Pirkei Avos tells us that the world stands on three pillars: Torah, Avodah and Gimilut Chasidim. This weeks Parsha, Vayikra, introduces us to the idea of Korbanot on a national level. Out of the three pillars, Korbanot under Avodah, has become the loose leg. B'H we see in the world that there is a lot of Torah being learned. We see in nearly every community lots of Chesed organizations. The one thing we don't see is people sacrificing bulls in their backyards! It seems that the Avodah is gone. In actuality, we have been without a Beis Hamikdash for over 2000 years. We are at a point where so many Jews feel that Korbanot are a very foreign idea.



Chazal saw that we would no longer be able to bring Korbanot after the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. They saw that the Torah says that there is such a concept as Avodah Sh'Balev (service of the heart). The Gemorah in Tannis asks what this service of the heart is and it answers Tefillah!! The Gemorah in Brachos tells us that davening corresponds to the daily service of the Beis Hamikdash. Shacharis is in place of the Korban Tomid that we would bring every morning to start off the daily schedule. Mincha is in place of the Korban that we would bring at the end of the afternnoon. Ma'ariv represents, when at night, the Kohanim needed to burn all the remaining parts of the animal in the Beis Hamikdash.



It turns out, that each and every day people who are praying are in fact also replicating our daily service that we did in the Beis Hamikdash. In addition, we have an extra service: Mussaf on Shabbos, Yom Tov, Chol Hamoed and Rosh Chodesh. Each one of these days, we brought an extra special Korban. Therefore, we too add in an extra special prayer.



One of the main ideas of Korbanos is for an individual and Klal Yisroel to connect to Hashem in a very special way. In today's Jewish world, we see how important Tefillah can be. It is something very tangible that allows us to connect to Hashem and pour our hearts and thoughts to the only One who can truly help us. May we merit to realize and take advantage of this connection, the gift Hashem gave to us, the gift of Tefillah and may we be zoche to see the Beis Hamikdash be built speedily in our days.