Ribono Shel Olam: Please... 

No, it is not last week's title left here by mistake. It is a renewed plea to G-d to ease our "situation" in a favorable way to His people. These words are being written after a day of fasting, prayer, and introspection by Jews all over the world. May our prayers be answered with a generous amount of RACHAMIM. May He guide the decisions of our leaders to make things good and sweet for Klal Yisrael; may He help Jews everywhere make the right decisions to strengthen their commitment to Torah and Mitzvot; and may He accelerate the Ingathering of the Exiles to a strengthened and peaceful Eretz Yisrael. And if there is something lacking in the way this pray was expressed, may HaShem answer our prayers as if we said them properly, with the right words and the right KAVANOT. 

I was considering "ignoring" the sedra again, as was done last week. But as I was working on the sedra summary and SDTs, I realized how many lessons we must learn from the parsha, as our effort to go along with our prayers for G-d's help. 

In the second pasuk of the parsha, there is a switch of grammatical person from singular to plural. When a person offers a korban (this can be taken literally, as well as with the other meaning of korban, those fellow Jews that have been korbanot of the "situation"), he does not stand alone. Whether he is troubled spiritually, physically, emotionally - there are fellow Jews ready to empathize and help out. It might not be p'shat of the pasuk, but there is the strong identification with the tragedies that occur here by the rest of us. A letter that circulated via email from JR about the death of a young medic named Yochai. JR wrote that we must be affected by situation not because we know Yochai's family, but because we are Yochai's family. 

As one goes through the parsha (really the whole book of Vayikra), he/she cannot help but be struck by the absolute necessity of internalizing the bringing of korbanot and of having the proper motives and kavana. And the same can be said of our davening. It is all so shallow and hollow, without the heart. And with the heart... there is no limit to the levels of sanctity one can rise. We must channel the vulnerability we feel in the current MATZAV towards being receptive to our natural inclinations to becoming better Jews and better people. We just have to let it happen. Because that's what we really want. 

Although there is a lot of "between man & G-d" flavor to Korbanot, there are several aspects (such as the last portions of the parsha) that highlight the sinificance of Bein Adam L'Chaveiro.