Vayikra

Hey there! My name is Steph Mallach and I’m the guest writer of the Dvar Torah this week!

When I read this week’s parasha; Vayikra, at first I found a lot of information about animal sacrifices from the temple times and I thought, “how do I make this relevant?!”

Upon digging a little deeper and trying to find some kind of moral I could relate to I kept coming back to the word ‘sacrifice’. I paid a visit to my good mate Mr. Google and tried to synonym the word, draw out some other meaning when it hit me! Just as the cohanim make themselves impure in the process of purifying others, the message of this parasha is all about 'self-sacrifice'. So again, how is this relevant to our lives?

Now, I am a drama teacher in my non-hineni life, and this idea of 'self-sacrifice' resonated with the lesson we gave our students in drama this week. Each lesson we try impart some sort of moral to the kids that they can convey it in their performances and this week was all about sharing the spotlight.

How does this link so self-sacrifice? Well… thanks for asking!

Perhaps it's a really far off connection (that’s how my brain works) but basically, we were trying to teach them how it’s important to step back and remember to let everyone shine and not overpower one another. We conveyed this message to them through a little story which they had to interpret through performance. I thought I’d share the story here so maybe some of you could share with the children in your lives. Enjoy!

“A long long time ago the sun and the moon spent all their time together. They were the best of friends. However, the sun was much brighter than the moon so the people only gave their attention to the sun, all their love went to the sun. The moon became sick and weak, the sun knew that he had to do something for its best friend. The sun tried to hide behind the clouds so that the moon could shine but the sun was still too bright. There was nowhere the sun could go and hide so that the moon could shine on earth.

So the sun decided that it would die every night so that the moon could breathe. The people began to notice the moon and admire its elegant glow that shined on the earth. To this day the sun and the moon spend their time apart but if you’re lucky you can still catch the moon thanking the sun for its nightly sacrifice, as dusk and dawn creates their beauty.”

Shabbat Shalom!