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Parshat Vayikra
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron

בס"ד

לשכנו תדרשו

Cleaving to the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land

וידבר אליו ה' מאהל מועד לאמר

"And build Jerusalem speedily in our days...”

The request for the building of the Temple in Jerusalem is constantly in our prayers, forever permeating within our hearts, growing from the roots of history, from the spirit of the Mishkan. The internal 'spirit' of the Mishkan is none other than the spirit of the Holy Presence itself, which talked to Moshe Rabeinu from 'between the two cherubs' of the ark in the Mishkan, as is understood from our title quote.

In continuation of 'probing' different places in the Land of Israel this year we shall take Jerusalem and the Temple Mount as our next 'project' of study. In the past we have described Jerusalem and the Temple Mount as the 'brain' of the Land of Israel and Hebron as the 'heart' of the Land of Israel. Just as the brain is fed by the blood channels stemming from the heart, so too Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are 'fed' by the spirit of Hebron. Also, the brain has far-reaching effects on the entire body, as each part of the brain governs different facets of the body through the the neurological system. Similarly, each section, facet, and law of the Temple hints to facets and locations of the Holy Land.

In the book of Vayikra, the book of holiness and the Holy Temple, which is comprised of 10 parshios, we shall study the 10 levels of holiness attributed to the holiness of Jerusalem found in the Mishna of Kelim (ch. 1), studying a different level of holiness in each parsha.

The highest level of holiness is the Holy of Holies, where even the High Priest may only enter once a year on Yom Kippur. This entrance into the Holy of Holies, which occurs four times on Yom Kippur may remind us of the name Kiryat Arba, which can mean a 'coming close' (kirya - a city where the inhabitants are 'karov' - close to each other) 'of four' - that is the High Priest 'comes close' to the Holy of Holies 'four times'. Also the name Hebron, which means unity, hints to the two united cherubs in the Holy of Holies, from between the Holy Presence rests and from which HaShem spoke to Moshe. It is therefore not surprising, why, specifically in the tractate that teaches us about the Yom Kippur Service do we learn that the priests had the custom of asking, 'did the dawn reach Hebron', for it is through this spirit of Hebron that the High Priest can enter the Holy of Holies, as the Zohar points out from the word 'with this he shall enter'.

The Zohar says that 'this' refers to the Holy Presence coined 'zot'. The word 'zot' is also used in context of the Torah as it says, 'vezot haTorah asher sam Moshe'. Fascinatingly, the numerical value of 'zot' equals the numerical value of 'Het' (the Canaanite tribe which sold Maaras HaMachpela to Avraham), which are enigmatically tied to the ten commandments in the Midrash. The Midrash states that the ten times the word 'Het' is mentioned in the portion of the sale of the Machpela to Avraham correspond to the 10 commandments. Interestingly, 'het' can also stand for the letter het, whose numerical value is 8, standing for the 8 people buried at Maaras HaMachpela - 'the 4 couples' hinted to in the name Kiryat Arba. Based on our previous understanding, we can ascertain that this Cannanite tribe basically acted as concealment upon the true spiritual potential of this location, which is deeply tied to the Holy Presence that rests with the Torah, both called 'zot'. These concepts all come together in the ark within which lie the Torah portion of the ten commandments and where the Holy Presence rests.

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Real Stories from the Holy Land #161

"While writing the lines in this dvar Torah about the numerical value of 'zot', suddenly one of my friends started talking exactly on the topic of the numerical value of 'zot' (he does not read any of my divrei Torah in English)." M.G

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