Parsha Mitzvot: Tzav: Mitzvah 134 – Concept 379: Ohr ha-Nefesh

“This is the offering of Aaron and his sons, which each shall offer to God on the day he is inaugurated: a tenth-ephah of fine flour as a continual meal-offering; half of it in the morning and half of it in the afternoon (Vayikra 6:13) The Kohen Gadol must bring a meal-offering every day; it is called, “Chavitin” (Rambam, Hilchot Timidiim u’Mussafim – The Laws of the Constant and Additional Offerings).

The 9th of Adar is the Yahrtzeit of Rav Chaim Ephraim Zeitchek, Mashgiach of Novardok,Yerushalayim and Rosh Yeshivas Ohr Chodosh (1989).

The Cohen Gadol, unlike a regular Cohen who will bring this offering only ones, on the day that he is inaugurated into the Service, brings this offering every day, half in the morning, and half in the evening.

Why is this? This is because the level of the Kohen Gadol is elevated far above that of a regular Kohen. Every single day he is empowered and continues to grow and reach higher levels. His entire being and essence changes and is renewed. He is not today who he was yesterday. In fact, he is not in the evening, who he was in the morning.

Therefore each day he must bring a new inauguration offering, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon, to celebrate how he has been granted this gift of constant change and growth.

It is this same idea that obligates the Cohen Gadol to change his clothes after each part of the Yom Kippur service; he rises to an entirely new level after each stage of the service. He may never wear those clothes again as they reflect who he was earlier in the day, earlier in the service, not who he is now, with all that he has achieved.

This is what is taught by the verse, “Who may ascend the mountain of God, and who may stand in the place of His sanctity?” Every human being has an obligation to constantly rise and elevate himself. He must stand as if he is on the bottom of the mountain determined to climb all the way to the top. He must do this each day. He must do this each hour of the day. You must do this with each act of prayer, service, and study. He must become one who is constantly rising; a true climber.

This is how the Ramchal (The Way of God, Section 4, Chapter 5:2) explains prayer: the more a person becomes entangled in worldly affairs, the more he would darken himself spiritually and divorce himself from the highest Light. God therefore prepared a remedy for this, and that was that man should initiate all worldly endeavor by first bringing himself close to God and petitioning him for all his worldly needs. He thus, “casts his burden upon God.” This initiation is most important for all human effort. When a person subsequently engages in various forms of human activity, he is no longer considered entangled and immersed in the physical and worldly. Having initiated all this effort by making it dependent on God, he is supported by this remedy, and is therefore not lowered nearly as much by his worldly needs.

At the essence of a body in all its parts, its root does not have less than 100 steps corresponding to the hundred cubits of spiritual heights that were granted to Adam before the sin and that we can regain through the hundred blessings we recite each day.