Shnayim Yomi - Acharei Mot - Kedoshim - Rabbi Reuvein Brand - DVAR TORAH

Sky amazing efforts terrific job to continue to pursue this Schnai Mikra project Tiskel Hamitzvah should continue to grow in Torah and your connection to Hakadosh Baruchu and your Avos of Torah and your ability to connect to Ribono Shel Olam through this special medium, this Mitzvah, this Dinim of Shulchan Aruch of learning the Parsha every week. It's really interesting. Of course, we all know that one of the three Mitzvos that we have when we enter Eretz Yisrael as a nation is to build the Beis Hamikdash, to build a building, a structure. At the same time, the Pasuk describes here in Parshas Kedoshim that when we come into the land of Yisrael, "Un'satem Kol Etz Machal." We are encouraged to plant trees. Very much like Adam Rishon experienced when Hakadosh Baruchu put him in Gan Eden, "Vayita Hashem Elokim Gan B'Eden." The Medrash points out that Hakadosh Baruchu planted trees. Now, these two concepts of building and planting are very different from each other. When you build, you have to have a specific structure. You have to have an engineer identify exactly where is the foundation and how are the pillars set. And if it's off by even a few millimeters, you're going to have a very serious problem. On the other hand, when it comes to planting, it's the opposite. It's very organic. It's just free-flowing. You can't tell exactly how large the tomatoes are going to be in that tomato plant. And yet, Hakadosh Baruchu wants us to understand that our lives of Ruchnius are really a synthesis of these two. This is expressed in Rav Wolbe's Z'riah U'vinyan B'chinuch when it comes to child raising, but it's true for Davening and all aspects of Avodas Hashem. That on the one hand, there is a structure. There is a fixed scaffold. There is a path that has specific steps and things that we need to do that give us this connection to Hakadosh Baruchu in a rigid and fixed way. When it comes to Davening, we have a Siddur. There are words that we need to say. At the same time, it's also meant, of course, to be organic and personal. And nobody's uh Davening, nobody's Avodas Hashem is going to look like somebody else's. Each one of us, like the Rama writes in the Pirush of Schnais in the end of Maseches Makos, that there are 613 mitzvahs because each person is going to have one mitzvah that they're going to love and connect to and be on the deepest level that's unique to them. And that's why there's such a small small so many different mitzvahs cuz we different in our relationship to Torah and mitzvahs. Each one has a different and we need both. So when we were growing up we used to plant tomato plants. We didn't just have tomato plants lying on the floor cuz the tomatoes would be eaten up by the worms and the ants and the bugs. So we had a great that we would buy at Home Depot or Hechinger or whatever it was that had a little bit of scaffolding. It had metal wires and we would plant the tomato plants and as it grew we'd make sure that the vines were twirled around the different pieces of metal so that it wouldn't fall to the ground and that's our that's our that's our Hashem. gave us mitzvahs. He gave us the the sitter. These are the scaffolding to help us keep growing and climbing but at the same time we need to be growing organically. We need to be the ones to invest our energy to find what is it that's drawing us, which aspect of Torah, which aspect of and to pursue that within the scaffolding, within the when to make sure that our Torah, our our growth is organic and personal to us. Good Shabbos.