d’var torah
Lessons of Love
from the Torah
BY RABBI GREGORY S. MARX
Parshat Vayikra
M any of us fi nd it hard to
relate to the Torah portion
of Vayikra. It focuses on a
practice that is no longer in use today.

We learn of various types of sacrifi ces
and how they were to be fulfi lled on the
Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

One of my now-favorite books,
“Eternal Life” by Dara Horn, describes
the tone of the sacrifi cial cult. Th e cer-
emonies were full of joy, beauty and
community. As an aside, it’s a wonder-
ful book.

We call the worshiping of God on
the Temple, “sacrifi cing.” But the more
accurate word is “connecting.” Th e
Hebrew word used in the portion is
korbanot. It comes from the Hebrew
word karav which means “to approach”
or to get close. Th e Hebrew word seems
to mean that if we wish to get close to
someone, we have to sacrifi ce some-
thing. We cannot become close to anyone
else when we are focused on our own
needs and our own desires. Only when
we set ourselves aside and focus on the
other can we truly love them. Or put
another way, “We possess only that
which we give away.” If we are in search
of love, the only way to fi nd it is to love.

If we need a real friend, the only way
to fi nd one is to be a sincere friend. We
get close to others by making ourselves
vulnerable and come close to them.

Love begins with sacrifi ce. Real love
means sacrifi cing our own needs to
focus on the needs of the other. A
wise rabbi taught long ago, “When
love depends on achieving a certain
goal, love vanishes when that goal is
achieved. But when love is not depen-
dent on any goal, that love never van-
ishes” (Avot 5:18). If we love someone
with the goal of fulfi lling our own
needs and desires, that love will disap-
pear when our needs are fulfi lled.

Real love means setting aside our
own ego. It is directed toward the other,
which means our own self has to be set
aside. In a sense, when we love another
we are imitating God. According to the
Kabbala, when God was ready to create
the universe, God contracted to make
room for this world. Until that time,
God’s essence fi lled everything.

Until the contraction, there was no
room for anything else. Th is is the
notion of tzimtzum “contraction,” and
without it there would not be room for
a world. Th e lesson is, you cannot cre-
ate a world until you contract, give up a
little of yourself.

We learn in the Torah of Isaac’s love
for his son Essau. It was conditional.

Essau brought his father game to eat
from the fi eld. Imagine, for a moment
what would have happened if Essau
came to his father and said, “I’m vegan.

Enough with hunting.” How quickly
that love based on performance would
evaporate. On the other hand, Rebecca’s love
for Jacob was unconditional. She was
focused on her son’s needs, not her
own. Th is is the love that will fl ourish.

While it is diffi cult to see these manip-
ulative parents playing their children
against each other, there are lessons to
be learned about love.

When we love, we give up ourselves
to focus on the needs of the other. We
may even have to sacrifi ce our own
needs. But through sacrifi ce (korbanot),
we grow close (karav) to our beloved,
whether our neighbor, our spouse, our
child, our God. Love demands a per-
sonal tzimtzum.

A man had a very strange dream
— he saw a house that was giving off
a great deal of light. When he walked
into the house, he saw all sorts of can-
dles all over the place. Some of the can-
dles were burning bright, some were
dim, some were almost fl ickering out.

He found the keeper of the house and
asked, “What is this?”
Th e keeper replied, “Each candle is a
diff erent soul living in the world. Th e
ones burning bright are in the prime of
life. Th e ones low on oil and fl ickering
are people who are dying. When the
candle goes out, the person dies.”
Th e keeper of the candles turned
his back for a moment, and the man
quickly searched for his own candle.

He found the candle with his name
fl ickering in the corner. It looked as if
it was about to be extinguished. Th e
man panicked and looked around for
some more oil to pour into his candle
so it would burn brighter. He started to
take oil from another candle burning
bright. But a hand stopped him.

“Th at is not how it works here. Your
candle does not burn brighter when
you take oil from someone else. On the
contrary, your candle burns brighter
when you give oil to someone else.”
Th e man picked up his fl ickering
candle and poured oil into several
other candles. When he put it down,
the fl ame started burning brighter. Too
much wax can smother the fl ame. By
sharing what we have, with a little
self-sacrifi ce we enhance our own light
and life. JE
Rabbi Gregory S. Marx is the senior rabbi at
Congregation Beth Or in Maple Glen. The Board
of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia is proud to
provide diverse perspectives on Torah commen-
tary for the Jewish Exponent. The opinions ex-
pressed in this column are the author’s own and
do not refl ect the view of the Board of Rabbis.

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