Vayikra , or in the English vernacular, Leviticus. After finishing the building of the

Mishkan in the Book of Exodus, we now proceed to read and study the laws of sacrifices

to God and the pursuit of holiness. The end result of a sacrifice is either it gets wholly

consumed by the fire or the left overs are eaten by the priests or common people,

depending on the type of sacrifice. The closest object that I can think of that resembles

the

find for sale at local supermarkets and hardware stores. We all can smell & savor the

delicious summer barbeques. In a layman’s understanding we can see that something as

mundane as the Sunday barbeque can be turned into holiness.

The Torah says

abound as to why there is a small alef. Some say it refers to Moses’s humility. Yosef

Yitzchak Holtzberg says it refers to

man, who is mentioned in the second sentence and who Rashi interprets that we must not

make a sacrifice from anything stolen. Adam is also mentioned based on the definition.

Adam means earth which is comprised of dust and when a sacrifice is wholly consumed

by fire , it is reduced to ashes and dust. Think of it, God does not need anything from us.

He is Omnipotent and Omniscient. We are in constant need. The need to breathe, the

need to eat, the need have to shelter, the need to sleep and the desire to acquire things.

Sacrifices brings us to the realization that we are nothing but dust and ashes, like our

Patriarch Abraham said. Perhaps that is why prayer has replaced sacrifices since the

destruction of the Temple because all that we can really offer God is a special thanks for

creating and taking care of us and no one put it in better words and terms than the author

of Psalms, who was King David who wrote with Ruach Hakodesh or the Holy Spirit.

The top news story of the week was the resignation of Eliot Spitzer, the governor of NY

on March 12, 2008 based on his immoral behavior. My uncle Sholom pointed out to me

that we can find a reference to this story in the Torah where it says, “ When a ruler

sins and he does one from among all the commandments of Hashem, his God, that may

not be done, unintentionally , and he is guilty…”(Leviticus 4:22).

On a final note the phrase,

meaning these are… This is also the first word of Deuteronomy. This teaches us that if

we follow God’s commandments we will have double blessings as the