The SA/TO & Rel/Ed
Connection

Parshat Vayikra:
This week we have a special present for all of you. As we delve into the next book of the Torah, Vayikra, we bring to you a whole new start. For the most part, Vayikra deals with the animal and grain offerings to HaShem that were a central part of the spiritual life of ancient Jews. The alter serves as the central symbol of our ancient sacrifices, the physical place where these offerings presented. This Torah portion, will provide you with consists descriptive instructions regarding different items that must be placed on the altar for different occasions.

Being in a culture in which sacrifices do not seem as a form of worship, we can only wonder its significance of being in the Torah in our lives today. But distance from the altar and its rituals is not new to modern Jews. Most of the Rabbis of the Talmud also lived after the destruction of the Temple, leaving them without an alter as well.

The destruction of the altar presented the Rabbis with a challenge. Large sections of the written and oral Torah deal with the Temple and its sacrifices, so does that mean that these teachings are no longer relevant? Instead of allowing them to be irrelevant, the Rabbis set about searching for the inner meaning of the altar and the sacrifices and for places capable of serving a function similar to that served by the altar. A paradigm for the ancient alter can be found in each of our houses, the dinner table:

Rav Yehudah taught: Three things lengthen a person's days and years. Extending one's time at prayer, extending one's time at the table, and extending one's time in the bathroom. [Why is] extending one's time at the table, [worthy of reward]? Perhaps a poor person will come, and you will be able to give him [something to eat].

How do we know that a table has the power to lengthen one's life?

It says in Scripture: "in front of the Shrine was something resembling a wooden altar three cubits high and two cubits long, with inner corners. It's length and its walls were made of wood. And he said to me, 'This is the table that stands before HaShem.'" (Ezekiel 41:21-22)

Scripture first called it an "altar" and then called it a "table". This equates the two: our table is like an altar, and altars serve to lengthen a person's life. Noting this similarity between tables and the altar, both Rabbi Yohanan and Rabbi Eleazar, were able to teach: "During the time that the temple stood, the altar atoned for Israel. These days, a person's table atones for him." [Berakhot 54b-55a]

Food is the source of energy, which is the source of life. Yet, many people in today's world live without having a suitable amount of food to feed themselves or their families. Growing up Jewish we are taught through many Midrashim and Chasidic stories that when someone comes to your door and you are about to sit down and eat, invite them in. It is impossible to measure a persons need and in many cases, these persons would need the meal more than you. When you invite a stranger into your house, and you feed them, not only are you fulfilling a mitzvah by helping the needy, but they are fulfilling a mitzvah by eating the food.

Questions:

• How does the altar help to lengthen our lives?
• In what way does the table, and especially our ability to invite hungry guests to our table, accomplish the same effect?
• If you had to identify an altar for yourself, where or what would that altar be?
• How about an altar for the city you live in? For the Jewish community?

B'ahava,

Justin Turnofsky,
2005 SA/TO Int'l General Board