Rebirth in the Flame

This week’s Torah portion is Tzav, which means, command. The priests, Aaron and his sons, are given instructions about how to carry out the service of the five different types of sacrifice. They are also asked to keep a fire burning on the altar all night, and all day. They are told that the priests may eat the designated portions of the sacrifices only while in a pure state, that fat and blood may not be eaten. The end of the portion contains a description of the seven day consecration ceremony of the Priests, in which they were asked to wash, dress in the sacred vestments, confess their sins, become anointed, cook and eat the sacrificial meat, and dwell in a holy state within the confines of the Tabernacle for seven days.
The verses of this portion which have been most interesting to the sages are about the flame on the altar. Rabbi Arthur Green notes that these verses are part of the Sephardic and the Chassidic morning service. They include three verses about the flame: In Chapter 6, Verse 2: “Command Aaron and his sons saying, this is the law of the elevation offering, It is the elevation offering that stays on the flame on the altar all night until morning and the fire of the altar should remain aflame on it.” Verse 5: “The fire on the altar shall remain burning on it. It shall not be extinguished.” And Verse 6: “A permanent fire shall remain aflame on the altar. It shall not be extinguished.” The sacrifices described in this portion are in addition to the first sacrifices that are specified in the Torah, the Tamid offerings. They are the continual or daily offerings, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. We might ask, why should the instructions for the priests even be retained in the Torah? Can they have any meaning for us today? The sages, most of whom lived after the sacrificial service had been discontinued by the destruction of the Second Temple, took these lines symbolically, that our devotion should be kept alive and that our hearts should be aflame continually to serve God and do God’s work. But we know, and Rabbi Green reminds us, that a flame can give heat and light, but that a flame can also burn and consume. A flame can be magical, beneficial, and life giving; but it can also hurt and destroy.
In his book, Wrapped in a Holy flame, Rabbi Zalman Shacter interprets the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, calling him the first Jewish sage to understand what it is to be a modern person. Rabbi Nachman writes about finding God in the darkness and in the Void. In a verse from Exodus, during the Revelation, the Torah says that the people heard the Ten Commandments and were terrified. The experience was too frightening for them and they asked Moses if he would speak to God and then tell them what God said. Then the text says, “The people saw and trembled and stood from afar….and Moses approached the thick cloud where God was.” Sometimes we encounter God as a god of blessings and happiness, a god of contentment, spiritual fulfillment, and peace. But sometimes either we are afraid; or what we experience is the loneliness of the search for wholeness and union, the questions with few answers, suffering, alienation, meaninglessness. Rabbi Nachman has been there. He says, “Never despair. How far can you fall? Can you ever fall out of God? And how far can you rise? Can you ever rise above God? Below are always the everlasting arms, no matter how low you fall.” In other words, as Rabbi Shacter says, “there is no place of despair,” because whether we are in a place of light or a place of thick cloud, darkness, and void, we are still with God. In fact, Moses had to go into the darkness of the cloud in order to reconnect with God. The Holy Eternal One cannot be found only in peak and happy experiences. The emptiness of the Void and its suffering are a necessary part of the journey. The S’fat Emet speaks about this in another way. He says, “As we burn up the waste in our lives, we are uplifted each day and are given a new light.” This is the synthesis that we need to find meaning in this portion. As modern people we are deep in the process of fulfilling God’s prophecy from Exodus, “You shall be a kingdom of Priests, a holy nation.” Each of us is our own priest, able to talk to God without intermediaries, doing the work of purifying our individual souls and becoming holy on the inside. We are commanded in Exodus to bring a Tamid sacrifice every day, and that sacrifice, for us, can be seen as prayer, as deeds, as study, but in the final analysis, as ourselves. When we are present to the Holy Divine Presence each day, the fire of God consumes our less than worthy selves, remaking us in the Divine Image bit by bit. Our lesser selves are sacrificed, burned; and day by day we grow into the new selves that God decrees must replace the self of yesterday. The famous quote by Norman Mailer comes to mind: “There is that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for staying the same.” Change and progress are two of God’s imperatives. The darkness and the void are part of this continual process of renewal. There is death and then rebirth of a part of ourselves every day. The fire does not go out. The fire cannot go out, and we are cradled in the everlasting arms even as we are in the process of becoming more worthy and magnificent each day. God is the flame and our lesser selves are the sacrifice, and the fire of God’s renewal also lives in our hearts. The flame burns in the void and gives light, consuming our present selves to make possible a new and undreamed of future.
When we give ourselves to this process, trusting that there is a Divine heart and mind that is helping us and urging us to become more of who we really are, we step into the Everlasting arms, cradled there, secure and protected.