Divrei Rav Josh- Parshat Tzav: Ashes on the Altar

One of my favorite books about time management is entitled The Power of Full Engagement, a book that views managing one’s life as a challenge of how spend our mental and physical energy, as opposed to how we manage individual tasks.   In particular, the authors argue that we manage our energy through creating what they call “positive rituals,” or routinized behaviors that convey a high sense of purpose.  The authors write:

“Positive energy rituals are powerful on three levels. They help us to insure that we effectively manage energy in the service of whatever mission we are on. They reduce the need to rely on our limited conscious will and discipline to take action. Finally, rituals are a powerful means by which to translate our values and priorities into action— to embody what matters most to us in our everyday behaviors” (Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement, Chapter 10: Taking Action- The Power of Positive Rituals).

In this passage, the authors remind us that every small act can become a meaningful ritual if the act becomes related to a deeper purpose we attempt to achieve by means of performing the ritual.   This idea is embraced in Parshat Tzav, where our commentators explain how we even the most minute ritual can contain within it the seeds of greater transformation and growth.   

Famously, the Torah commands that kohanim pay careful attention to each aspect of service in the mishkan, and Parshat Tzav specifically describes how they should tend to the burnt offering on the altar, even proscribing how one should tend to the altar’s ashes.  The parasha states:

“8 The Lord said to Moses: 9 “Give Aaron and his sons this command: ‘These are the regulations for the burnt offering: The burnt offering is to remain on the altar hearth throughout the night, till morning, and the fire must be kept burning on the altar. 10 The priest shall then put on his linen clothes, with linen undergarments next to his body, and shall remove the ashes of the burnt offering that the fire has consumed on the altar and place them beside the altar. 11 Then he is to take off these clothes and put on others, and carry the ashes outside the camp to a place that is ceremonially clean” (Vayikra 6:8-11).

In modernity, it might seem peculiar the parasha specifically states that the kohanim must remove the ashes from the altar wearing fine clothes.   However, our rabbinic commentators see this small detail as paradigmatic of the way in which all people should approach the service of God.  

In a medieval commentary, the Spanish commentator Rabbeinu Bahya writes that we can interpret the kohanim’s service of the ashes typologically, and see their service a God in the performance of this offering as a model for all service of God.   He writes:

“We see that even for the menial task of lifting the ashes, the Torah commands the Kohen to wear graceful holy garments.    The lesson to be learned from this is that all ritual or religious assignments should be carried out in a worthy and decorous manner, and that we should humble ourselves for the glory of God, blessed be He, to perform exacting tasks...” (Rabbeinu Bahya ben Asher on Vayikra 6).   

According to Rabbeinu Bahya, the fact that the kohanim were required to tend to even seemingly meaningless tasks such as lifting ashes off the mishkan must compel us to see every aspect of divine service as requiring our full and undivided attention.   

Later commentaries expanded upon the idea reflected in Rabbeinu Bahya’s commentary, and argue that we can learn essential lessons about the importance of personal renewal in divine service based on the kohanim’s service in the mishkan.   In a Hasidic commentary, Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Ger, otherwise known as the Sefat Emet analogizes service on the alter to daily tefillah, specifically noting the challenge of making prayer meaningful each and every day.  He writes:

“This is the purpose of human worship.  Each day a new light comes down upon those who serve God, as Scripture says: “And the priest upon those who serve God, as the Scripture says: “And the priest shall burn wood upon it each morning, each morning” (6:5).  So too, it is written, “in His goodness He renews each day” (Prayerbook).   This love comes to us as a gift of divine grace.  Something of this light should remain imprinted on the heart throughout the day and night, “it may not go out”...The commandment here to remove the ashes hints that as we burn up the waste in our lives we are uplifted each day, and then we are given a new light.  This redemptive process is with us every single day...” (Sefat Emet on Vayikra 6:1, 6, in The Language of Truth: The Torah Commentary of the Sefat Emet, ed. Arthur Green, 154).

In this commentary, the Sefat Emet draws our attention to the fact that since sacrificial worship was the way the biblical Israelites served God, and thereby was the primary means for divine engagement, the service of the altar teaches us how to engage with tefillah, which is our means of divine service in a world without a temple.    Just as the Torah required that the fire on the altar to be constantly tended as a reminder of the spiritual possibilities of each day, so too must every Jew see daily tefillah as an opportunity to begin a new spiritual journey.  

Similarly, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, considered by many to be the intellectual forefather of modern Orthodox Judaism, the service of the altar can not only provide us a model for thinking about tefillah, but all mitzvot.    Regarding this, he writes:

“The daily service begins with the lifting of the ashes, terumat hadeshen, recalling the previous day’s service and their unfailing remembrance of God.  However, the clearing away of the ashes signifies that each new day renews our commitment to comply with all that is incumbent upon us.  We must perform our daily observe of mitzvot with a new zest, as if we had never performed them before” (Samson Raphael Hirsch, from Nehama Leibowitz, New Studies in Vayikra, 69).   

Hirsch emphasizes the biblical and rabbinic conceptions of how scrupulously the kohanim tended to the offering on the altar, even showing zest and enthusiasm for such menial tasks as removing the ashes from the altar.   By extension, if the kohanim saw even the removal of the ashes as an opportunity to show passion for divine service, how much more so should each of us tend to any aspect of Jewish lives with a similar passion?

Without question, every Jewish person needs to be mindful of how their Jewish practice can be stifled when monotony becomes the norm for how they approach any individual mitzvah.   By extension, Parshat Tzav’s description of the terumat hadeshen reminds us that the more we succeed in viewing each and every Jewish act as a positive rituals that facilitates divine connection, the better will be able to find freshness and newness in our Jewish lives.   May each of us embrace the task of challenging ourselves and our children to every Jewish act as a as a ritual that provides us meaning and focus, raising ourselves up in our relationship with God and one another.

Shabbat Shalom!

Divrei Rav Josh- Parshat Vayikra: Our Immanent and Transcendent God

In his masterful commentary on the Torah and the state of North American Jewry, Chancellor Arnold Eisen of the Jewish Theological Seminary argues that rather that merely recounting an archaic list of sacrifices and rituals for Israelite cultic worship, Sefer Vayikra actually resonates with humanity’s desire for spiritual connection to God in their daily lives.   He writes:

“Leviticus aims to heighten and sanctify ordinary experience.  It wants us to focus on the possibilities for love and good stored up in daily life, and tries to accomplish this through a vision of community that is symbolized, and prepared for, in ritual.  Far from being irrelevant to contemporary experience, then, Leviticus concentrates on precisely the two elements [community and ritual] which many Jews find most appealing in Jewish tradition, and which are arguably most crucial to the revitalization of American Jewish life” (Arnold Eisen, Taking Hold of Torah: Jewish Commitment and Community in America, 72).  

According to Eisen, the central focus of Sefer Vayikra is the way the Israelite community will be centered around rituals in the mishkan.  As such, our task as readers of the Torah is to translate the ancient rituals into our context, and see how each mitzvah remains essential to forming Jewish community.

In Parshat Vayikra, we open with a fairly simple explanation on how a person shall make a sacrifice before God.  The Torah states that, “if his offering be a burnt offering of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it at the door of the Tent of Meeting, that he may be accepted, before the Lord.”  (Leviticus 1:3).  When examining this verse, our commentators argue that sacrifices provide some of the best means by which the Israelites can connect to God through immanence and transcendence.   On the one hand, sacrifices provide tangible means by which the Israelites can sense God’s presence being near to them, thereby drawing attention to God’s immanence.   At the same time, the very act of making a sacrifice emphasizes God being apart from humanity, thereby drawing to God’s transcendence.   

In her essays on the Parshat HaShavua, Nehama Leibowitz brings a commentary from Benno Jacob, a modern German rabbi and biblical scholar, who argues that the sacrifices must be brought before the Tent of Meeting so that a person’s thought can become aware of God’s immanent presence.   Jacob writes:

“Wherever man may be, he stands before the Lord.  However, when “he brings an offering to the Lord,” he does so “before the door of the Tent of Meeting,” the place about which God said, “That I may dwell amongst them” (Exodus 25:8), where God commanded us to erect a dwelling place for the Shekhinah (Divine Presence) in the midst of His people, and where the Holy Ark and the Tablets are found.   It is from there that God’s word reaches Israel through Moses.  Here every detail remind man of his God, and nothing diverts his thoughts from God.  Owing to his constitution, man needs such assistance (i.e. a “localized,” visible sanctuary).”  (Benno Jacob)

Benno Jacob’s commentary emphasizes that the mishkan was built was so that a person could experience the divine presence in critical life moments.  By extension, since each sacrifice is offered in moments when a person requires a deeper communion with God, one must bring the sacrifice to the physical structure specifically designed to serve as a catalyst for the immanent divine encounter.

However, while the ability to approach God and offer a sacrifice implies a degree of closeness between the Israelites and God, the command itself to offer sacrifices also indicates God’s ultimate transcendence.  The Maharal of Prague describes the transcendent act of sacrifice in the following way:

"Perhaps it will seem difficult to you, if avodah (service of God) is not for the benefit of God, be He blessed, why then did He command this avoda to bring sacrifices to Him? This is no question, because even if this is not for God’s benefit, nonetheless when a person surrenders himself unto God, or even if he does not render up his soul to Him, but only his property, by bringing a sacrifice, this is still considered surrendering himself to Hashem when he gives Him his property. This is called avodah, because a servant (eved) is the property of his master... he and his property all belong to his master... When he brings a sacrifice before Him, this shows that all belongs to Him, for there is no other and He, may He be blessed, is One” (Maharal, Netivot Olam, Chapter 1).

In this commentary, the Maharal argues that by making an offering from one’s personal property, the person implicitly acknowledges that everything they posses does not belong to them, but can, and ultimately should, return to God.    As a result, the act of sacrifice emphasizes the distance between humanity and God, reminding us we make sacrifices to God because God has unique expectations and requirements of us.

At any point in our lives, we are faced with the challenge of understanding what it means to pursue a divine encounter.   However, while it may seem that Sefer Vayikra is the text least likely to help us pursue the divine, the above commentaries remind us that Sefer Vayikra’s emphasis on ritual sacrifice creates a framework to help draw us closer to God while also heightening of awareness of God’s uniqueness in this world.    Similarly, we have the opportunity to remind ourselves and our children of our parasha’s overarching message, helping one another approach God in a way that increases our sense of closeness, while using that experience of closeness to demonstrate God’s unique place at the center of our lives.   May each of embrace the challenge of experiencing God’s immanence and transcendence, letting the world of ritual sacrifice remind of what it means to pursue the divine encounter in tangible, meaningful, and powerful ways.

Shabbat Shalom!

Divrei Rav Josh- Parshat Vayakhel-Pekudei: Learning in Our Element

Recently, I read a book by Ken Robinson entitled The Element that attempts to broaden our understanding how we understand the nature of intelligence.   Robinson argues that each person needs to find their “element,” a particular skill or subject to which they mind is uniquely attuned, and this process requires that each of us broaden our understanding of what intelligence is.  He writes:

“How are you intelligent? Knowing that intelligence is diverse, dynamic, and distinctive allows you to address that question in new ways. This is one of the core components of the Element. For when you explode your preconceived ideas about intelligence, you can begin to see your own intelligence in new ways. No person is a single intellectual score on a linear scale. And no two people with the same scores will do the same things, share all of the same passions, or accomplish the same amount with their lives. Discovering the Element is all about allowing yourself access to all of the ways in which you experience the world, and discovering where your own true strengths lie” (Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, 51).

According to Robinson, the more we understand the expansive nature of the intelligence, the better we are able to uncover our own talents and the talents of others, a vision that we also find in this week’s parasha of Vayakhel-Pekudei, which recounts the conclusion of the construction of the mishkan.

In the two sections of the Torah which mentions Bezalel’s appointment to construct the mishkan, the Torah notes that Bezalel was appointed because he possessed specific intellectual qualities.  The Torah states the following:

“And Moses said unto the children of Israel: See, the Lord called by the name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah.   And he has filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom (hokhmah), in understanding (tevunah), and in knowledge (da’at), and in all manner of workmanship” (Shemot 35:30-31).

At first glance, it would appear that wisdom, understanding, and knowledge are redundant ways of saying that Bezalel was intelligent, yet our commentators argue that these three qualities each describe an essential aspect of what it means to acquire knowledge, and how God envisions that each of us might become a wise person in this world and in our spiritual callings.    

Rashi glosses on the above verses by stating that each quality of Bezalel relates to three core aspects of study that begin with the personal and end with the divine.   He writes:

“Hokhmah: What a person learns from others.

Tevunah: A wide understanding gained through intelligent application of what he has learned.

Da’at: The holy spirit.” (Rashi on Shemot 35:31)

Upon reading Rashi’s commentary, one notices two things.   First, Rashi argues that each description of Bezalel’s intelligence relates to one’s ability to learn from others, for intelligence is not confined of what an individual can learn in a book, but rather emerges from learning in a spiritual community.   Second, Rashi makes a linkage between Bezalel’s modes of intelligence and becoming joined to God on earth.   For each quality, Rashi argues that the Torah deliberately specifies different types of intelligence because humanity’s quest for knowledge involves developing different skills and capacities, both human and divine.   

In a late midrashic text, Pirke Rabbi Eliezer argues that the three types of intelligence mentioned in Sefer Shemot parallel the three qualities that formed the spiritual structure in which God created the world.   The midrash states:

“In ten sayings the world was created...and in three it was finalized and these are they: Hokhmah, tevunah, and da’at as it is stated: “The Lord in hokhmah founded the earth, by tevunah established the heavens, by his da’at the depths were split asunder.  With the same three the Mishkan was made, as it is stated: “I have filled with him the spirit of God, in hokhmah, tevunah, and da’at.  With the same three was the Temple built, as it is stated: “...his father was a Tyrean worker in bronze.  And he was filled with hokhmah, tevunah, and da’at.  With the same three it is destined to be rebuilt, as it is stated, “With hokhmah shall the house be rebuilt, and in tevunah established and in da’at the rooms furnished” (Proverbs 24:3-4)” (Pirke Rabbi Eliezer 3).

The above midrash envisions a spiritual world in which our modes of intelligence are joined together in a cosmic fabric that makes God a part of each intellectual act.  By extension, the Torah enumerates that Bezalel possessed wisdom, understanding and knowledge because the construction of the mishkan required a person whose intelligence reflected the holistic way in which God envisioned knowledge to exist in the world.

Finally, when modern Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn examined this passage from Shemot in his Biur, Mendelssohn argued that the triad of qualities possessed by Bezalel correspond to the various subjects and means by which a person can perfect their intellect.  Mendelssohn writes:

“These three terms spell out what “the spirit of God” comprises.  A knowledge of the technique by which we achieve our desires is termed hokhmah.   Sometimes the desired goal is a theoretical one, at others a practical one.   In this sense the sciences are divided into pure and applied...Tevunah refers to the ability to deduce one thing from another and achieve the unknown from the unknown...Da’at refers to the ability to perceive forms as they are whether they are sensory or extra-sensory” (Moses Mendelssohn, Biur on Exodus 35).   

In this passage, Mendelssohn argues that just as there are multiple levels and modes of intelligence for every person, so too does the Torah argues that Bezalel was a perfect choice for constructing the mishkan because he possessed a multi-layered mind capable of the complex work required to construct a fitting spiritual place in which the Israelites could serve God.

Regardless of whether or not one finds more resonance in one of the three above commentaries, each commentary provides us an opportunity to expand our understanding of what intelligence means, and recognize that no form of intelligence operates independently, but rather each type feeds off other modes of intelligence.    As a result, when building a learning community, each of us is challenged to help our students understanding the multi-layered nuances to what intelligence means, and help them develop a personal for how they engage with knowledge, Torah, and the Divine.  In doing, we will ensure that our students have the opportunity to feel that every moment learning at Schechter is moment the student can be in their element.   

Shabbat Shalom!