Improving Our Service of Hashem

Translated from Rabbi Arush’s feature article in the weekly Chut shel Chessed newsletter. The articles focus on his main message: “Loving others as yourself” and emuna. 

Spiritual Hunger 

It is so nice to see the Jewish people awakening and growing in their service of Hashem. We are amazed at the huge thirst that we are seeing and at the burning desire of Jewish souls to draw close to Hashem, to emunah (faith), to Torah, to the Jewish heritage. 

These precious Jews are “shooting in all directions”: tzitzit and tefillin, Shabbat observance, separating challah, saying Mizmor l’todah with gratitude etc. etc. 

How fortunate we are! How fortunate is the generation in which one can see tangibly the prophecies being fulfilled: “Yes, days are coming – Hashem Elokim has spoken – I will cast hunger over the land: not hunger for bread nor thirst for water, but hunger to hear the words of Hashem.”¹ 

Recently one of the most common questions that rabbis receive is: “In what way should I improve my service of Hashem?” 

Of course, any improvement of one’s service of Hashem, any addition to one’s doing Hashem’s will is blessed and good and serves as a springboard to many more good things, because “One mitzvah leads to another mitzvah”2. But if we want to translate the desire to draw closer to Hashem and feel His love into actual actions, there is one central piece of advice. and we will learn it from the holy Torah, from our parasha of this week and from the coming parshiot. 

The Purpose of the Korbanot (Offerings) 

The book of Vayikra starts with a series of parshiot that deal with the halachic details of the korbanot: korban olah (burnt offering), mincha (meal offering), shlamim (peace offering), chataat (sin offering) and asham (guilt offering). It would seem that the main topic of this book is about the Cohanim (priests) and the korbanot.  

But starting from the middle of our parasha, we see an interesting change of direction. The Torah starts to deal with matters of kedushah (holiness) and spiritual purity, and in all the following parshiot until the middle of parshat Emor, the Torah is commanding us to become pure and holy. To wit: 

Our parasha begins to discuss sanctifying our eating and the animals one is forbidden to eat and goes on to speak of various impurities, and, almost at the end, tells us: “Sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am holy.” 

In the parshiot of Tazria and Metzora the Torah continues to speak of various states of impurity and of the holiness of the Jewish home. The commandment to purify oneself appears again and again. This section closes with these words: “You must separate bnei Yisrael from their own impurity so that they do not die in their impurity by making My Tabernacle impure in their midst.” 

The height of the commandment to purify oneself expresses itself on Yom Kippur, in which we are all purifying ourselves before Hashem: “On this day, atonement shall be made for you to purify you; of all your sins you shall be purified before Hashem.”³ We then get to the section on arayot (forbidden relations), which are the height of the holiness of Yisrael, with the heart of the matter being: “Be holy.” 

From there we go on to parshat Emor, in which there is a special warning to the priests not to have any contact with a dead body and to maintain a special level of purity, serving as the representatives of the people when they serve in the Tabernacle: “No one of you shall render himself impure for any dead person among his people.”⁴ This entire set of mitzvahs ends with the mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem: “…that I may be sanctified in the midst of Bnei Yisrael. I am Hashem Who made you holy.”⁵ 

What is the meaning of this continuum of commandments? The meaning is that the word korban refers to hitkarvut – drawing closer – to Hashem. But drawing closer to Hashem without holiness or purity  is worthless! That is why at the center of the book of Vayikra – and indeed, in most of the book, which deals with the laws of the korbanot – we find the issues of kedushah and taharah (purity), because the heart and purpose of becoming closer to Hashem lie in kedushah and taharah. 

And this is suitable especially for this time of the year, when we are preparing ourselves for the great closeness, the Giving of the Torah, about which we said in the Haggadah: “If He had brought us close (kervanu) before Mount Sinai…”⁶ What is our preparation? Sefirat Ha’omer, whose main point is to sanctify and purify ourselves, as we say in the prayer after the daily counting: “You commanded us, by way of Moshe, Your servant, to count the count of the Omer in order to purify us from our klipot (husks) and our impurities… May it be that in the merit of Sefirat Ha’omer… I will purify myself and sanctify  myself  with the supreme kedushah… and purify us and sanctify us with Your supreme kedushah, Amen, Selah.” 

The Main Test 

And therefore, any Jew or Jewess who wishes to manifest one’s desire to draw close to Hashem through sustainable actions, should know that the main thing is to purify oneself and sanctify oneself! 

Our kedushah and taharah are the holiness of the brit – avoiding adultery in all its forms! That is the main part of kedushah, as we will see in the following parshiot – “You shall be holy”, What does that mean? Rashi explains: “Abstain from the arayot!” The holy Zohar says that the main part of the yetzer hara is about arayot and that is the main cause of impurity! All of taharah is shmirat habrit (guarding the covenant of circumcision) and maintaining tzniut (modesty) and all of kedushah is about shmirat habrit and tzniut. 

To abstain from relations with arayot is to abstain not only from the transgression itself but from everything that might lead to a transgression, mainly looking with one’s eyes and thinking about it, as Chazal say: “The eye sees and the heart covets. and the means of action complete the  aveirah (transgression).⁷ Even if the person does not commit the transgression itself, Chazal say that thoughts of transgression are worse than the transgression itself, and, of course, the phrase “abstaining from arayot” includes all matters connected with tzniut of women! 

And so, in the following articles we will deal with the topic of kedushah and tzniut, which are the heart and the foundation and the main point of all of man’s toil in this world; it is from this that his entire spiritual level is formed, and it is the main nisayon (test) of a man in this world, and the main way to protect the Jewish people! 

The Secret of Happiness 

When discussing kedushah and tzniut, the first thing one has to know is that all of us – yes, all of us – are in very, very great danger! And all of us have what to improve! One must know that any forward movement and improvement bring endless blessing and great abundance! 

All happiness in life depends on kedushah. As long as a man causes spiritual damage with his eyes, he will not be able to have shalom bayit (marital peace), because shalom bayit means that the person is completely happy with his lot – meaning his wife. “…as You bestowed gladness upon Your created being in the Garden of Eden of old”⁸, for in the Garden of Eden there were only Adam and Chava – no other woman, and so, Adam Harishon was completely satisfied with his wife. 

So too, anyone who guards his eyes and doesn’t see any other woman, can be truly happy with his wife and enjoy true love and shalom bayit. 

The test of the women is tzni’ut. A modest woman is a woman who is not searching for attention from anyone in the world. She has a husband and it is only his attention that she desires, and therefore she does not want people to look at her; she does not want to attract attention in the street. This, too, is included in the blessing of “in the Garden of Eden of old”:  there, Chava had only Adam Harishon with her. 

Dear Jews, you should know that any effort on your part to close your eyes, even one less glimpse, brings upon you endless blessings, as the prophet promises: “…and closes his eyes to the allure of wrong; he will reside on high, sheltered in strongholds of the rocks. His bread is given to him; his water flows faithfully. Your eyes will see a king in his splendor…”⁹  

Sheltered in strongholds of the rocks! This is a promise for complete protection! And we so need protection these days, among seventy wolves. You have a stronghold, not a safe room that can be demolished by a direct hit of a missile, but a really safe room, a real “stronghold of the rocks”, blessing in livelihood, medical issues and will see the glory of the Shechinah! 

Child Insurance 

Any effort on your part to be more modest means protecting your children from slipping away spiritually. When you cover and hide what should be hidden, in spite of that being a difficult thing to do – you are hiding your children from ayin hara (the evil eye) and from yetzer hara (the evil inclination). Hashem hides them and holds them under His wing, so to speak, and protects them from all evil. You will see them growing in their Torah and fear of Heaven and becoming Torah luminaries.  

Chazal tell of a righteous woman named Kimchit who had seven sons, all of whom served as Cohanim Gedolim (high priests). The sages sent her a message: “What good deeds have you?” She replied: “The beams of my house never saw the hairs on my head and the hem of my robe.”¹⁰ 

Dear Jewish woman, when you buy a garment that is longer and wider, have the intention that this garment is covering not only you but your children as well, protecting them from all evil. This little piece of cloth is stronger and more protective than all the shelters and the steel and the concrete in the world. This intention will give you much strength and you will avoid falling into the falsehood and the  idea that charm and beauty matter (for “Charm is false and beauty – empty”¹¹), and then you will be able to be truly proud of your righteous and loyal children, and you will merit the status of “a woman who fears Hashem, she is praiseworthy.” ¹¹ 

And dear Jewish man, when you shut your eyes, have the intention that with every shutting of the eye and casting of your eyes downward, you are removing from your children all the accusations and confusions of this generation. 

May Hashem give us the merit to sanctify and purify ourselves via guarding our eyes and being modest, and in that merit we will truly draw close to Hashem yitbarach and will be granted supreme protection covering us and all our descendants! 

Editor’s Notes: 

¹ Amos 8:11 

² Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 4:2 

³ Vayikra (Leviticus) 16:30 

⁴ Vayikra 21:1 

⁵ Vayikra 22:32 

⁶ Haggadah, Magid section, the Dayenu poem-11th stanza 

⁷ Bamidbar (Numbers) 15:39, see Rashi’s comment there 

⁸ Sixth of the seven blessings (Sheva Berakhot) recited under the chuppah  

⁹ Yeshiyahu (Isaiah) 33:12-17 

¹⁰ Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yoma, Chapter 1, Halacha 1;  Leviticus Rabbah, Parsha 20 

¹¹ Mishlei (Proverbs) 31:30