Caution: Sacred Work in Progress

Caution: Sacred Work in Progress
D’var Torah for Parashat Tzav
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
March 30, 2012


For a while there, as a child, I had a love/hate relationship with those models planes or cars that came disassembled in a box and that you had to put together by following the most detailed and complex list of instructions. While on the one hand it was fun to do, it was also a very complex task that required more patience than I, as a child, had. Inevitably some of the pieces didn’t quite fit the way they were supposed to, then the glue got smeared all over the windows and windshield of the car or plane and spoiled the shiny effect. I soon moved on to other hobbies.

Reading this week’s Torah portion, Tzav (Leviticus 6:1-8:36) reminds me of those model cars and the instructions that came with them—elaborate, repetitive and never quite clear enough (for me, at any rate). They really aren’t too different in style from the commandments that are addressed in Tzav to the priests officiating at the Tabernacle in the Sinai Wilderness, and, later, at the more permanent Temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem.

Of course the priest wasn’t building a model. He was working the real thing. And maybe that’s why he was more successful than I was, and why he stuck with his duties whereas I moved on to other hobbies. For the priest, offering a sacrifice was not a hobby. Following directions precisely was a matter of life and death.

However humanity perceived God or the gods, they were dangerous. All powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing, it was hard to hide from the gods. Adam found that out once he ate of that infamous apple and tried to hide his shame.

The gods of ancient civilizations were capricious, willful and often treacherous. They demanded bloody sacrifice, often human and sometimes children. They demanded unwavering obedience and allowed no questioning, no doubts. Whatever the priest—the gods’ spokesman—required had to be given.

Gods could cause wars, earthquakes, and volcanoes. Gods could be unjust, prejudiced and brutal. There was no logic and no understanding, only unquestioning obedience. Sacrifices were offered to placate and appease the gods’ wrath; the secret wish of anyone who offered sacrifice was just to be left alone. Let the gods go somewhere else.

Judaism offered a new concept—a God who didn’t want human sacrifice, to whom blood was distasteful, even repugnant. It was a God with no physical form, without digestive organs, with no hunger or lust, a God who didn’t really need to be fed—and who preferred that people feed one another instead.

As early as the 8th century BCE, the prophet Isaiah claimed that it wasn’t sacrifices God desired, but rather justice and compassion.

It was a revolutionary concept—and one that the priests in Jerusalem probably didn’t like a whole lot. After all, the sacrifice system was their way of life; it was their job, their whole purpose of existence and meaning in life.

The God that Isaiah and later Judaism offered was not one you wished would go away—the whole idea was to invite God into your life. Pleasing God was not done in order to placate God or assuage God’s anger. Rather, it was done so as to bring a sense of holiness into your own life, to raise a meager human being—an ant or microbe in the larger scheme of the universe—into something more meaningful.

And yet, the danger existed—and still does. When life—or God—strikes, it strikes hard and, often, unfairly. The haftarah associated with this Shabbat’s Torah reading (Malachi, 3:14-15, a special reading for the Sabbath preceding Passover) raises the question: “What good has it done us to walk repentant before God? It seems that the arrogant are the blessed ones, the wicked are raised up and those who deny God flourish.” Where is the justice we expect from God, the prophet seems to ask. It’s a question many of us raise—silently, within our souls, if not out loud—frequently enough. There is uncertainty associated with God’s response to our pleas and danger even in worshipping God—in fact, in our very existence as Jews.

Religion is dangerous any way you look at it. The rabbis see religion as one of the top three reasons for war and violence (along with women and material possessions). A quick perusal of history shows the truth in this assessment.

God, in my understanding, is a huge force of energy. God is the energy behind the Big Bang, the spark that started it all. As with any energy, God must be served with caution. We try to be careful with electricity, fire, water and wind—certainly with nuclear energy. How much more so as we approach the actual source of all those forms of energy!

It’s no wonder that the instructions the priests receive prior to becoming eligible to serve God are intricate and detailed. One wrong step and the whole thing can go up in flames. Ministering to God’s people is no simple task either. What the priest has to do is channel this enormous force into something we can comprehend, something we can use in our daily lives. The mega-force that God is has to be minimized—a huge nuclear explosion transformed into a candle flickering in the wind.

For the priests serving in God’s temple, building models was their way of life. Only these weren’t toys. The Tabernacle is set up to be a model of God’s universe, where all the pieces fit together just so, each supporting the other. God’s people is yet another such model; with God’s image implanted in each of us, we carry on the work of Creation in a way that is unique to each of us, yet which somehow interlocks into the work our neighbor does. The Tabernacle—and later, the Temple, the Synagogue, the Shul and our own modern-day temples—is the engine that empowers the whole thing. It is the seat of the heart, mind and soul of the community. Its work must be done carefully, following detailed instructions with accuracy and precision.

The danger isn’t only that the glue might get smeared; the danger is that the whole thing might collapse and bring us all down with it.

And so the instructions are given, repeatedly. The priests are are commanded, as we are, to be cautious about something as enormous and as powerful as God. Religion—no less than our bodies and souls—is no trifling matter.


©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman