animal for a sacrifice.

And what has to happen with this sacrifice, the person must bring the animal to the tab

and echo places hands upon it.

And the animal will be accepted as an atonement and then it's slaughtered and it's processed

by the priests.

And they sprinkle the blood upon the altar and they remove its skin, they dissect the

animal and there's a fire, on wood, on the altar and they wash the inner of the animal

in water and they burn the animal in its entirety.

This is the Ola, the elevation offering, no part of this animal is consumed by people

while through the hides go to the Kohanam, go to the priests but this is an Ola, it's

an elevation offering, Arayachni Khawakh, a pleasant aroma to God.

This is the first introduction we have to sacrifices and again the only subject matter

of our parasha is sacrifices and of course this is a foreign subject to us.

We haven't done a sacrifice in nearly 2,000 years, it's strange, we don't understand

the meaning behind it is not initially, I've said in the past that no subject raises

as much in credulity as the subject of animal sacrifices, rabbi, do you really believe

a temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem's hell of milk?

Yeah, of course, but isn't there like an ancient Islamic site sure that could be relocated?

Do you really believe we're going to have high priesthoods and we're the eight garments

described in Exodus many times, yeah, but come on rabbi, you really believe that we're

going to reinstitute animal sacrifices, you bet, you bet, and we'll finish with this

parasha practice, you're going to say, oh, I get it, it makes sense to me.

I endorse it, I'm on board, the first sacrifice that we read about is the Ola, the Ola offering,

the elevation offering that's entirely burned, and we start off with such a process done

with cattle.

Now in verses 7 and 8, we see something interesting, the verses describing the processes done

by the priests, and it says that the Benei Aron, the sons of Aaron, Hakoen, the Prist,

they placed the one in the fire, and they organize it.

In the very next verse, the Sons of Aaron, the Prist, they would organize the top of

the altar.

Now we of course know, Aaron is the priest, he's the high priest, Aaron's sons are the priests,

whatever it says, the name Aaron, we know it's a priest, when it says the name of the Sons

of Aaron, we know that they are priests.

So Rashi asked the question, why does it say Benei Aron, Hakoen, the sons of Aaron, Aaron,

the Prist, and the sons of Aaron, the priests, those descriptions are superfluous, and Rashi

gives a very interesting answer.

Aaron is only a priest when he's behaving like Aaron.

If Aaron were to behave not like Aaron, he would not be a priest.

What does that mean?

Rashi tells us that if Aaron, Aaron's the high priest, the high priest has eight garments.

Suppose Aaron decides today, I want to take a day off, I want to do casual Friday, I don't

want to wear the all the eight garments, I want to have just four, I want to be ordinary

for a day, a man of the people.

In that case, Aaron would not be Aaron the priest, because Aaron you're the high priest,

the high priest must always be dressed and behave as the high priest does.

And if he does service in the tabernacle, dressed as an ordinary priest, not as Aaron the

high priest, in that case his service is invalid.

Aaron is only the priest when he's acting as the high priest.

Similarly, Aaron's sons, they are Kohan and when they are behaving like Aaron's sons

as ordinary priests, suppose it's dressed up like Dad Day in school, Aaron's sons show

up with the eight garments and they do service in the tabernacle, that service is invalid.

That's what Rashi tells us, that's how he explains the Etch Awards, Hakohan, Hakohan

and the priest, the priests.

Now it's interesting, suppose there was a Hakohan, father's Hakohan, perfectly kosher,

genealogically Hakohan, and he wants to work in slacks and a polo shirt.

And he does service the temple, perfectly done service, following all the rules, but

he's not wearing the four garments of a priest.

So that service is invalid, why is it invalid?

Toma tells us because he's not a priest, because the definition of a priest in this context

is a priest who's following exactly what the Torah outlines and the precise garments

that the Torah instructs the priest to wear.

If you are a priest but you're not behaving like a priest, well you're not a priest.

Similarly, if you're an ordinary priest and you're behaving like a high priest, you're

not a priest, if you're a high priest and you're behaving like an ordinary priest, you are

not a priest.

And this, I think, is a call back to some of the ideas we've said recently about what

the definition of a priest is.

Jethro is a priest, we're supposed to be a kingdom of priests.

Well only Aaron and his family are priests.

We see a sharper definition, a priest is someone who wants to do the will of God.

Who is subservient to God above all.

And if someone does something that veers off of God's plan, that's an act of non-priesthood,

of foreignhood, and even if they are a coin, they are departing from the path of the

coin.

And therefore, once they're off the path, their activity is that of a non-cohing.

This is the first type of offering, type of sacrifice, elevation offering.

From a cattle, and then we read about an elevation offering, an ola, from sheep or goats.

And then there's the elevation offering, an ola, from birds, specifically turtle doves

and pigeons.

And there's all sorts of details and different laws, for example, the animals from livestock

and sheep, they must be unblemished and they must be males.

If that's the type of ola offering you're bringing, it must fulfill that criteria.

When it comes from birds, a bird ola offering, it could be blemished.

And it could be male or female.

And the idea being here, when someone is bringing a really beautiful offering, it's expensive,

it's healthy, it's robust, it's a thousand pound bowl, and then I'm going to off from

the tabernacle, because it's a higher level act, it's subject to more scrutiny.

And if there's something wrong with any blemish, it's invalid, when someone has a more

modest offering, it's just a bird, there's more flexibility, it's not as big of an offering,

it doesn't have to be as perfect, and the analogy that we've given in the past is that

no one takes an ordinary rock and looks at it with a loop.

You have a diamond, it's beautiful, it's gorgeous, it's scintillating, then you pull out

the jeweler's loop, and you examine it with a hundred times magnification, and you

have on any sliding professions.

It's an idea, a very powerful idea, the bigger someone becomes, the bigger someone aspires

to be, the more scrutiny they are subjected to, and if someone's small, and they may feel

like, oh, I'm not as dude, I'm only bringing a bird sacrifice, it's a pathetic offering

compared to what the other guy's bringing, you should know that there is some latitude

that you're given, they might understand that you're in the beginning stages of your

growth, of your service for God, there's more wiggle room, there's more leeway.

This is chapter 1 of our book, we have Ola offerings, it comes from three types of animals,

it comes from cattle, it comes from sheep, sheep and goats, and it comes from birds, turtled

loves, and pigeons, and there's lots of literature, what about undomesticated animals,

how come deer can't be brought as sacrifices, the midter says, very interesting, they might

want to make it easy for us, domesticated animals, they're readily available, you go

to the barn, and you find a nice animal you want to offer to God.

Undomesticated animal, it has to get a hunt down, you got to catch them, God did not want

us to have to trouble ourselves to hunt down animals to find them, so he said just take

from the readily available species, that's one idea, and then I saw, of course, some other

ideas, and there's so many layers, and when we start off studying, it was like, oh,

Leviticus, let's just dip it, it's too much, wake me up, one Leviticus ends, that's an

attitude that people used to have, I have a friend who calls it the fly over partios,

it's a fly over, it's not as exciting, as dramatic, as Janice's, but once you get to

know it, once you get to appreciate it, you find nuances and layers and insight, I found

some cabalistic sources, cabalistic sources say, and I don't want emails about this question

because I don't know anything, may I answer with this question, I don't know, sometimes

people get reincarnated, they die, and for one reason or another, they have to be sent

back to this world, and sometimes they get reincarnated as another person, and sometimes

they can be embedded in other things, even in adamant things, even in animals, the sources

tell us, again, I don't want emails, don't send me emails, rapids, I always say to

you, send me emails, not about this, about other things, I don't know anything about this,

it's possible for people to come back, embedded in animals, but it's always in domesticated

animals, not in undemesticated animals, and therefore, when you bring a sacrifice from

a domesticated animal, you have no idea what human souls are embedded, are trapped in

that animal, what trap souls are caught up there, that you're going to be liberating with

your sacrifice, not the undemesticated animals, there's no human souls trapped there, this

thing is a totally novel idea, this is a sacrifice, part of the process of a sacrifice

is that there are souls that need liberation, need extrotation, want to go back to God

as it were, and when you offer a sacrifice, you don't know what kind of impact you're

having, you don't know what kind of souls you are releasing from their captivity, again,

I don't want emails by this, this is what I read, and I find it fascinating, but let's

continue, chapter one, three types of elevation offerings, cattle, sheep, and bird, and birds.

Chapter two, meal offerings, amincha, this is an offering from flower, not from animals,

and there's four different types of flower offerings, one that was just flower, flower

mits with oil, it's not baked, it's not fried, and then there's a meal offering amincha,

a feta nur baked in an oven, and then there's one that's baked and fried in a grittle,

or fried in a deep, lipped pan, and in all the different ways that these are brought,

and all sorts of laws, it cannot be leavened, there could be no hunting in the sacrifices,

but all sacrifices, both the offerings of flower and the animal sacrifices, they must have

salt, again, lots of reasons, all sorts of insights, for example, leaven, it's very puffy,

it's synonymous with the et cetera, it's synonymous with hubris, with arrogance, with

a feeling of supremacy, those things are not visible to the tabernacle, honey, well,

honey, honey's the food, right?

But it's a food that falls into one category of food, it's not the kind of food that you

eat for sustenance, for nourishment, it's extra food, it's food for pleasure, it's

physical enjoyment that's not contributing towards sustenance and maintenance and nourishment,

and that's dangerous, the idea of honey, the idea of sweets, that is a risky proposition,

because when someone says, oh, I want to really enjoy this world, well, if you're enjoying

this world, you know what's world, you're not enjoying it, or you're at least temporarily

neglecting, it's the other world, it's the soul, and that is very risky, it's to be avoided,

but salt, salt, you need no sacrifices, commentaries tell us, many other ideas, but this one's

very interesting, salt is a preservative, it staves off, spoilage, it's not a good thing,

spoilage and loss, when there would be a risk of something going bad and being ruined and

being useless, the salt preserves it, what happens when someone brings a sacrifice, they receive

a toll mint, what would have happened to them, absent the sacrifice, absent the atonement,

they were at risk, of spoilage, of ruin, of loss, and therefore we bring salt to remember

what's happening over here, I'm a human, and I have a soul, my soul is at risk, my soul

may have been damaged, may have been harmed by my choices, and the soul that's harmed

that's ruined can be damaged, and I'm going to preserve it, I'm going to repent, I'm going

to be in the sacrifice, I'm going to restore the soul and make sure it has continuity,

fascinating ideas, chapter 2 is about the sacrifices, not of animals, but offerings, meal

offerings, offerings of flower, chapter 3, it's the shlombim, that's the peace offering, everyone

got a peace of the atonement, the altar, the priests, the owner, we have a sheep, peace

offering, we have a goat, peace offering, and then we have various sin offerings, individual

sin offerings, communal sin offerings, when someone got forbidden inadvertently does a

transgression that carries with it the weight of courage, the punishment if they were to

have done this on purpose, would be spiritual excision, spiritual disenfranchisement, if they

do that accidentally, they bring a sin offering, and this is a fixed sacrifice, it's not variable,

and then there are variable sacrifice, there are certain sins that incur variable sacrifices,

depending upon how wealthy someone is, if they're rich, they bring an animal sacrifice,

if they're middle class, they bring a bird sacrifice, if they are poor, they bring a

minha offering, a meal offering, there are sacrifices that are means tested, and it gives

a list of four specific sins that incur a variable sin sacrifice, why these not others,

and then these are all distust, if you want to discover all the insights contained on

the sacrifices in our parasha, you need at least a year, starting at least 15 hours

a day, we have an hour here in the parasha practice, we have to just kind of get the big picture

and try to pull something out, maybe go a little bit backstage, take a little peep, we

have the guilt offering, we have the uncertain guilt offering, if someone doesn't know, did

they do a sin willfully or not, how do you have a situation like that, someone has two

pieces of meat, they look the same, one's kosher and one's forbidden fats, and you eat

one of them, did it happen this one, could have been that one, and the other one's lost,

there's no way for you to verify what the other one was, so you either committed a violation

or maybe you didn't, in that case you must bring an uncertain guilt offering.

The last law, the last sacrifice of our parasha is a guilt offering for theft, this is parasha's

vehicle, the beginning of a new book, the book of Leviticus' vehicle, next week is parasha's

sav, which is also almost all about sacrifices, so there's more where this came from, let's

talk a bit backstage, I made a big promise here, you're going to merge with a much deeper

and richer understanding of sacrifices, let's begin, I saw something very interesting

in Ramban, Nachmanides, in his introduction to this book, at the beginning of every book

of the Torah, Ramban has an introduction, we talked about the book and the theme of the

book, so the theme of Genesis is Genesis and the family of Abraham, and the theme of

Exodus is exile and redemption, exile, the nation dropped and they were depressed and were

oppressed and they were in a very low state and they emerged with the great miracles of

the Exodus, and the book doesn't end, chapter 12 or chapter 13 of Exodus when the nation

leaves Egypt, or not even when they have the spending of the sea, if they don't have the Torah,

how could they be considered to have been redeemed, and even the Torah, they thought enough, they

have to have the tap and echo, they have to restore the nation to the way they were before the

exile, to the state of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, where the presence of God was with them at all times,

that's the book of Exodus, and this book says the Ramban, this is Torah's

coanim, it's the Torah, it's the laws of the priests, and the Levites, it explains all the

laws of sacrifices and of the tabanacle, another month says there's an intimate connection between the

book of Exodus and the book of Leviticus, we just finished, last week, reading the book of

Exodus and it ends with a crescendo, after five parishes that the tabanacles built in the presence

of God resides in the tabanacle, right afterwards we have the sacrifices, the sacrifices,

are connected to the tabanacle, now I would say of course the tabanacle, what's the purpose of

the tabanacle, you have all these altars to bring sacrifices of course, that's not what he says,

it's a deep point and a bit counterintuitive, the reason we have sacrifices right after

talking about the tabanacle, it's because in the tabanacle the presence of God resided,

now if the nation, if they would do sins, God forbid, they'd be pushing away, they'd be

repelling the presence of God, sins cause the presence of God to depart, and therefore we're

given sacrifices to prevent the departure of the divine presence, and to make sure that all we

got that we earned in the tabanacle is not lost, this is again it's a counterintuitive point,

I would say well the purpose of the tabanacles to have a place to do sacrifices,

and therefore the tabanacle is there to service the sacrifices, there are a bunch as it's the

opposite, the sacrifices are there to service the tabanacle, because the tabanacle is the venue

where the presence of God resides, and if we were sinful he would leave as it were, and therefore

to cleanse us from our sins and doesn't make us eligible to have done it amidst, we have the sacrifices

so that we're cleansed and therefore we're compatible to be in the proximity of the presence of God,

a very powerful insight, now I was thinking about this idea, the Raban tells us,

someone does a sin, that's not compatible with the will of God, that should result in the departure

of the divine presence, and therefore we have a sacrifice to earn a tonement, so that the divine

presence does not depart, and I think there's an amazing discovery here, someone does a sin,

God's a bit terrible, we have a tabanacle presence of God, they did a sin nonetheless,

if the Raban is telling us that sinfulness and the divine presence cannot coexist,

then the instant someone does a sin the divine presence should depart,

a sacrifice is only the atonement after the sin was done,

when he's telling us here is that if someone does a sin, God forbid, that doesn't immediately translate

to the departure of the divine presence, it's only when the sin is allowed to linger,

it's not addressed, it festers, it metastasizes, and it results in the departure of the divine presence,

sacrifices provide a tonement, yes, but it's more than just a second chance,

it's more like, it's more than just, oh, you can now undo what you did,

you have the opportunity to redefine your behavior after you do it,

someone does a sin, a sin is just not compatible with the tabanacle, it's just not compatible,

you do a sin, the Almighty is living, but did you really do a sin, or was that an aberration,

maybe that was out of character, people sometimes behave in a way that's not fitting who they are,

they behave out of character, it's like if the Almighty blesses someone with a child and they come

home from school and they're on a war path, I've been told, things like this happen, I've been told,

and they're behaving nuts, they're just hungry, they're just, they're crazy, they're not so,

not so, they're just hungry, they weren't sure they didn't bring a good lunch, they're starving,

by the way, I've been told this is true, not just with kids, even with adults sometimes,

they're on a war path, what did I do wrong, oh my goodness, nothing, your spouse is hungry,

give them food and then reconsider, maybe they're tired, you've seen this right,

everyone's nodding to themselves, it happens, you're tired, you're cranky, you're hungry,

and you behave in a way that's not you, that's out of character,

what someone does a sin, that the sin is just not compatible with the presence of God, sorry,

it's just not, it's not at all something that can coexist, but after someone does a sin,

they're being a sacrifice, and what they're effectively saying with the sacrifice is that

that was not me, and that was an aberration, that was at a character,

I truly am committed to Almighty God, I want to service him, I want to worship him,

I want to be subservient to him, I want to do an act of service to him, that's where I really am,

and that other behavior was at a character, so it's like the sin never happened, it was just

some aberration that gets to be recast with the sacrifice, now the entire subject of our

parsha is sacrifices, and if you open up like the teacher's edition of the parsha, I have a book,

one book on each volume of the Torah, with all the commentaries, tiny ladders,

1500 pages per volume or so, and I looked at it this morning, and I noticed like the first,

it has like one line of the verse and all the commentaries, and then it had, on the first verse,

it had just one line, and then where's the second verse, I turned pages, it was 10 pages of

just commentaries, tiny ladders, there's so much literature about sacrifices, and I was trying

to figure out what's the purpose of a sacrifice, the verse tells us it's a pleasing aroma for God,

if you say the God needs your sacrifice, sorry, it's just not compatible with our philosophy,

it's just not, and all the commentaries that we got doesn't need it, Rashi says God doesn't,

God needs our sacrifice, our animal sacrifice, that's what God needs, come on,

that's not our faith, so I'm trying to understand what does this mean?

So the Ramban is a very long essay, he quotes the Rambam, and he's very, very sharp in his

opposition to the Rambam. The Rambam in one of his writings, he says, well, these relights,

they were pagans, that they had become pagans like the Egyptians, and pagans did animal sacrifice,

and therefore God wanted to make them believers in him, but it was too much of a stretch to change

everything, so he kept the method of service that they had previously done to the idols,

and he just changed the recipient as it were of that offering, that's what the Ramban

cites the Rambam as saying, the method of service, the means of service, which we used to

offer to deities that didn't change, just the recipient, instead of offering the sacrifices

to idols, let's offer it to God himself. And the Ramban has a litany of questions on this,

how could it be, this is what sacrifices, add and brought a sacrifice, there was no,

there was no idolatry in the world that he's coming to find a way to have a kosher outlet to a

pre-existing habit, teen and able brought sacrifices, no after the flood brought sacrifices,

and so on. He doesn't like this approach, and he offers other approaches,

and the truth is the Rambam himself has multiple different approaches, in one

writing he says that it's a hoax, it's a law that makes no sense to us.

In another area of his vast voluminous writings, he says that the particular animals

that we offer as sacrifices were all animals, the various societies that we were adjacent to

used to deify. As we know, the Egyptians would deify the sheep, and the Jews had to take the sheep,

the past a lamb, and put it by their bed and roast it so everyone knows exactly what they're doing.

It's a way of kind of demonstrating that what my neighbors view as sacrosanque,

that maybe what I, myself used to be sacrosanque, really, it's nothing, there's no power in it.

We're going to slaughter it for God. But the Rambam himself, he offers an idea which makes a lot of sense,

and he explains that sacrifices are a means to facilitate repentance.

Someone does something wrong, they do sin. That's a terrible thing. If you think about it,

what's a sin? God Almighty, the source of all life, of all power, the only creator, the only true

existence told you duets don't do why, and a person came and repudiated the will of God.

That's unconscionable, that's unacceptable. How can that person continue to exist?

Moreover, when a person does a sin, it could be a sin in their mind, it could be a sin in their

words, it could be a sin in their behavior. These are the three dimensions, or three realms of human

agency. And therefore, when there's a sacrifice that's going to provide a torment, it must be in these

three dimensions, in these three domains. So every sacrifice, there has to be a ceremony by which

bringer of the sacrifice places his hands upon the animal, as an action, and verbally confesses.

That's words. And then we take the inner of the animal, and that's burned, and that corresponds

to a person's thought, and a person's lust that may have led them to make those poor choices.

And then he adds, the blood of the sacrifice is sprinkled on the altar. And when the person sees

that, they're supposed to think there's an animal whose blood is being sprinkled on the altar,

but really that blood should have been mine. Because after all, I did a sin against God.

And the feeding punishment for that is that my blood should be spilled out. How can I have continuity

in this world? But God, in His magnanimity, in His benevolence, in His kindness, in His mercy,

He said, you could take all of your sins and place it upon this animal. And we'll have the blood

of the animals sprinkled. And He'll be spared. If blood will stand in for your blood,

it's life will stand in for your life. It's limbs will stand in for yours. And that was a very

powerful experience where someone would have to go to the tapenegro or to the temple and do this,

they wouldn't be so quick to do a sin than it's day. And especially they think about it. And they

they verbalize, they confess before God. This was a very evocative experience for those who

were fortunate enough to do it. Quantranban sacrifices were a means to accelerate, to supercharge

repentance, to create a framework in which repentance would be very easily achieved.

I did see something for the first time this year. The Rabaynubachaya, he cites the Rabban,

when he adds a fascinating and surprising dimension to this. This whole subject might be

heart-frust accept. The idea that God Almighty should decide what I do. I'm an American. I have freedom.

It's heart-frust accept this. It's not easy thing to accept this.

But once you accept that you were created by God and he told you what he wants and he's the only

power, at least logically, even if it's heart-frust accept emotionally, but logically in made

sense that we shouldn't be able to violate his will. It should not be tolerated.

Rabaynubachaya, he adds to what the Rabban says. He adds a surprising dimension.

And again, for us, the whole idea of spirituality, it's maybe a bit abstract. It's a less tangible.

I always say to people, it's one of the mornings. There's a red light. I see people waiting

by the red light. Because there's a red light. So what? Who's watching? No one's watching.

But come on, it's a red light. So what? Why are you stopping? There's not a single car within a mile.

Maybe there's a red light camera. I don't know. But some places, they have no red light cameras.

So why are you obeying the law? Why? There's no logical reason. It's because we've developed a

society that says, for the most part, and not in Houston so much. The red light is sort of like,

oh, you have three seconds left. It's a little bolt through the intersection. That's what it's

like in Houston. But elsewhere, we've developed a society that says, okay, the signposts and the

rules of the road are things that we follow. Even though maybe it doesn't make any sense to us.

The Torah is telling us, the Almighty sees everything that we do, knows everything that we do,

knows everything we think. And there's going to be an accounting and a reckoning adjustment

for everything we do. Every single thing. And if you think the Almighty will just be like the judge

that says, okay, you know, the police man wasn't here. You were going 77, if it's a motor zone,

okay, dismissed. It's not, that's not how it works. God doesn't forego anything unless you do repentance.

Our viewers are trying to make us, make us appreciate how real the spiritual realm is.

It's much, much more real than the physical realm. It's much more enduring than a spiritual realm.

You do one mitzvah. It lasts forever. And God forbid he do a sinless, unless you address it,

unless you repent for it. It too will last forever. If there's someone who blatantly and

wantonly repudiates the will of their creator, how can they have any life?

Rabid Maha'i says, if you look at the various things that we do to the animal,

and get the Rabatullahs, we're supposed to simulate in their head that this really should be me,

the blood and the life and the organs should all be me. That should have been my fitting

problem of punishment, absent God's benevolence. The Rabid Maha'i adds, before the animal is slaughtered,

it has to be placed down on the floor, and then it's slaughtered from its neck, and then it's

burned atop the altar. If you do the math, you have all four types, all four means of capital punishment,

all four methods of execution. There's the stila where someone's got a bit shoved off a high,

a high roof, and then there's heritage and chenech, and that's like the animals being almost

executed in four different ways, and then it's burned atop the altar. That's a way of getting a

person to think really on deserving of capital punishment, which have on punishment, all of the above.

I want to add one more idea, a very, very interesting idea, very profound.

In the beginning of the book of ethics, pretty of us, chapters of our fathers.

We read a very short but memorable statement. This statement was authored by a high priest,

named Shimon Hatsadic, Shimon, the righteous.

I'll slow Shadevarum, her olem, on three things, upon three things the world stands, on Torah,

on Avoda, on service of God, and on kindness. It's a short statement, and all the comments are

referring to, what does it mean? The world stands, what does it mean? The world stands. I'm going to

try to figure out what that means. There's an essay written by the Rua Khayim commentary authored by

Rua Khayim of Valajan, who's the author of Nefesha Khayim. That in one of our other channels,

not the parts of the practice, but Torah 101, we're just starting a series on Nefesha Khayim.

So if you hear this and then you like it, make sure that you subscribe and listen to one of my

other shows called Torah 101. Here's what he says. What does it mean upon three things the world

stands? On Torah, standing in the world stands on Torah, the world stands on service of God,

what does this mean? So he tells us very interesting.

Strip should tell us, if not for the covenant of day and night, the laws of heaven and earth,

I will not place. If not for the covenant of day and night, Khutosh Mavarits, the laws of heaven

and earth will not exist. The world stands on something. What does it stand on? What is the laws of

heaven and earth? Where do they stand on? They stand upon the covenant of day and night. What does

this mean? It means that the covenant of Torah that we must study day and night, that ensures

that the laws of heaven and earth will have continuity. What does it mean? The laws of heaven and earth,

very profound idea. Heaven and earth must be connected for the laws of heaven and earth to have

continuity. And the reason why is because there's only one source of life. There's only one source

of vitality, of continuity in all of existence. And that's God. He is the sole source of all life,

of all vitality of all continuity. And he's willing to give life to all of his creations.

But the only way he can give life to all of his creations is if there's some way,

there's some pathway, there's some pipeline through which that vitality, that divine vitality,

that ethereal life can flow. As an example, the Thalmatel's us that every single blade of grass

has an angel assigned to it. Did you know this? Every single blade of grass has an angel assigned to it.

That angel is a spiritual counterpart. Of course, the angel is an angel and the blade of grass is

just a blade of grass. You can pluck it out, no problem. Your cow can eat it. Your gardener can

smell it. But what it means is that there could be nothing in this world as lowly as it is,

but does not have something in the upper spheres that gives it that nourishment, that light,

that life, that continuity. If something is divorced, something physical is divorced from a spiritual

root, it has no existence. There's no continuity, there's no vitality. There can be no existence in

anything physical if it's disconnected completely from the spiritual. That's what it means. The

hutoshma vars, the laws of heaven and earth, they have to be connected. And that's to be some

flow between heaven and earth. Now, heaven and earth are pretty far. How far are heaven and earth?

How many light minutes away, or light years away, or light millennia away?

So, the thomas tells us, again, you read this thomas and you have no idea what this means. You know,

right away, this is esoterica. It's arcane. Thomas says that there's seven realms of heaven.

And each one is a 500-year journey. It's not clear if it's a 500-year journey at the speed of

walking, jogging, sprinting, driving, or the speed of light, we don't know. But it's pretty far,

500 years. And there's seven of them. Of course, there's not a reference to physical distance. It's

more spiritual distance. Board of means is something we need to understand.

The lifeline, the vitality flows only from God. And it has to filter through many different realms,

many different dimensions, all the way from the highest to us and from us to those beneath us.

We have the Torah. The Almighty gave us the Torah. What's the Torah? It's a creation of God, yes.

But it's the first creation of God. It's the highest creation of God. It's the loftiest,

most supernal creation of God. The vitality from God flows first to the Torah and then to everything

else. All of the divine vitality flows through the Torah. It's the first filter in that concantination

of divine flow. We have access to the source code as it were. If now for the Torah,

we wouldn't have this connection of heaven and earth. When you study Torah, you're engaging in

something that's very, very, very lofty. You say one word of Torah. You're instantly creating a

connection between heaven and earth. You're opening up flow lines, pipelines of life, of vitality,

of continuity of light all the way from the highest of high to here. So you don't have Torah.

You don't have the world because the world stands literally on Torah because the world stands on

this connection. Well, how do you have a connection? Well, bring the connection. It's only Torah,

which is why if there would be no Torah, the world would cease to exist because it would be divorced

from a source of life. Now, if the missioner just said that the world stands on one thing on Torah,

it would make a lot of sense. The world stands on Torah because the Torah creates the pipeline,

the connection between heaven and earth. That's only the beginning of the missioner.

Shimon, the righteous, Shimon, the high priest tells us the world stands on three things.

And the first one is Torah. The next one is Avoda. Avoda is service of God. Avoda means sacrifices.

Sacrifices. The world stands on sacrifices. What does that mean? So this is the new idea. Very profound,

very delicate insight. You want to pull vitality, life, light, continuity from heaven.

You're doing that with Torah. Amazing. But in order for us to make room as it were,

to bring down that vitality, there must be something corresponding that is sourced over here

that goes up. It's like a, I think of it as like a vacuum, right? Nature abhors a vacuum.

Spiritual nature, as it were, also abhors a vacuum. We're trying to pull, pull, pull, pull from heaven.

We try to draw vitality from heaven. To do that, we must take something that's not from heaven,

that's from here, and push it up. So there could be a loop.

What vacates, what makes room for the divine heavily flow to come here is only because we're

taking stuff that are here and pushing them up. And that's a sacrifice. That's the magic of a

sacrifice. Sacrifice, you take an animal. It's lowly. It's not even human. It's lower than human.

And you also take a flower, which is not even lower than an animal, right? Beneath the animal,

you have, let's say, the plant life. And what happens? We don't know how this happens,

but the Torah tells us that there's a e-shade, a fire, it's a rayachni, it's a pleasant aroma for God.

We don't know what that means, but we do know is that there's some way of taking an animal,

your Betsy that was in your barn that's way lower than the human, and there's some process by which

that can elevate all the way up to God. What that does, what that enables for us is that it creates

that loop and that vacuum effect in which to the degree for us, to the degree that we push up,

we send back to heaven as it were. Sacrifices and prayers. That's the degree to which we have

access to blessing from heaven. Very profound insight. The Thama tells us you won't have anything,

literally anything, from heaven. You want any blessing from heaven? There's at least one prerequisite.

The Talmud has, I always joke about this Talmud, because it's like three pages before the end of

the whole Talmud. The whole Talmud is 2700 pages, and about three pages from the very end,

the Talmud says, how do you get rich? I always say they can't put it at the beginning,

so people are like, oh wow, I can tell someone, the Talmud tells us exactly how to become rich.

So if you're really dedicated, you read the whole Talmud, and once you're only three pages before

the end of the Talmud, I'll finish it once I'm at it. How do you become rich? How do you have

a beautiful family? How do you become a great tourist dollar?

And the Talmud gives the exact precise instructions for how to do all three.

And the one instruction that is the same, or the one part of the road map, that's the same in all

these three things, is prayer. My grandfather was fond of quoting the Baal Shantel.

Baal Shantel used to say, there's nothing, absolutely no blessing that you can get from heaven,

without prayer. And I didn't understand though, okay, why? Why not? Why, what about

Torah? Isn't Torah the way it gets off from heaven? Now we know the answer.

Blessing means you're pulling something from heaven down here.

To the degree that we are pulling blessing down from heaven, that is limited to the amount of

things from this world that we're pushing up to heaven as it were. And that's the, again,

the magic of sacrifices. You take an animal. It's lowly. It doesn't, it doesn't seem to be

very spiritual. In fact, it's not spiritual. And that's the point. You take flour. It's,

it's even less spiritual than an animal. You follow them, very specific set of instructions.

And the result of that is something that's very low, ascends all the way to heaven.

And that opens that flow wherein blessing can now descend from heaven. And he ends off his

piece by saying prayers the same is the same way. I vote, it means service of God, which means

either sacrifices or prayer, which is why we have three daily prayers, corresponding to the three

daily sacrifice and sacrificial services that were done every single day. Why do we have three

daily prayers? It's corresponding to the three daily sacrificial activities done in the temple.

The prophets who canonized the prayer, they knew exactly how to create a spiritual replica and

equivalent of sacrifices. These words that they canonized create a special pathway that does the

exact equivalent of a sacrifice. It takes the things that we're going through in this world

and brings it all the way up to heaven. And through that, the possibility for blessing to come

back from heaven is open up for us. And I think I'm suspecting that it's appropriate that

this teaching was taught by a high priest, Shimon the righteous. This is all about connecting

the physical and spiritual worlds. And who does that? Who's the chief in charge of that?

That's the high priest. The tabernacle below we said last week is aligned with the tabernacle above.

When we do service here in the temple, the angels in heaven can do their service

in the heavenly temple. There's symmetry between heaven and earth. And that is symbolized most

closely with the tabernacle and the temple. And there's a flow. It has to be a constant flow.

If the flow ceases, it's over. How do you create that flow? It's a loop. Not a loop to look at

diamonds. A loop. We take from below, send it up. We take from above and bring it down. And then we

send up the more we can get down. And the more we can get down, the more powerful what we send up

is. It's a fascinating take on sacrifices. A deeper insight into understanding what's actually

happening over here. This is a foreign subject for us at least as of this recording. But we hope

to witness the day, please dial out the temple's rebuilt. And we're able to experience the transformation

that was brought about by the bringing of sacrifices may happen very, very soon. And if you're a little

queasy, that's okay. You could send a representative to bring a sacrifice on your behalf. I'm sure

they'll be an app for it. An Uber for sacrifices. Someone's building that right now. I'm sure

we could just vibe code it. No problem. But we hope and pray that we'll witness this day. We pray

on Passover for their building of the temple. We really pray every day, but we talk specifically

that we should witness the sacrifices because this is absolutely life changing. We're here. We're in

the book of Leviticus. I'm so excited to be here. Please, God will be able to record a partial

podcast every week during this book with Al-Balimide. As I mentioned at the beginning, it's a very

important week. And really, it's not a week. I won't be finished by the end of the week. But it's a

very important time in the torch calendar because we do one fundraiser a year. That's it.

And if we're successful in the fundraiser, please, that will have the ability

to continue our work in 2026. We're trying to fuel the torch. I would love

if everyone listening right now, even if you don't want to make a donation, at least click

the link or put in a prayer that we're able to get what we need.

We'll have to do towards that org. I'm going to place the link in the description of the podcast.

Have a wonderful day. Have a fantastic rest of your week and an amazing,

powerful, productive, inspiring, exciting, sharpest upcoming. And please, God, with the help of

the Almighty, we'll have a partial podcast next week. And in the week after, we will not

have a part of the podcast because it's the festival of Passover. But we won't be missing a week.

Please, God. And as always, the image of his rabbi will be a Gmail.com.

Okay, you, you're part of the 5%. I always joke that I could say whatever I want at the end of

a partial podcast because who listens all the way to the end after 20 minutes, 30 minutes,

50 minutes, most of y'all have checked out. And sometimes I speak to people on the phone and

they tell me rabbi, I listen all the way to the end. So those are the real, the real fans,

the real family of the partial podcast because we are in middle of the torch fundraiser. I'm

sharing a special message all the way at the end of the partial podcast for the diehards,

for the groupies, for the true believers who listen all the way to the end. We're doing our

fundraiser. And every year on our campaign, the fundraiser campaign website, we have all

these different teams and I like to make different teams for each one of my podcasts. And the podcast

that got the most donations on that team is always the partial podcast. So in 2022, there were

70 donations that dedicated their donation towards the partial podcast. And then in 2023,

it was 85. And then in 2024, it was 91. And last year, it was 112 donors to the partial podcast.

Now now it's Wednesday night. And so far, there have been 37 donors to the partial podcast page.

You find the link in the description, of course, give torch.org. Look for partial podcast. But

the easiest way to find it is go to your podcast player and go to the notes or the description

and find the link. I left like 17 of the links. You can't miss it. I would love if you would

make a donation to pump up the numbers for the partial podcast team on the torch fundraiser.

And even if it's a small donation, first of all, it gets doubled. It gets matched. So it grows.

But I really want to eclipse the 112 donations dedicated towards the partial podcast of last

year. Now some of the donations, the donor has the option to include like a small dedication or

small message. These are actual messages, actual messages from real partial podcast listeners and

donors. And I'm just, this is, these are unedited. Here's one. You ready? Rabbi Yaakov Walbi is the bomb.

I assume that means really good. It's explosive. Here's another one. Love the humor and learning

of the partial podcast. In honor of our Rabbi, Walbi, who teaches our beautiful family Torah,

grateful for the partial podcast where I have continued to learn so much. These are your colleagues.

These are your friends. These are members of your community, members of the partial podcast family

that have decided that this cause the great work of torch and the torch center, the great work of

the partial podcast. It's worthy of their Sadaka funds, their charity dollars. They went to the

website, give torch.org, you find the link in the description and they said, I'm going to support

the partial podcast in the minute donation. I'll read some more. Life changing podcast. So grateful

for the consistent weekly growth and a nice heart emoji. Another one. Thanks, Rabbi Walbi for the

partial podcast, exclamation point. Listen to this one. Thank you for connecting me to my Judaism.

You have transformed my life. That's very touching. To the soothing voice of Yaakov Walbi smiley face,

keep up the great work, exclamation point. Rabbi Walbi, thank you so much for the learning and

inspiration. These are listeners of the partial podcast and they're making donations and they're

writing about how much the partial podcast has impacted their life. I want you to join them,

give torch.org, you find the link in the description, make a donation and send me your message

about the partial podcast. Oh, oh, wait. Oh, wait. There's one more comment. There's another comment

in support of the wonderful theme song. We have one partial podcast donor who has dedicated his

or her donation to the partial podcast gene girl. How do you like that? Well, in honor of this

anonymous partial podcast donor, we have to do it. We have to do it in honor of the

partial podcast and the torch fundraiser. Give torch.org. I send you off with the official

partial podcast gene girl.

From the Talmud, Rashi and so much more, he'll blow your mind a million times, but who's

keeping score? Oh, Rabbi Yaakov Walbi, he's really quick with a wit. The show's supposed

to be happen now, but he just can't quit. Oh, partial podcast. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,

partial podcast. Our hosts get excited. Just stipulates and uses big words too. And I bet you'll say so

to speak a lot more than you. Oh, come listen to Rabbi, Walbi, pontificating on the Torah,

then grab a friend, jump on it and go dance the horror. Strap yourself in for what's to

do. And this blast mind blowing Torah on the partial podcast. Hey.