Prayer Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:03 - Intro (Announcement)
You are listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Prayer Podcast.

00:12 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, my dear friends, welcome back to the Prayer Podcast. We are going to take an attempt of the olas tamid, the karbon tamid, the tamid offering. What was the tamid offering? Tamid means continual. There was a daily offering that was brought in the temple every morning and afternoon, no matter what happened Every holiday, every festival, every Shabbos, every day, morning and afternoon. So let's first read the prayer and then everyone has a handout here, and then we're going to try to do our best to explain it. So there is. You don't have it printed there, but there's a special prayer that is recited beforehand, which is May it be your will, hashem, our God and the God of our forefathers, that you have mercy on us and pardon us for all our errors. Mercy on us and pardon us for all our errors, atone for us all our iniquities and forgive all our willful sins, and that you rebuild the holy temple speedily in our days, so that we may offer to you the continual offering, which is this offering we talk about, that it may atone for us as you have written for us in your Torah, through Moses, your servant, from your glorious mouth, as it is said, and then we say the following verses Okay, and this is from Numbers, chapter 28. It's only eight verses, chapter 28, verse 1 through verse 8. Shanaim la'yom olas tomid, ola tomid, esa keves echad taseh baboker. V'esa keves asheni taseh b'nei rabayim V'asiris o'ayfa solos l'mencho bulabashem min kosis revi'is ahin olas tomid ha'asuyo ba'arsinay l'reach nichoyach ishe l'doynoy V'niskoy, rev. And then we say one verse from Leviticus and we say and then we say a final prayer, which is that Hashem should consider this prayer that we recite with our mouth as if we actually brought these offerings. Okay, so this is the third section of the offerings. We started with the kiro, which was the laver. We spoke last week about the trumasadesh, which is the ashes. Now we're talking about the continual offering and then, next class, we will talk about the ketoris, the incense, and our sages tell us something very incredible. And our sages tell us something very incredible. They say that what we want to do here is we bring verses from the Torah, we bring the Mishnah and we bring the Talmud into our prayer. It's important for us every single day. We spoke about this many times the obligation to study Torah every day. So, like this, if someone doesn't have time, by the mere recitation of these verses you already fulfilled your Torah study for the day, because you read the Torah, you read the Mishnah which we're going to see soon and then you read a piece of the Talmud as well, and therefore you've already fulfilled the written Torah, the oral Torah, in its finest way, and we'll see this, god willing, in the upcoming episodes. But let's go and try to understand a little bit about this. Karbon Tamid what is this continual offering? Karbon tamid, what is this continual offering? So I want to read to you here a little piece.

04:30
Hashem spoke my offering, my food. The offering referred to here is olas tamid, continual elevation offering, or tamid. The offering is called tamid contin continual because it is brought regularly, day in and day out. It is a communal offering purchased with the annual half shekel contributions. Remember that a few months ago we talked about shkallim, we talked about the half shekel that every Jew would contribute to the Temple. This money was used for the Tammet offering, for this daily, twice daily offering. It was collected especially for this purpose.

05:13
The offering is called food in a figurative sense, referring to the parts that are burned on the altar. The aroma that is satisfying does not refer to the aroma per se, for just as God does not require our food. He does not benefit from the odor of the burning flesh of the offering. Rather, the aroma of the burning offering is pleasing to God because it represents the culmination of our performance of his will. Hashem loves when we fulfill his will. Think of it as a parent, that when your child fulfills your will, it's not like it did something for you, but you're just satisfied that your child listened and did what you asked them to do. To the Almighty it's no different. God doesn't need our food, god doesn't need the aroma, but God loves our will to do his will. It represents the culmination of our performance of his will. In the words of the sages, god is pleased for I have spoken and my will has been fulfilled.

06:26
Okay, and then there's explanation to exactly how the offering was brought. And if you read the English translation of this prayer, you'll see exactly what we mentioned, and that is and Hashem spoke to Moshe saying Command the children of Israel, israel, and say to them my offering, my food to be consumed, and, by my fires, a pleasing aroma to me, you shall be diligent to bring unto me at its fixed time every morning and every afternoon, and you will say to them this is the firing offering that you will bring unto Hashem Male lambs in their first year without blemish, two of them each day as a constant burnt offering Offer, one lamb in the morning and the second lamb offer in the afternoon, and a tenth of an eifa, which is a certain volume of fine flour as the meal offering, mixed with oil of crushed olives measuring one-fourth of a hin, which is also a measurement. This is a constant burnt offering as offered at Mount Sinai for a pleasing aroma. A fire offering to Hashem and its libation will be a fourth of a hin for the one lamb. And then, finally, that verse from Leviticus of the morning, together with its libation you shall offer a fire offering of pleasing aroma to Hashem. And then, finally, that verse from Leviticus and you will slaughter it on the north side of the altar before Hashem and Aaron's sons, the Kohanim will sprinkle the blood all around the altar. So there is so much to talk about. We'll see what we can understand, what we can take in.

08:30
So the first is we know that it's called a tamid, a perpetual or a continual offering, because this was done every single day. Our sages tell us there is a danger of consistency. Consistency is a great thing, right? We all think, like right, having a schedule, yeah, yeah, but then you become robotic and you lose sensitivity and you lose feel and you lose appreciation. So while we can have a physical consistency that leads us astray, we need a spiritual consistency that keeps on anchoring us to holiness. And this is why this offering was so prominent and so important and why it's mentioned here in our prayer. Even though today we don't have a temple, we pray for that rebuilt temple, that the third temple be built in Jerusalem. Today, everyone say amen, right, why? Because we want to bring those offerings, we want to have that closeness with God without any barriers. So this Tamid offering, this continual offering that was consistent. Sometimes we said consistency can lead us astray because we feel it's normal, everything is regular.

09:49
You know, I want to ask you a question. Does anybody remember the first time you sent a text message? I remember the first time and I remember I was on the phone with my dad. I said, here, I'm going to try this, okay, and I said hello. He's like, oh, I got it. It's unbelievable. We're a thousand miles away, or however far we are from one another, and it's unbelievable that we wrote something and the message arrived there in a millisecond. It's unbelievable.

10:19
I remember 1985, my father was all excited. He came home with a fax machine. Now, most of you youngsters don't know what a fax machine is, but I remember my father. I said what are you going to do with this? He says I'm going to get my father in Israel a fax machine and I'm going to be able to send him a letter. And my father got my grandfather a fax machine in Israel and we would send them a fax and he would get our letters and he would be able to read it and he would get our letters and he would be able to read and he would send us back a letter. Like unbelievable that 7,000 miles, 6,000 miles away, we're able to get letters instantly. It was the most miraculous thing.

10:58
But what happens today, it's tamid, it's continual. We don't realize the miracle. We don't realize how incredible this is. There's no dry eye in a labor and delivery room when you see a baby being born. Right, doctor, we have an OB-GYN right here, right, it's amazing. Why? Because you see a miracle in front of your eyes. In front of your eyes, it's. But then that miracle suddenly wears off. We get back into. Okay, now I got to get to real life. No, that's the real life. The miracle is the real life. But the problem is is that sometimes we have the tamid. It's continual, so we don't get impressed by it anymore. I'm not inspired by it anymore.

11:45
I remember when I learned the first piece of Talmud, I was about 15, 16 years old and I understood and enjoyed my first piece of Talmud. I remember I was literally jumping out of my seat. I was so excited and I said to the guy I was learning with he's a seasoned scholar. Right, he started learning Talmud when he was eight years old. So I said to him get excited, this is amazing, this is unbelievable. He says, ah, like I'm numb to it already, like you know, it's like you can't be numb to this. Right, that is the offering of the, the karbon tamit. Why? Because to remove that consistency, numbness that we build up within ourselves. It's a miracle. Yeah, life is a miracle.

12:38
I go to the class every once in a while. I get inspired. I realize the amazing miracle of the heartbeat. We learn about the human body. It's amazing, what a gift. Yeah, all right. The human body, it's amazing, what a gift. Yeah, all right. Now let's move on with life.

12:52
You can't let things become consistency, you can't let things become habit. And that's the offering of the karban ola, of the tamid. Okay, we feel it's normal, it's regular, it's routine. We need a spiritual Tamed to counter our mundane Tamed, our ordinary Tamed. Infuse Hashem into everything we do. You know what we say in synagogue? We have in almost every synagogue.

13:23
There's a special phrase which says I should have. This is from Psalms, where King David tells us I have the presence of Hashem before me, always the presence of Hashem before me. It's that offering that we used to have every day. And, by the way, there's a danger of that as well, because, imagine, you do that same have every day. And, by the way, there's a danger of that as well, because imagine you do that same routine every day the first time you got into your brand new car. Ah, that new car smell. I'm going to keep this car clean, that's it. I'm not going to have junk. Look at the car three months later. It becomes ordinary, it becomes routine, it becomes. And we don't have that freshness. Every morning is a new beginning, every morning is a new day, to start anew, to start fresh, to say today is not just going to be an ordinary day. Today is going to be a new, a new, completely revised.

14:29
You know we mention this that we're forgiven of our sins when we sleep. Why? Sleep is a 60th of death. Death is an atonement. Sleep, we start a new day. What do we say, hashem, you restored within me my pure soul. What do we say, hashem, you restored within me my pure soul. What do we say? It is pure, it's clean. Yesterday I was in turmoil. Today it's clean, it's open, it's easy. I got this.

15:05
This is so important for us to internalize this Tamid concept. Just as the body must be fed twice daily, sages tell us the normal eating is twice a day. Today we eat three times. We like to eat a lot, but it used to be twice a day. People would eat. So too, the Karbon.

15:29
This offering must be brought twice daily. The first offering was in the morning. The second offering was in the afternoon. Now our sages tell us that the Ola, what is Ola? Ola is the name of the offering, the elevation offering. It was a perpetual elevation offering. What is the Ola? Our sages tell us Kabbalistically, it's the Ola, the sparks from this world that we need to elevate up to the heavens. Again, we don't have an offering today. So what do we have?

16:10
Our sages tell us, by the words that we recite in this prayer, we're elevating all of our good deeds to our heavenly account. It's like when you have a transfer of money from the bank, what happens? Brinks come with this armed truck or the armored vehicle and they come there with their big guns and they're all right. What are they doing? They're protecting the money because they now get it deposited into a safe place. What we're doing is, when we bring this carbon ola, when we bring this tamid offering, we're depositing our good deeds in our heavenly account. That's our brinks delivery system. This is the tamid. Our sages tell us that.

16:57
The letters of the word ola tell us that the letters of the word Ola, ola's Tamid, the Ola offering, is the same word as Toleah, which is a worm. The nature of a worm is that it eats everything in its path. The worm goes. It sees something that it can eat, it eats it. It goes in the path of something else, it eats it as well, whatever is in its way. Therefore, recite the passage of Olotam Adar Sey to Sey, which has the power to counter the impure worm.

17:32
The daily offering represents loving kindness, the exact opposite of evil, rab Nachman says. He says this idea of practicing chesed kindness in our daily lives, especially learning Torah, hosting people in our homes, hosting scholars in our homes, which protects us, protects us from false teachings, from false influences, and it strengthens our faith. But there's another thing here which is we said, if you remember, at the end of our prayer, we said and it was slaughtered on the north side of the altar, the north side of the altar, our sages tell us the word Tzafon, which is north, also means tzafon, which means hidden. We have this in our Seder, our Pesach Seder. We have one of the 15 steps that we have is tzafon, which is we find the afikoman and we eat it. What is the afikoman and we eat it? What is the afikoman? What do we do? It's not just sitting out there on the table. It's hidden. Tzafun means hidden, it's hidden before God. What is this referring to? It's a reference to the ashes of Isaac.

18:55
Our recital of the daily offerings is an additional reminder of the binding of Isaac, which arouses heavenly compassion upon us which, if you remember, a few weeks ago, we talked about a few episodes ago, about the binding of Isaac. Furthermore, during prayer, man is said to be facing east. So we're right now facing east. This is east, which is where the sun rises from. Thus, the right side corresponds to the south, his back to the west and his left side corresponds to the north. Accordingly, kabbalistically, our sages tell us that the right side is kindness, that's the south. The left side is Gevurah, is judgment. What did we say? This offering is Isaac. Isaac was judgment. That's why it was brought from the north. It was brought from the Isaac side. Because we're facing east, we're facing towards where the sun rises when we slaughter the sacrifice. While facing north, we are reflecting the idea that we are in control of judgments, of the judgments, and are subduing them with the forces of kindness, which is why, by the way, we first wash our right hand, which is the hand of kindness, and then we use the kindness to wash our left hand, the hand of judgment, to wash away. One is to reveal the kindness and the other is to wash away the judgment. So there is so much more to talk about when we talk about the, the olas tamid, the, the offering that was brought on a consistent basis.

20:33
We, in our own lives, need to find a way to have consistency. We have three prayers daily morning, afternoon, evening. We had the offering and, by the way, the the, this carbon tamid. This tamid offering that is recited by us before the morning prayer is also recited before the afternoon prayer instead of the offering that was actually brought. But it's interesting.

21:00
Our sages tell us that this is why, before we begin the evening prayer, we start with V'hu rachum i'chaper avon. God, who is merciful, should forgive our sins. This is the way we start. Okay, it's an amazing thing. Why do we start only that prayer? He, the merciful one, who forgives iniquity and does not destroy. He repeatedly restrains his anger and does not arouse his total fury. Hashem save, may the king answer us on the day we call. That's the way we begin the evening prayer. Why? Because we don't have the tamid offering at night. What's if we sinned? We don't have that offering.

21:45
This is, instead of having an evening offering of the Tamed Hashem should bless us all that we have the ability to connect with this Karban Tamed, to have a continual opportunity daily to uplift ourselves, to uplift our activities, so that the things we do don't just be ordinary things. You know what You're going to earn? A living, a livelihood? You're going to your job. Do you know that that's a mitzvah? It's a mitzvah Before you walk into your office and you swipe your badge logging you in Hashem, I'm doing this to fulfill a mitzvah, to support my family. I'm going to put forward my effort. I know the success comes from you, hashem. I'm doing this not just as a continual routine. I'm doing this with intention. I'm going to try, I'm going to put forward my effort, bing, and you can walk into your job.

22:45
It shouldn't be ordinary that we eat, oh, we eat. We don't even know what we're eating. We're eating to sustain our bodies, so that we can serve Hashem. Why do we sleep? So that we can have energy to further serve the Almighty. Why do we do the things we do every single day? So that we can do something great. It shouldn't become ordinary without feeling. It should be ordinary with feeling, just like this karbon tamid. My dear friends, hashem should bless us to always merit to fulfill the will of Hashem and have this continuing Tamed offering return in our Temple, our Third Temple, speedily in our days, amen.

23:33 - Intro (Announcement)
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Torch, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.