Lessons From Ancient Teachings: Tzav

Lessons From Ancient Teachings

D’var Torah for Parashat Tzav

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Tzav (“Command,” Leviticus 6:1—8:36), this week’s Torah portion, picks up where last week’s portion left off.  We are still in the midst of rules and regulations having to do with sacrifices.  Yayikra, last week’s portion, describes the types of sacrifices that could be offered.  Tzav gives intricate instruction having to do with the procedures that the priests had to follow when making these sacrifices.

In Temple days, most sacrifices were communal meals.  The only exception was the ‘olah, the burnt offering that, each and every morning, was completely consumed on the altar by an ongoing, eternal fire.  All other sacrifices, including the peace or well-being sacrifice (sh’lamim), the afternoon grain or meal offering (mincha), even the reparation or sin offerings (chatat and asham) were used as part of the meal, serving as sustenance for the priest as well as the community.

Today, we look at the gruesome details of these ancient customs as no more than curiosities.  With the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, the sacrifice system came to an end.  Priests lost their main function and purpose in life—as the intermediary between the people and God.  The Rabbis—the new leaders and teachers of the Jewish People—instituted a whole new system of relating to God.

Yet those chapters of Leviticus that had once been the basis of our faith system are still part of the Torah; their pages remain intact; they are still part of the teaching of Judaism.  To some, these passages may seem irrelevant, antiquated.  At best they might be thought of as relics, memories of an ancient past.  And yet, they are actually so much more than mere reminder of what once had been but is no more.  Just about our entire prayer service is based on the schedule of sacrifices that the Torah lays out.  Morning, noon and early evening each had its own prescribed offerings and recipes; those, today, are still the times of day when observant Jews offer their prayers to God.  Words that were once spoken as part of this offering or another are still spoken today at specific services, as with the sin and guilt sacrifices, which have become part of our Yom Kippur service; as with certain holiday formulas that have been repeated continuously through countless generations; and as with the recitation of our miraculous Exodus from Egypt, now part not only of our Passover celebration but indeed also of every Friday evening Kiddush.  

And aside from these, there are other important lessons that can still be garnered from these chapters.  Our psychological need to relate to a larger force, our determination to cling to values we call sacred, are as powerful today as they were thousands of years ago.  Perhaps it’s part of the human psyche, some complex that compels us to us believe that we play a role or function in an otherwise meaningless universe.  Perhaps it’s our fear of the unknown, or our humbling understanding of the immensity of the forces that surround us and that, every once in a while, seem to toy with us.

But there is more.  The book of Leviticus is not merely an antiquated relic from our pagan past.  It is actually part of a much larger teaching, a belief that we are more than playthings in the hands of invisible but wily forces, that we can actually be active partners in the ongoing process of Creation.

Just as much as God can command us to obey, so are we given the ability—and the freedom—to refuse.   It isn’t refusal itself that Judaism considers sinful.  It’s our actions that follow our choices that are considered as either sacred or evil.  It isn’t mere acquiescence that our God wants of us.  As parents, at times we do have to demand that our children obey us unquestioningly.  But for the most part, we let our children question us.  Our human need to understand why things are the way they are overwhelms our instinct to follow and obey.  Squelching our children’s questions can crush their curiosity and turn them into unthinking automatons. Moreover, unless we do question accepted truths, we can never learn or discover anything new.  Questioning is part of growing up, part of being human.  It is the basis of our ever-expanding knowledge.

Yet one of the most difficult lessons we must learn is that our choices, no matter how freely made, have certain consequences.  One and all, individual and community all benefit from the right choices we make.  Likewise, we also bring harm and injury to ourselves and to others when we make the wrong choices and follow up these choices with deeds the Torah calls sins, deeds that lead us astray, that make us miss our true goal.  No one benefits from these wrong deeds.

These consequences are reflected in the ancient customs and laws of sacrifice that we encounter in Parashat Tzav.  Sh’lamim, the offerings made in thanksgiving, or as a gesture of well being or peace, are actually communal meals.  Though a part of the sacrifice is given to God (“to be turned into smoke, a pleasing fragrance before Adonai”), the rest of the animal or grain offering is divided among the priest, the person making the offering, his family and the entire community.  Sh’lamim were festive meals that benefitted everyone.

On the other hand, reparation offerings, sacrifices that were made in acknowledgment of having committed an offense or sin, were considered kodesh kodashim, most holy.  These were not shared.  Providing sustenance for the priest alone, not even for his family, the food was to be eaten in a sacred and distinct part of the Temple, nowhere near the more public areas of the Sanctuary.  Why is that difference there?  Why can some sacrifices be eaten by the whole community, in public celebration, while others must be eaten in silence and loneliness?

There are, of course, many possible interpretations.  But the one that comes first to my mind is the essential difference between a mitzvah and a sin.  A mitzvah benefits everyone in the community, so everyone may celebrate together.  A sin, on the other hand, benefits no one.  The reparation offering should not, cannot, be part of a celebration or festive meal.  The priest has to eat; the meat and grain of the offerings are his by right and by law.  Yet this meal must provide nothing beyond sheer sustenance.  Eaten in lonely silence, there’s nothing celebratory or beautiful about it.  The sin or guilt offering is a meal that must give no pleasure.  It may fill our need for food, but it leaves us contemplating the wrong that was done.

In ancient, Temple, days, sacrifices were seen as the way to connect with God.  Every moment in our life was seen as an opportunity to maintain this connection.  With those days long gone, however, new paths to God had to be discovered.  The world around us has changed: For one thing, the Temple no longer stands and therefore the sacrifice system—at least as mandated by the Torah—is no longer extant.  Additionally, however, we have come to understand God in a new way—not as a physical being with physical needs for sustenance and food, but rather as a force both powerful enough to create universes but also intimate enough to inspire individual human beings.

Yet some things never change, and that is the deep and eternal truth that the Torah holds out for us:  It is the profound understanding that our bond with God is as strong today as it was in ancient days; that we have the God-given ability to distinguish between right and wrong; that we understand that our choices have consequences; and that—today as in ancient days—we can still either celebrate our triumphs or correct our mistakes as necessary.

It is through this awareness that we connect both with our own humanity and also with God.  This is the path that we have always sought.  Sometimes alone, surrounded by nothing but our thoughts and feelings, sometimes together with our loved ones and community, we are never alone.  We are always in company with our Maker, our God.

© 2014 by Boaz D. Heilman