This week’s Torah portion is Tzav, which means, command. It continues the rules given to the priests concerning the five categories of sacrifices: elevation, grain or meal, feast-peace, sin, and guilt offering. The portion describes how the sacrifices should be offered and who may eat them; then the portion ends with a description of the priests seven day inauguration process.
This portion is really all about process, and it can be read on a metaphoric level as a kind of guide for self improvement and becoming closer to God. The Torah says, “This is the instruction of the elevation offering; It is the elevation offering, that stays on the flame upon the altar all night until the morning, and the fire of the altar should remain aflame on it. The priest ….shall separate the ashes which the fire consumed of the elevation offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar, and carry the ashes outside the camp to a pure place. The fire on the altar shall remain burning on it; it shall not be extinguished; and the priest shall kindle wood on it every morning, and prepare the elevation offering on it; and he cause the fat of the peace offerings to go up in smoke on it. The fire shall be burning always upon the altar; it shall not go out.” The elevation offering is olah in Hebrew. It’s the word for up, the same word as aliyah, to be called up. Our yearning is to become elevated, and this is what makes us most human. In his great work called, the Tanya, Rabbi Schneur Zalman writes about the animal soul and the human soul. This is what B’reisheet, the first Torah portion, speaks about. Once Adam and Eve eat of the fruit and attain human consciousness, the human soul, they are afraid that God will find out what they have done, and they hide. Of course God already knows what they did and where they are, but God makes a big show about their actions, when God pretends to find out. Eve is given the punishment that her pain in childbearing will be increased. This simply happens through fear coming into the world. Fear is not a punishment, then, because just by having left the animal state, they already feel fear. This is evidenced by the fact that they hid after eating the fruit and before receiving the so-called punishment. Fear is about imagining the future, about having calendars and blackberry’s; and it is precisely our ability to think about the future that leads us to want to improve ourselves; living happier and more fulfilled lives. The great gift of fear is that we can set our sights on eternity and visualize what it would be like to be joyous and whole. The Torah speaks about the offering that stays on the flame all night until morning. If night is a metaphor that describes our suffering, then our desire for re-union with the Divine persists through our nights of difficulty, until the joy of the fulfillment comes in the morning. We are instructed to keep our desires burning through the nights, even to add fresh wood to the fire that burns in our souls, which the Talmud calls the service of the heart. The ashes that remain may be that part of ourselves that we know we need to purify. Rabbi Elimelech quotes the Talmud which says, “Great is repentance, since it transforms willful sins into merits” How is this portrayed in the portion? The ashes were taken to a pure place, meaning perhaps that even our less worthy parts can be put in service to holiness. This is reassuring, because it tells us that we don’t need to get rid of the less noble parts of ourselves; we only have to put them to a higher purpose. This is such an important distinction. Many of us in our upbringing were given the message that only some parts of ourselves were loved and accepted or even acceptable. But we are not manufactured in parts; we are whole beings. Carl Jung writes about personality integration; and that is our task: to use more and more of ourselves to serve what is highest and best in us. The Torah speaks about this also as raising the ashes. How can we raise the ashes? In the process of seeking improvement, the person bringing a sacrifice nourished others. The priests, the relatives and friends, the poor, as well as the person bringing the sacrifice: all ate from it; and when we improve ourselves we benefit ourselves as well as others. This portion repeatedly stresses that our fire: our burning desire to love and be loved must not be extinguished. We must nourish our soul’s impulse to perfect ourselves and in so doing to find the joy in life and the fulfillment of spiritual elevation. This is the pinnacle of being human: a quest to leave the animal state even further behind and rise, becoming truly, as the S’fat Emet says, (P. 157) “half above and half below,” half spiritual soul-beings and half matter. May we seize this commandment to continually elevate ourselves; and turn our thoughts, actions, and desires toward Heaven. May we purify ourselves and in so doing, bring nourishment and goodness to all those whose lives we touch.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Union with God, a Parable of Marriage
This week we begin the Book of Leviticus, the third book of the Torah. The first portion, Vayikra, by which the book is known in Hebrew, means: “and called.” God calls to Moses to instruct him about how the priests, the Kohanim, will offer sacrifice. Four categories of sacrifice are outlined: the elevation offering, or olah, the feast peace offering, or zevach shelamim, the sin offering, chatat, and the guilt offering, asham. All of these are voluntary offerings; and the sin and guilt offerings are for unintentional sins and guilt.
Since we don’t practice sacrifice any more, much of what we now discuss in the Book of Leviticus is of a metaphoric nature. But though our practice is so different from what our ancestors did, we, ourselves, are not so fundamentally different; and we can find meaning in the intent of these ancient rituals. Toward the beginning of the portion, the Torah says, “When a person among you will bring an offering to God, from the cattle and from the flocks, you shall bring your offering.” It is noteworthy that there is a word that appears four times in this short excerpt. The word, offering, and the word, bring, in the English, do not really supply the meaning of the Hebrew. The Hebrew words yakriv and karban are from the word karov, meaning: near, soon, close. The sentence could be translated, when you draw near to become close, or when you approach God to offer yourselves. And this puts us in touch with our own yearnings to re-experience the union with God that we lost in the Garden of Eden, when we left the animal state and became conscious.
The prophet, Hosea, makes this yearning for union explicit, describing God as the bridegroom and Israel as the bride, in these famous words that observant Jews recite when putting on tefillin: “I will betroth you unto me forever; I will betroth you unto me in righteousness and justice, in kindness and compassion; I will betroth you unto me in faithfulness; and you shall know God (2:21).” In a certain sense, sacrifice can be understood in light of this metaphor of the wedding between us and God. The Tabernacle is an enclosure like the chuppah, where we come to undergo a ceremony of uniting, and then partake in a wedding feast; and most of the sacrifices were indeed eaten, either by the person bringing herself or himself near, or by the priests, the poor, the relatives and friends of the one bringing the offering, or all of the above. In Hebrew, marriage is referred to as Kiddushin: holiness, and the sacrificial service was an awe inspiring and holy ritual uniting not only us and God but life and death. There are more similarities: just as God’s instructions to Moses in this portion spell out the details of sacrifice, the ketuba or marriage contract at a wedding specifies what each person shall contribute to the union. The Priest carried out the sacred rituals of sacrifice just as a modern rabbi provides a context of holiness for a wedding ceremony. And there is a Jewish custom which is observed by the Orthodox: that Bride and Groom confess and then fast before their wedding, which is analogous to the requirement that the person presenting a sacrifice lean his hands on the sacrifice and confess before the sacrifice is presented, and then cooked on the altar. We bring the best of ourselves to a marriage, as we are commanded to bring that which is unblemished, whole, complete, and the choicest parts as an offering. The act of consummation has its counterpart in sacrifice as well. Rabbi Dvorah Weisberg in The Women’s Torah Commentary, quotes Midrash Tanchuma, which says, “God chose to leave the high heavens and descend to the earth to the Tent of Meeting for the love of Israel.” She says, “God chose concealment over openness. This is a sign of Divine modesty, since what is private is seen by God as more precious.” It is the possibility of experiencing sacredness that unites our contemporary worship and ancient sacrifice. We speak to God in the intimacy of our hearts to attempt to feel the awe and bliss of being attached to our Creator. Our approach, offering, and drawing near is a rededication of ourselves to the best that is in us – the holiness that we can call forth in ourselves if we approach with open hearts, and willing minds. Our aim is to become worthy of what Abraham Joshua Heschl called being noticed by God. We can seek to unite what is separate through our own sincerity of worship, right action, and loving thoughts. We can recreate the awe of life and death that our ancestors experienced in sacrifice and that King Solomon described in The Song of Songs: (8:6, 7) “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death; jealousy is harsh as the grave; its flashes are flashes of fire, a Divine flame. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers drown it…” The need to draw close to God still exists within us: the need to confess, make right, be cleansed, rejoice, apologize, repent, and elevate ourselves. Though our mechanisms may be different: meditation, ritual, synagogue worship, deeds of loving kindness, charity, and love, our intention to seek out contentment, and our need to feel whole are the same. May we approach our worship and service with the attitudes of awe and the intimacy of lovers, as did our ancient ancestors, and may our drawing near make us whole and be a source of great blessing.
Since we don’t practice sacrifice any more, much of what we now discuss in the Book of Leviticus is of a metaphoric nature. But though our practice is so different from what our ancestors did, we, ourselves, are not so fundamentally different; and we can find meaning in the intent of these ancient rituals. Toward the beginning of the portion, the Torah says, “When a person among you will bring an offering to God, from the cattle and from the flocks, you shall bring your offering.” It is noteworthy that there is a word that appears four times in this short excerpt. The word, offering, and the word, bring, in the English, do not really supply the meaning of the Hebrew. The Hebrew words yakriv and karban are from the word karov, meaning: near, soon, close. The sentence could be translated, when you draw near to become close, or when you approach God to offer yourselves. And this puts us in touch with our own yearnings to re-experience the union with God that we lost in the Garden of Eden, when we left the animal state and became conscious.
The prophet, Hosea, makes this yearning for union explicit, describing God as the bridegroom and Israel as the bride, in these famous words that observant Jews recite when putting on tefillin: “I will betroth you unto me forever; I will betroth you unto me in righteousness and justice, in kindness and compassion; I will betroth you unto me in faithfulness; and you shall know God (2:21).” In a certain sense, sacrifice can be understood in light of this metaphor of the wedding between us and God. The Tabernacle is an enclosure like the chuppah, where we come to undergo a ceremony of uniting, and then partake in a wedding feast; and most of the sacrifices were indeed eaten, either by the person bringing herself or himself near, or by the priests, the poor, the relatives and friends of the one bringing the offering, or all of the above. In Hebrew, marriage is referred to as Kiddushin: holiness, and the sacrificial service was an awe inspiring and holy ritual uniting not only us and God but life and death. There are more similarities: just as God’s instructions to Moses in this portion spell out the details of sacrifice, the ketuba or marriage contract at a wedding specifies what each person shall contribute to the union. The Priest carried out the sacred rituals of sacrifice just as a modern rabbi provides a context of holiness for a wedding ceremony. And there is a Jewish custom which is observed by the Orthodox: that Bride and Groom confess and then fast before their wedding, which is analogous to the requirement that the person presenting a sacrifice lean his hands on the sacrifice and confess before the sacrifice is presented, and then cooked on the altar. We bring the best of ourselves to a marriage, as we are commanded to bring that which is unblemished, whole, complete, and the choicest parts as an offering. The act of consummation has its counterpart in sacrifice as well. Rabbi Dvorah Weisberg in The Women’s Torah Commentary, quotes Midrash Tanchuma, which says, “God chose to leave the high heavens and descend to the earth to the Tent of Meeting for the love of Israel.” She says, “God chose concealment over openness. This is a sign of Divine modesty, since what is private is seen by God as more precious.” It is the possibility of experiencing sacredness that unites our contemporary worship and ancient sacrifice. We speak to God in the intimacy of our hearts to attempt to feel the awe and bliss of being attached to our Creator. Our approach, offering, and drawing near is a rededication of ourselves to the best that is in us – the holiness that we can call forth in ourselves if we approach with open hearts, and willing minds. Our aim is to become worthy of what Abraham Joshua Heschl called being noticed by God. We can seek to unite what is separate through our own sincerity of worship, right action, and loving thoughts. We can recreate the awe of life and death that our ancestors experienced in sacrifice and that King Solomon described in The Song of Songs: (8:6, 7) “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death; jealousy is harsh as the grave; its flashes are flashes of fire, a Divine flame. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers drown it…” The need to draw close to God still exists within us: the need to confess, make right, be cleansed, rejoice, apologize, repent, and elevate ourselves. Though our mechanisms may be different: meditation, ritual, synagogue worship, deeds of loving kindness, charity, and love, our intention to seek out contentment, and our need to feel whole are the same. May we approach our worship and service with the attitudes of awe and the intimacy of lovers, as did our ancient ancestors, and may our drawing near make us whole and be a source of great blessing.
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