A two-legged creature with a four-legged limp<\/p>\n
Half skips, half stumbles at the fork in the road:<\/p>\n
A vibrant heart beat to animal bliss;<\/p>\n
A human mind dulled to an animal instinct \u2013<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A beautiful soul trapped in a beastly body.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It wishes to come loose, to come close, to come home \u2013<\/p>\n
And then it wishes to indulge in every hedonistic pleasure<\/p>\n
Ever known to child or man.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t paranoia or paradox; it is life \u2013<\/p>\n
Part man, part animal.<\/p>\n
Formed of earth;<\/p>\n
Breathed of heaven.<\/p>\n
A human creature with a divine soul.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But how to come home; how to come close?<\/p>\n
How to make of an animated animal an emancipated man?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Man
\n<\/i><\/p>\n
When you offer
\n<\/i><\/p>\n
From yourselves an offering to G-d<\/i><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are all kinds of people and all kinds of offers:<\/p>\n
There are those that offer praise and those that offer advice.<\/p>\n
There are those that offer on and those that offer off.<\/p>\n
There are one-time offers and big-time offers.<\/p>\n
There are offers for this and offers for that.<\/p>\n
(Some even make offers one cannot refuse)<\/p>\n
But all the offers refuse to offer what matters most:<\/p>\n
An offer from the ever-selfish self.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Adam<\/i> \u2013 you who are likened to the Ethereal<\/p>\n
Ki yakriv<\/i> \u2013 when you wish to offer, to come close<\/p>\n
Mikem<\/i> \u2013 from your selves, your depths<\/p>\n
Karban la\u2019Hashem<\/i> \u2013 an offering, a sacrifice to (and for) G-d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An animal sacrifice isn\u2019t some archaic ritual \u2013<\/p>\n
It is offering your animal so your human can<\/p>\n
Be what it was meant to be \u2013 Divine \u2013 it isn\u2019t<\/p>\n
Slaughtering your beast; it is bringing it closer to<\/p>\n
Your beauty.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We are all holy temples, micro-homes for the Divine.<\/p>\n
And we make sacrifices \u2013 some large, some small.<\/p>\n
Sacrifices for things we wish to do; sacrifices for things<\/p>\n
We wish we hadn\u2019t done; sacrifices for the times that<\/p>\n
Were; sacrifices for the times that will be; sacrifices for<\/p>\n
Our guilt; sacrifices for our innocence. But the greatest<\/p>\n
Sacrifice of all is really the simplest:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It is coming close; it is bringing the animal to the altar<\/p>\n
It is altering our state, from a state of animal<\/p>\n
To a state of man<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We walk into our miniature temple, into our magnified soul<\/p>\n
And hand our animal off to the priest\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Out of the crying man into the fire \u2013<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And a beast becomes a beauty.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n