This week, we being the third book of the Torah, Vayikra. As we read through this week’s parsha and the forthcoming week’s parshios, we might wonder why we are reading them. These parshios seem to have very little to do with our lives nowadays. This week’s parsha talks about karbanos, offerings, which we no longer perform. In a few weeks, we learn about tzaras, a spiritual disease, and laws about impurities, which no longer apply. As we read these words in the Torah, we might wonder why we still have them.

About fifty years ago, a Rosh Yeshiva in Eretz Yisrael came home one afternoon to find his wife crying. She began explaining that one of the American students decided to buy a gift for the Rosh Yeshiva and her and gave them a new food processor. The problem was she did not know how to work it. The Rosh Yeshiva said that there must be an instruction manual. His wife said there is one, but began crying harder as she held it up. The Rosh Yeshiva looked at it and realized the whole manual was written in English, a language neither he nor his wife understood. The Rosh Yeshiva said he would get an English speaking student from the yeshiva to come over and explain it. As he was leaving, he realized that this food processor taught him a great lesson and brought it to class the next day to share the lesson with his students.

The Rosh Yeshiva told his students the instruction manual can be compared to the Torah. It has everything in it that we need to know to function as human beings. The problem is it is in a language that we do not understand and therefore we need someone else to translate it for us. For the food processor, the Rosh Yeshiva needed an English speaker. For the Torah, we need a Rebbe to teach us what it means. We need the great rabbis throughout all of the generations to explain the verses in the Torah, because without them, understanding the Torah would be impossible.

As we read this week’s parsha and the parshios coming up, we might think that these parshas have no meaning in our lives. But that is because we do not understand the words in the Torah properly. If we learn the words without the commentaries or without a Rebbe, it is impossible to understand it. There are many great lessons we can learn from these parshios. Let’s make sure we do not pass them by because we do not understand the Torah properly. Learn with a Rebbe or commentaries on the Torah and everything will start to become more clear.

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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