Torah Portion

This Is A Shabbat
For Beginnings

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Shabbat Vayikra:
Leviticus 1:1-5:26;
Numbers 28:9-15;

Exodus 12:1-20;

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RABBI MARK B. GOLDFARB

Special to The Jewish News

uring this Shabbat we cele-
brate many beginnings.
We begin a new month,
Nisan, during which the hol-
iday of Pesach falls. The month of Nisan
is the first month of the Hebrew calen-
dar; Nisan commemorates the begin-
ning of the children of
Israel as a nation and a
civilization, to use
Mordechai Kaplan's term.
Also on this Shabbat, we
begin to read from Leviti-
cus with Vayikra.
How many of us as
b'nai mitzvah had to read
of sacrifices, blood, guts
and skin conditions. How
far rabbis and educators stretched to
find relevancy for the sacrificial system
in our day. Actually not far, which
reminds me of a story.
Once there were three sons who
received three precious gifts from their
parents. The eldest received a mirror
whose silver frame was now tarnished
and whose glass was scratched and dirty.
But with this mirror, the son could see
from one end of the world to the other.
The middle brother received a small,
faded carpet. Yet this carpet could trans-
port him to any place he wished to go.
The youngest brother received an apple,
which if eaten could cure any illness.
One day, the eldest brother was look-
ing in the mirror to distant, exotic lands.
The mirror then displayed a room in
some distant castle. There, lying on a
bed was a beautiful princess. Around the
bed had gathered the king and queen
and a number of attendants all with
worried expressions on their faces. The
princess was stricken with a disease that
the royal doctors could not cure. Des-
perate, the king promised the princess's
hand in marriage to the one who cured
her. The young man summoned his
brothers and they traveled to the castle
on the magic carpet. In the room, the
youngest brother presented the apple to

the princess who ate and was cured.
The brothers all came to the king,
each claiming that he alone deserved to
marry the princess. "If it weren't for my
mirror, we would not have known of the
princess's illness," said the elder brother.
'And if we knew of the illness,"
responded the middle one, "how could
we have gotten here if not for my car-
pet." 'And if we arrived here," added the
youngest, "without my apple, what good
could we have done?"
The king was faced with a dilemma.
Through their convincing arguments, he
saw the point each of them made. Yet he
had to decide which brother had truly
earned his daughter's hand in marriage.
Each had given something to heal the
princess, yet only one had given of him- ,
self.
We find a phrase in this week's
parsha: "Speak to the
children of Israel and
say to them, when you
bring of yourselves a
sacrifice unto the
Holy One ..." Sages
have understood this
to mean that the sacri-
-
fice must belong to
the person who brings
it — not an overage or
something found along the way. For
our ancestors, the sacrifices repre-
sented that which they needed, their
most precious commodity. Which
brother do you feel truly "sacrificed"?
What about us today? What is our
most precious commodity? Is it some-
thing we can save? No. Is it something
that can be invested? No. Is this com-
modity something that some have more
of than others? No. Our most precious
commodity today is time.
We can't save time although we try
to, and it is curious that it is time which
is usually the last thing we sacrifice
today.
The investment plans of the Motley cf \
Fool speak of how just a little bit invest-
ed early on in life and continually
throughout will actually be larger than a
lot invested later. Time works very much
the same way. If we invest (perhaps a
modern term for sacrifice) a little bit of
time early on and do so regularly, our
communities, temples, schools and
agencies will benefit greatly in the long
run.
How much time have you spent in
helping in the temple office or the class-
room or the agency you care about? And
how about our families? How much of
our time do we give them?
During this Shabbat of beginnings,
let us find ways to begin sacrificing and
investing time.

Time:
a precious
commodity.

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64

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DETROIT
JEWISH NEWS

Mark Goldfarb is rabbi of Temple
Beth El, Flint.

❑

