פרשת פינחס

Many people start to cringe when they think about mental health.  They are thinking to themselves; the person over there needs it.  I think everyone can use mental health time.  For every one of us, the picture would look different.  How we get our daily, or weekly mental health is up to us as individuals.

In this week Parsha, we see in Chapter 28- פרק כח פסוק ב

״צו את בני ישראל ואמרת אלהם את קרבני לחמי לאשי ריח ניחחי תשמרו להקריב לי במועדו״

“Command the children of Israel and say to them; my offering, my food for my fires, my satisfying aroma, shall you be scrupulous to offer to me in its appointed time.

The additional offerings that were brought in the Temple on Shabbat, new moon, and holidays.  The description of the offerings was done with a complete sense of our human sense of sight, smell, touch, tastes, and hear.  Rabbi Yaakov Emden explains that the offerings were not just because Hashem told us to add additional offerings.  It was to build our Emuna, which helps with our mental health, “we the Jewish people forget how strong our emuna could be.”   Hashem was creating time for us to be mentally healthy.

We might not even realize it, but we might be getting our dose of mental health every day when we are praying in the morning,  having the first cup of coffee, spending time with our children, or even the car drive home.