Five Books: Parashat Vayikra
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Description
The twenty-third portion of Torah begins our journey into the book of Leviticus. Where Genesis was a grand narrative about where we come from, and Exodus is a grand narrative about how our Jewish nation came to be, Leviticus is, well, a bit of a rule book. But just because it doesn't have the literary flourishes that we find in some of the other books, that doesn't stop it from being remarkably important, especially when we try to work out how we, as Jews in a far more modern age, should approach our faith, or world, and our relationship with G-d. We simply have to dive a bit deeper, and think a little harder. Parashat Vayikra describes how our ancestors should approach the act of making offerings of many types, and while those forms have faded into history, we still make offerings all the time in service of our community, and in service of how G-d expects us to live. Finding those more modern references isn't too hard, and is really worth your time and attention. It will change how you think about your plce in G-d's plan.
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