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Article Summaries of Editors' Picks

Elation Elevation
The Zohar
All service of G-d should be performed with joyfulness and heartfelt desire, in order that the worship should be complete. However, a person who has sinned before his Master and then brings a sin offering to rectify this, needs to feel broken and remorseful in spirit.
Four Holy Faces
The Holy Ari
The "Divine Chariot" is borne by four celestial beings. The kosher domesticated animals of this world are derived from the face of the ox in the Chariot; the permitted wild animals are derived from the face of the lion; the permitted birds are derived from the face of the eagle. The animal soul of man descends from the human face of the Chariot.
Fixing an Imperfect World
Mystical Classics
"…Adam ki yakriv/for when a man shall offer"

The laws pertaining to sacrifices, as well as those pertaining to rehabilitation from different skin diseases and other impurities, are all reminders of the first sin committed by Adam and the resultant diminution of man's stature in the universe. Thus, Leviticus provides us with the general rectification of all humanity.
Giving Yourself
Chasidic Masters
The concept of sacrifices is one that is very foreign to the "modern" mind. We should realize, though, that every sacrifice had to be accompanied by genuine repentance before it was accepted. Only when one gives up something of himself does he make a sacrifice that is pleasing to G-d.
Offer Yourself
Contemporary Kabbalists
The service in the Temple and the Sanctuary centered around the principle of refinement – subduing one's physical nature, which leads to and brings about the transformation of darkness into light. Every Jew had the power to elevate himself, to attain spiritual levels, to draw close to G-d.
Humility of Moses, Greatness of Adam
Ascent Lights
The great majority of the letters in the Torah are not large or small, rather medium-sized. This alludes to the fact that we are generally not supposed to be one extreme or the other, but rather take the middle path.

Yet, in the first word of this Torah reading, the letter alef in the word "vayikra" is smaller than the other letters in the Torah. This hints to Moses' special quality of being more humble than any other person.
A Matter of Taste
Mystic Story
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