17 Mar VAYIKRA: TEACHING OUR CHILDREN ABOUT SACRIFICE

This Shabbat we begin
reading the Book of
Vayikra, much of
which deals with the
laws of the korbanot,
the sacrifices which
were offered in the Bet Ha’mikdash. For
many of us, these laws seem very difficult
to relate to, as the Jewish People have
been unable to offer sacrifices for nearly
two thousand years, since the destruction
of the Bet Ha’mikdash.
Ironically, however, the Midrash tells us
that it is customary for schoolchildren to
begin learning Humash specifically from
this book, Sefer Vayikra. Although these
laws strike us as dry, uninteresting and
irrelevant, and we would never imagine
making this part of the Humash the first
section to teach our children, the Midrash
tells us that this is precisely what should
be done. The Midrash explains:
Since the sacrifices are pure, and the
children are pure, let the pure ones come
and deal with that which is pure.
Today, the custom is that when children
begin learning Humash, they read the

first several pesukim of Sefer Vayikra,
and then they are taught the story of
creation at the beginning of the Humash.
But let us delve a bit deeper into this
notion, that the children must be taught
the concept of sacrifices already at an
early age.
A researcher named Dr. K. Anders
Ericsson once conducted a major study,
involving students at the Berlin Academy
of Music. This school trains some of the
greatest young musicians in the world,
many of whom go on to become the most
accomplished people in their fields. Dr.
Ericsson studied the work habits of these
students, since they began learning
music. He and his team found that all of
them had begun learning when they were
very young, and all worked hard
throughout their youth. However, there
was a vast difference in the number of
hours that the students had devoted to
practicing. Some had spent a total of
10,000 hours of practice by the time they
were twenty, some around 8,000 hours,
and some just 4,000 hours. The
researchers discovered that this factor –

the number of hours of practice – was the
main determinator of the students’ level
of achievement. Those who invested the
most effort were the ones who showed
the most promise and were on track to
become the world’s leading musicians.
Natural talent was not nearly as
significant a factor as hard work and
effort.
The most important thing we need to
teach our children, already at a young
age, is the value of korbanot – sacrifice,
exertion, hard work, and effort. If our
children get the message that success is
determined by natural talent, by how
smart a person is, by one’s good looks, by
the wealth of the family he was born into,
or by any other factor other than hard
work – we are lowering their chances of
success.
King Shlomo says in the Book of Mishleh
(24:30-31): I passed the field of a lazy
man, and the vineyard of a person without
a heart.” He then proceeds to describe
how it looked: overgrown, abandoned,
and in ruins. The lazy person’s field does
not produce much, if anything.

There are so many people in our society
– even adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s –
whose lives look like these fields, who
fail to produce, because they were never
taught about the central importance of
korbanot, of making sacrifices – giving
our time, our energy, our attention, and
our money for the sake of pursuing
valuable and ambitious goals. This
message needs to be taught to our
children when they are still pure, when
they are very young and still developing
their habits. The earlier in life children
learn this message, the easier it will be
for them when they grow older to make
the sacrifices and effort that they need to
make in order to succeed and maximize
their potential.