From your own lot...

B”H

The second posuk in this weeks Torah portion tells us exactly what kind of sacrifices we were able to bring to the Hashem. To be more specific, of all of the kosher animals, we’re allowed to bring just three: the ox, the goat and the sheep.

Recently I went through a little personal challenge that really resonated with me when I learned about the deeper meaning of this posuk. Without going into too many details, which are not so important, G-d handed me a challenge to help me appreciate myself more, where I am and where am I going … but I had to go a little bit out of the way to learn this lesson.

I always wonder why it is that people, myself included, crave that what we can’t have…

A common and silly example is girls with curly hair yearning for straight hair and girls with straight hair hoping for curly hair... Or in more complicated situations... people saying if only I was born to this and this family... if only I grew up there... if only I had this thing or that opportunity... THEN life would be perfect...

Just like the above examples, I myself wasn’t completely content with where I was. I was yearning for something else, something a little bit different. An opportunity presented itself that seemed to fill what I was looking for… and I perused it…

As soon as I arrived, I realized that something was off... Something wasn’t right... It just didn’t sit well with me being in the place that I thought was good for me... or at least that I thought would be a better fit for where I was in life. I kept trying to make it work however, and the harder I tried the more I saw that I just needed to go back “home.”

It’s funny, now that I’ve had time to reflect on the situation. Sometimes you really have to go outside of yourself to know who you are and where you belong. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that everything in life is for a reason. You can’t be where you are, and not appreciate it fully, so sometimes stepping outside of the situation that is best for you is what brings you back to the place you belong.

Who knows us better then G-d? After all, He created us; He put us into the world at this specific time and in a specific place… He made sure that everything around us the way it was supposed to be for us to reach our greatest potential and our greatest heights. And then He gave us the challenges to let us get there, because in order to be a part of the project, we have to put in some work as well.

Yet in the middle of the challenge, it’s often times hard to see how this challenge is exactly what you NEED at that point and time… It’s also hard to see that you have the tools to overcome it and its even harder to not blame it on the circumstances around you. If only this was different... if only I was in a different place... if only… then everything would be okay.

There is a story in the Gemura about a man named Eliezer ben Jordaya. He was a great rasha, a very wicket person. One of his biggest weaknesses was women, and he visited every prostitute in the land. One day as he was leaving the chambers of one of the prostitutes, she said that, “there would not be any teshuvah (repentance) for him.”

Her statement really struck a cord with Eliezer and he didn’t want her statement to be true. So he ran to the wilderness where he sat on a hill and asked the sun and the moon for help in his repentance, but the sun and the moon answered that they could not help him... then Eliezer turned to the hills and the valleys, and asked them for help, but they also could not help him... this went on until Eliezer realized that there was no where to turn but to himself. So he put his head in-between his legs and cried deeply from within for forgiveness…

At that point and time his soul expired. The greatest sage of the time commented on Eliezer’s repentance stating that Eliezer was able to achieve in one hour, that which the great sage has been trying to achieve his whole life.

Commentaries on this story point out that Eliezer wasn’t doing real teshuvah at first. By pointing to the sun and the moon, he was actually saying: if my environment and the place where I grew up were different then I could have been better… Similarly the hills and valleys represented his parents; if only I had a different family Eliezer said, then I would have been a better person. However, this also didn’t work. It was only when he looked deep inside and took ownership of his situation, agreeing that he could have made different choices given his circumstances that he was forgiven.

I sometimes get this image of the Jewish people as a whole… We are one body yet every single one of us has a specific task that we have to accomplish. Imagine a body, made up of million and millions of cells. Each cell has within the DNA, the code to do the work of every other cell, but for some reason each was placed in a certain location that maximized its work there.. The liver cells making up the liver cleansing the body, the brain cells making up the brain and the skin cells holding it all together. Yet one day, the liver cells decided that the brain had a much more important job, a cooler task. So they left the liver and went to try to be a brain… They had the DNA after all, they were able to do it… but they were fashioned to be the liver, so they weren’t as productive as before when they were doing the actual task at hand, and the body began to deteriorate.

As time went on, the liver cells say how much they were going outside of their nature, outside of them selves to do the work of the brain, and they understood that something was out of place… yes it may seen cooler to be a brain, but without a liver the brain can’t go very far itself..

Similarly each Jew is put into his specific situation and given a specific task to complete. And G-d, knowing this about us, when we can’t always see it clearly, gave us hints to act on it… By seeing where we come from, who we are, what are our talents and what are our challenges we get a much better picture of what we are needed for in this world… We can analyze and ask ourselves, am I the liver or am I the brain.

But this often times seems like a lot of work. And its often times hard… So we want to run away, go somewhere else, where it looks easier… and this is why it’s called a sacrifice. The ox, the goat and the sheep represent the domestic animals, the animals we already have in our backyard… People often times want to serve G-d from exotic places, extreme places, to far outside of themselves. But that’s not what G-d wants. G-d wants you to serve Him with what he gave you. To make sacrifices from your own lot.. To be the best you that you can be and overcome the challenges He gave you, not run out looking for your own.

I once read a daily dose from Rabbi Tzvi Freeman that said that which you are good at, you owe to the world, but that which you are challenged by, you owe to yourself… And I’m very lucky to have been given an opportunity to see this. I was experiencing a personal challenge and my first reaction was to run away from it… but when I really looked at what was going on, I realized that all I need to do was come back and put in a bit of work to really appreciate who I am, where I am and where I’m going… In the end, your own personal challenges are only there to help you grow…