B"H

Parshath Ki Thissa
By Yitzhak Kolakowski

Greetings from the Holy City!  Where as you all enjoyed one day of
Purim, we here in Jerusalem are still recovering from three
incredible days of Purim MeShulash.

However, if you think it's time to come back down to earth, you are
wrong.  Not only do we have to stay as high as we were, we have to
keep on shteiging.  A Jew only goes up in kedushah.  Even what seems
to be a fall is actually only in order to go up higher than we ever
were before!

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"Let my prayer be set forth as incense before You..."
(Psalms/Tehillim 141:2)

My dear friends, this week, in Parshath Ki Thissa, we read the parsha
of the Ketoreth (Incense offering).  According to the Zohar, we read
the Parsha of the Incense, along with portions of the Talmud
explaining it, in order to remove impurity from the world prior to
prayers, prayer being the replacement for the korbanos.  At the end
of davening, before Aleinu, we also say it, (except for Nusach
Ashkenaz), since our every action as a Jew must be as pure and holy
as a korban if we are to fulfill our role as "a kingdom of priests
and a holy nation".

However, my dear friends, sometimes we feel as though we are not
suitable to serve Hashem at all.  We think we are not holy enough.
We think 'Hashem doesn't need us'.  We think we are too
disgusting to be of any use to His service.  This is the wrong way to
feel.  No matter how bad we feel about ourselves, Hashem loves us
more than any parent could ever love their most dearly beloved child.
Moreover, in order so the world can serve Hashem, THE WORLD NEEDS YOU!

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov writes (Sichoth HaRan 295):

   "Encourage yourself to daven.  No matter who you are, you can
   encourage yourself and be stubborn, davening to HaShem.  If you
   feel discouraged, think like this:

   'I may think that I am so far away from HaShem Yisborach because of
   my many sins.  If this is so, it is just the opposite, since no
   tefillah can be complete without me; didn't Chazal say (Kerithoth
   6b) that any tefillah which doesn't include the tefillos of the
   sinners of Klal Yisroel is no tefillah.  And that is why the
   Ketoreth had to have "Helbanah" (known as 'Galbanum' in English,
   this resin of a Persian plant has a very bad smell by itself, and
   yet it was an essential ingredient in the mitzvah of Ketoreth,
   without which it wouldn't be kosher.)

   Thus, even though I consider myself to be a sinner, I am needed for
   all service of Hashem.  No tefillah can be perfect without me...  I
   myself, the 'Helbanah', make the tefillah perfect...  Without me,
   there could be no complete tefillah, just as ketoreth without
   helbanah would not be complete.!'"

Of course, the mitzvos you all do make every one of you smell much
nicer than helbanah, so why should any of you feel down?  HASHEM
LOVES YOU!  YOUR PEOPLE NEED YOU!  WE NEED TO REBUILD THE BETH
HAMIKDASH TO DO THE MITZVAH OF BRINGING THE KETORETH!  WITHOUT YOU WE
CANNOT BUILD!  WITHOUT YOU WE CAN'T BRING THE KETORETH!

May we all soon smell the 'reiach n'choach', the 'sweet savor'
of the ketoreth, (and sneeze from its scent!) when its pleasant aroma
(please, G-d, soon!) spreads from the golden altar of Yerushalayim to
the entire world.

Gut Shabbos