Parshas Vayikrah 5786
- Torah Tavlin
- Mar 20
- 2 min read
ונפש כי תקריב קרבן מנחה לה' ... (ב-א)
MASHAL: Deep in a Soviet gulag, the guards were baffled with a mystery. Disciplined and cruel they knew that “re-education” meant stripping the prisoners of any leisure or humanity. Hence, playing cards was a crime against the state. The guards would storm in, throwing thin mattresses to the floor and ripping open the seams in the prisoners’ tattered jackets. They checked the rafters, the soles of boots, and even the bread rations. Yet the moment the heavy iron door slammed shut and the footsteps faded, the deck of cards would hit the wooden table with a defiant thud.
R’ Mendel Futerfas zt”l, a well-known Lubavitch chasid who was thrown into the freezing landscape of Siberia, eventually asked the leader of the gang how they did it.
Grinning from ear to ear, the chief replied, “That is their mistake, Rabbi. They look everywhere except at themselves. As they grab us to frisk us, we lean in and slip the cards into their own overcoat pockets. A man can search a thousand rooms, but he never thinks to search his own coat!”
NIMSHAL: The “korban” in Parshas Vayikrah is designed to serve as a substitute for oneself on the mizbeach, forcing a person to witness the animal and realize with a shock, “That could have been me!” Rather than searching our external circumstances, blaming luck, neighbors, or environment for our struggles, the ritual of the Korban demands that we “check our own pockets” and recognize that the animal on the altar represents our own untamed ego and animalistic drives. By contemplating our true self-value and the weight of our actions - in that moment of honesty, we stop projecting our problems onto the world and instead accept the responsibility to repent and refine our internal character for the future.