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

בס"ד

לשכנו תדרשו

Cleaving to the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land

וזאת תורת המנחה

"We are hereby prepared to pray the Minha prayer that Yitzhak our Holy Forefather enacted... May the Pleasantness of God be upon us..."

The common word for the afternoon Service is 'Minha' which means and has some correlation to the meal offering in the Temple, also called 'minha'. Although the main source for this afternoon service is derived from Yitzhak's prayer in the field and animal sacrifice of the afternoon in the Temple, we may fairly say that this 'service of Yitzhak in the field' deeply corresponds to the meal offering derived from wheat which grows from the field (in contrast to animal sacrifice which does not grow from the earth). The Zohar (II, 39b) identifies this 'field of Yitzkak' to be the 'Field of Machpela', where Yitzhak saw the Holy Presence and specified this location for his prayers. The 'bottom up'/'growing' approach of this wheat for the meal-offering is actually very close to the type of spiritual work identified with Hebron, which emphasizes the human spiritual work from below to rise up to the spiritual Divine lights bestowed from 'above to below' in Jerusalem.

In continuation of our study in the book of Vayikra on the 10 levels of holy location stemming from Jerusalem we shall study the next location of highest sanctity after the Holy of Holies, the Heichal. This location is the enclosed chamber of the Bais HaMikdash which includes the Shulhan - Table, the Menora, and the Altar of Incense. The Mishna Kelim states that the sanctity of this site is expressed by the prohibition on even a Kohen to enter this chamber without first washing his hands and feet. We find the concept of washing the hands (and feet) in our daily practiced halachic observance in washing our hands in the morning, for bread, etc. in order to remove 'impurity/uncleanliness'. In addition, according to the Arizal it is befitting to wash one's feet on Fridays to remove the spiritual uncleanliness on one's feet in honor of Shabbos. In other words we may infer that washing the hands and feet, both in our observance and in the Temple to enter the Heichal, means removing negative spiritual energy from these extremities of the body (distant from the 'main-body-spiritual-source') which are more susceptible to this negative energy. The subduing and removal of this negative energy can be linked to some of the deeper meanings of the Shulhan, the first vessel mentioned in the Torah to be contained in this Heichal.

In Tehilim, David pleads 'set a table before me before my foes'. This means that the table is also associated with the subduing of evil. Indeed, the numerical value of 'heichal' is the same as God's Name 'Adonai', which describes God's Majestic attribute of justice which subdues evil. Here too we find the spirit of Hebron, the cradle of Israel's Davidic monarchy, meant to pursue justice and destroy all evil.

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Real Stories from the Holy Land #162

"Once I was not feeling well where I was sitting, so I stood up from my seat. Just then, the lamp above the seat collapsed, fell, and shattered right on the seat where I had been sitting a moment before..." R.G

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