Parashat Vayikra is almost completely about sacrifices and offerings, in very extensive anatomical detail and descriptions of many motions and actions that occur during these processes. Deep within these very long instructions of what to do and not do is one verse that has nothing to do with this. Coming upon this verse while reading the parashah gives the feeling that it was placed there as a lighthouse beacon ready to guide anyone who gets lost in all this detail.
The verse just before it talks about the fat of the lamb and the verse just after it talks about the carcass of an unclean beast. But Leviticus 5:1 talks about the inner workings of a person: the first word is “venefesh” soul, and then come what a person hears and sees and knows, the ears and eyes and mind, and ends up with what a person does or more precisely doesn’t do “im lo yagid” if he doesn’t express. The inner workings of the person are the authentic person, the authentic energies that are the essence of the person, while other energies are externally-influenced and are noise energies that are not authentic to the person.
The Torah is not telling us a nice-sounding distinction, the Torah is telling us how the world works and how we should relate to how the world works. Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein gave us insights into the world that we didn’t have before, and one of the key insights is exactly this distinction of Leviticus 5:1 between authentic energies/essence and forced energies/noise.
When we recognize and act according to our authentic energies we are carrying out holy activities in the Mishkan, and to the degree to which we let noise run our lives we are “venaso avono” carrying our sin as presented in the last words of this verse.
And if you want the Kabbalistic version of how the Torah is telling us that energies are how the world works and how much we should pay attention to energies related to the mitzvot, it’s very simple: you just have to re-arrange the letters of the word energies אנרגיות in order to get the declaration that we, the energies, are the 613 commandments in the Torah אנו תרי”ג .
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