March 30, 2009
Parshat Tzav: Exodus 6:1 - 8:36
This week our Torah portion is the second portion of Leviticus, Parshat Tzav. The Torah text continues to describe the many different kinds of burnt offerings for the Mishkan, the Tabernacle.
At the beginning of our portion however, is a bit of housecleaning! Perfectly timed this year for the week before Pesach when we too must clean out the chometz anything with leavening from our homes and prepare our homes and ourselves for the great Festival of Passover.
The sacrifices made in the Mishkan and in the ancient temple were messy business. The meat for any animal sacrifice was slaughtered, blood dashed sometimes on the altar, wine poured in libations and lots of smoke and fire. This is not the nice neat cellophane wrapped Kosher rib steak that you get at the Kosher mart. And we post moderns are generally not accustomed to the inner workings of meat preparations for consumption. Thus the Mishkan and the Temple were not pristine places. There were sections that reminded us of the back rooms of kosher butcher stores! Once the offering was prepared and brought on the altar and offered as the olah offering a burnt offering it remained on the altar all through the night. It would be completely consumed by the fire and turned to ash. But in the morning the altar had to be cleansed and the ashes removed. These ashes of the olah--of the burnt offering were not just any ashes. These were sacred ashes. Ashes and embers of holiness that helped transform the one who offered it as well as the relationship between the the individual and God.
And so our portion describes in the opening verses of Parshat Tzav what is to be done with these sacred and holy ashes. They are not treated in a caviler manner. These ashes were removed by the priest in his sacred garments and then the priest would change clothes and remove the ashes from the sacred precincts. The ashes were not dumped just anywhere. They were not just dumped on the trash heap outside the camp or city. These special and holy ashes of the burnt offering were to be placed in a clean place. The ashes and their sacred purpose was honored.
We are reminded by this act that the olah offering --burning the sacrifice in total is sacred not just as we would offer it. But the remnants as well. We treat them with respect for the power of transformation it provided for our souls and for the way in which it furthered our realationship with God. This is a powerful concept if we translate it to our world today.
We live in such a disposalable society. We throw everything away. We toss it in the garbage, throw it down the disposal, and toss people out of our lives for the smallest transgressions. Not allowing an opportunity for reconciliation. The ashes of the olah offering helped to bring a kind of reconciliation between an Israelite and God.
We don 't always think about the consequences of this behavior as our landfills have no more room and we are a world drowning in our own garbage. Both on a physical realm and a spiritual realm as well.
Last year's clothes can be used for those without clothing. We must recycle and not be casual about the need to do so. We must honor the uses of the things that have brought us pleasure or joy and even when we it is time to discard the remnants of our dinner--is there a clean place, we might use it? Composting? Food that just sits in our cupboards--can we give it to a food pantry?
Especially as we clean for Pesach--tradition told us to sell our chometz so it isn't in our possession. And there are many Jews who observe this halacha. They create legal documents to sell any chometz in their possession to gentiles for the duration of the holiday. Only to buy it back at the end. But is this the legal fiction God intendend? If we are really to clean out the chometz--perhpas we ought to give this food away as our sacrifice to those who need it so much-especially this year as the numbers of those who are hungry in our city and our country rise. Then just like the priests of old who dressed in their sacred garments to take away the remnants of the sacrifices, we too might take the remnant of our kitichen cupboards and let that be our sacrifice to rebuild our spirits and someone else's as we look forward to the Festival of Freedom.
Posted by Tom at
11:43 AM
March 23, 2009
Parshat Vayikra: Leviticus 1:1 – 5:26
Everyone who has had a Bar or Bat Mitzvah no matter at what age remembers some or all of their Torah or Haftarah portion. Perhaps they have forgotten how to chant it or a word or a verse but many can tell you what portion it was. This week’s portion Vayikra was “my” Torah portion. We begin the book of Leviticus this week with parshat Vayikra.
This portion begins by describing the various offerings to be made in the newly built Tabernacle. Designed by God, built under the supervision of Bezalel, dedicated for worship by Moses the Tent of Meeting will now be the place where Aaron and his sons offer sacrifices to God. This portion tells us of some of the basic offerings. They are described in detail.
Leviticus is often a difficult book for the contemporary reader because of the details of the sacrifices. Today we offer no sacrifices to God like those described in Leviticus. With the destruction of the Temple this form of worship of the ancient Israelites stopped. And rabbinic Judaism grew out of the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in the year 70 C.E. So when we read even in this week’s portion about the olah - the burnt offering, or the mincha offering, a grain offering or the zevach shelamim, the offering of well - being these seemingly have no relationship to our lives today.
And yet, if we look at the idea that these sacrifices were brought to the Temple or even an earlier time, these were something that was pleasing to God, something that we had to give up, something that mattered. These offering sometimes were sacrifices that made atonement for sins or asked for certain blessings and bounty. The first of these described the olah or burnt offering were the standard offering made on Festivals but also could be brought by individuals as a voluntary offering.
The mincha or grain offering is to bring the person before God in thought. The zevach shelamim is an offering of well being or sometimes called a peace offering. This offering was used to make peace with someone who has been offended or to bring wholeness and happiness to those offering it. The chatat offering is a sin offering. It is brought to expiate the sins of either the people, the priest or it can be the king or individuals. The details of how the chatat offering is handled are different in these differing cases. The last section of this Torah portion reviews additional rules of the chatat offering and the asham offering which is guilt offering. The chatat offering mentioned in Chapter five deals with inadvertent sins and the asham offering for deliberate sins.
Additional sacrifices are reviewed in later portions of Leviticus.
For us today even though much of the details of the text seem arcane. The ideas behind them are not. Even as we ourselves miss the mark, or are guilty of an offense against others or God we still need some way to work through our process of atonement and expiation of our sins. Today we offer prayers as part of the formula for this atonement and expiation. In addition the giving of tzedakah—of charity helps add to this cleansing and healing process. Sometimes it is also the addition of community service or volunteering that will indeed help us erase the sins and errors we committed against others or ourselves or God and help us restore a sense of balance and equilibrium to our own lives.
Indeed that was the role of the sacrifices- to make it all right with the world, with God, and with ourselves and those whom we hurt or offended. Today these ought to be our own impulses as well—making things right in the world, with God and with ourselves and those whom we hurt or offended.
Posted by Tom at
01:18 PM
March 19, 2009
Parshat Vayakheil-Pekudel: Exodus 35:1-38:26
We come to the end of the Book of Exodus with this double weekly portion, Vayahkheil-Pekude. After the incident with the Golden Calf, these chapters come to show us that God's forgiveness was complete. The building and completion of the Tabernacle by the people Israel and the Glory of God which in the final verses of Exodus descends to dwell in this sacred space of the Tent of Meeting, demonstrates to us that the covenant was renewed between God and the Jewish people even after the great idolatry of Israel.
Moses has calmed the anger of God and his own rage at the people and now this unifying act of building the dwelling place of the Divine helps reshape the People Israel and focus their intentions on God and our covenant. Building the golden calf was a destruction of the ideals of the covenantal promise the Children of Israel had made. Building the Tabernacle and carrying out the instructions at first given in Parshat Terumah but now executed in Parshat Vayakheil focused the Children of Israel on the ideals of the Pact they made and the God with whom they made that covenantal promise. This was God's dwelling place that they were making. Although we do not make graven images--the Children of Israel could no longer ask where was God--because God would be in their midst. Even as they moved away from Mt. Sinai, the place that God had spoken to them and the place of their sin, God would still be with them. God would speak to them through Moses and they would be able to speak to God through their sacrifices.
They no longer had to worry "that man Moses" would disappear from their midsts. But the Tabernacle was the visible presence of God before them. Moses also placed the Pact of the Covenant in the ark and set it inside the Tent of Meeting screened off from view. Yet the people knew that even as they faced the Tabernacle or offered their sacrifices the covenant was there. Their most sacred document was in their most sacred place, the sacred place of God.
And this sacred place would always be with them. It traveled with them as they made their way through the desert. God was always with them not absent from their midst.
Today our synagogue arks, the aron hakodesh, with the Torah scrolls placed inside remind us of the ark of ancient days with the Pact of the Covenant inside. It is the visible presence of God in our midst today. For we too need reminding that God is not absent from our lives. But God is made manifest through our tradition, through the mitzvot we do, and the Torah of our lives.
As we end this book of Torah may our reminder of God's holy presence in our midst guide us to greater faith, greater act of justice and healing, greater study of Torah, and greater participation in the life of the Jewish people.
Chazak chazak v'nitchazek. Be strong, Be strong and may we be strengthened.
Posted by Tom at
05:20 PM
March 03, 2009
DAVAR ACHER: Bringing the Glory of God into the World By: Rabbi Denise L. Eger
The priests' clothes—especially those worn by the High Priest Aaron—were more than just the special uniforms donned during the sacred service. These were holy instruments of God. The great Nachmanides points to this in his commentary and draws our attention to the words l'chavod ul'tifaret ,"dignity and adornment"(see Ramban [Nachmanides] on Exodus 28:2).
Nachmanides links these words to the mystical realm, indicating that kavod , "glory," and tiferet, " splendor" or "beauty" (which have the same Hebrew roots as chavod and tifaret , respectively) are associated with hod ,"majesty." Kavod , tiferet , and hod are among the kabbalistic system's ten s'firot, which can mean"stages of emanation"or "attributes" of God (see Encyclopaedia Judaica , vol. 10 [Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1996], p. 566). Nachmanides writes that the priestly garments are to be made so that Aaron can"minister in them to the Glory of God who dwells in their midst, and to the Splendor of their strength."
Therefore, the garments of the High Priest themselves are not merely adornment but sacred vessels that help channel the glory and majesty of God from the heavenly realm to the earthly realm so they can transform the world and all of us.
Among the s'firot , kavod is the honor, glory, and dignity of God that relates to the aspect of hod ,the eighth emanation on the tree of the s'firot. Hod is associated with the feet, bringing a person to the place where she or he can actualize mitzvot in the world.
Tiferet lies in the middle of the kabbalistic tree, and most of the s'firot are connected to this one. Tiferet means "beauty" and "glory" and is the aspect of God that helps human beings bring about the greatest potential of a person by synthesizing and connecting the other aspects of the Divine.
Medieval mystics understood that bringing God into our daily lives and bringing these divine aspects into the earthly realm would help transform our world and the way we act in it.
In the blessing recited after the reading of the haftarah on Shabbat, we also see these words l'chavod ul'tifaret. We say,"For the Torah, for the privilege of worship, for the prophets, and for this Shabbat that You, Adonai our God, have given us for holiness and rest, for honor [dignity] and glory. . . ."This helps us link the words of the prophets, who translated their visions from God for the people, telling them the ways they ought to act. We recite these words to help us remember to actualize the visions of prophets, such as Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea.
Thus the sacral vestments of T'tzaveh were more than adornment. The High Priest in his glorious uniform reminded the people that God wants us to act with righteousness, justice, and holiness in the world. Although today we have no garments of the High Priest to help us bring these divine and mystical aspects into the world, as we read these words of Torah and as we read the haftarah and the blessing each week l'chavod ul'tifaret , "with dignity and adornment," we are reminded that our actions, the mitzvot we perform, and the ethics by which we live bring God's presence into the world and into our lives.
Posted by Tom at
09:21 AM
