Leviticus Cycle Four Tsav 6:1 to 8:36

Tsav

We are the sacrifices. We are to be brought near. We read this in Tsav 8:6 when Moses brought near (veyakriv) Aaron and his sons. Of course, we cannot be bought near until we have studied carefully the mitzvoth of the offerings, the boundaries. And once again, it isn’t just about rams and sheep and their blood and their innards and what to do with them and how. This action of sacrifice (as I explained in my teaching on Vayikra) is about our parts, our primal longings and fears, our pieces as we pile them on the wood on the fire, our love, our action of opening our hearts, our prayer. This is sacred. It’s so sacred that a whole book (Vayikra) revolves around it, around prayer.

Looking at Torah, a whole book (Genesis) revolves around creation. Another whole book (Deuteronomy) revolves around the re-telling/the memory of the exodus. So one could say (in my opinion) that prayer not only gets a whole book dedicated to it but that it (according to the writers and editors of our holy texts) deserves equal leverage to both creation and the exodus. Just a short statement emphasizing the importance of prayer.

Now, focusing back in on Tsav, we prepare ourselves carefully before we pray by studying the boundaries that can contain the prayers. We need those boundaries. I will get to them soon. We prepare ourselves physically, purify ourselves, let go and allow ourselves to be bought near by a hotter flame, a prophet, a priest. We also keep the fire going from morning to morning…so one prayer can merge with the next, allow itself to be led by the next just as Moses leads Aaron and his sons.

How does this affect us here today? It’s so easy to distance ourselves from the process of prayer, say it, stop it, get it over with, move on. This continual flow though is crucial. In other words, prayer never stops. We say the blessings in the morning and carry them in our bodies throughout the day. Look at our blessings of the Shemoni Esrei. They merge together one after the next as if kindled by the same fire. The first blessing…Avot…has an opening…Baruch atah adonay we read eloheinu v’lohay avotenu elohay…..and then it has a hatima, a closing. Baruch atah adonay magen Avraham (v’ezrat Sarah). It has its own frame. Or so it seems. In truth though the next blessing, Gevurot, does not have an opening. Atah gibor…we chant. So it’s as if the opening for Avot is also that for Gevurot. And for all the blessings. So… we open ourselves once in the Shemoni Eseret but create necessary boundaries…or identities… 19 times. There is one open heart, one fire. And many offerings and sacrifices on the one altar.

Now imagine this. Imagine that the blessings in our prayerbook continue even beyond the prayerbook moving into higher and higher realms to the future temple and that of shalom. Imagine that they are jumping in flames off the page to us and there are millions of them and they are ours to carry with us. Imagine we have been doing the inner work and meditation and yoga and we have the inner strength to hold these flames. They all begin with the one Baruch atah adonay and we can recite them inwardly as we get up in the morning, as we go to sleep, as we drive to work, as we speak to our children. We can offer ourselves in them and make our home into an offering for them as well. We can bring ourselves to remember them, the one fire that can be lighting our foreheads and our arms as we reach in all ways to the time of truth. We can recite these blessings continually, consciously or unconsciously, and in so doing keep the sparks flying off of our fingertips and feet, from our mouths and hearts, from each of our cells as we transform into the blessings themselves.

Worship in this way transforms us into Hashem. We pay attention to the continual flow and we can manifest the very radiance to Whom we pray right here on this earth. We do it ourselves.

In Leviticus 6;1 and 6 we read This is the Torah of the burnt offering….a fire must always burn on the altar. It must not go out. According to the Sfas Emes…This is the purpose of human worship. Each day a new light comes down on those who serve God….This love comes to us as a gift of divine grace. Something of this light should remain imprinted on the heart throughout day and night; “it may not go out.”

The Sfas Emes also points out that it says twice….Fire will burn upon the altar, it may not go out. This (the Sfas Emes says) points to the two Torahs, the oral and the written. We read are not my words like fire in the written Torah and the eternal life implanted within us is (the oral Torah)…. This was the stamp of fire that the Holy One showed Moses, indicating that Israel would always have a place in this form of fire. Half the form is above and half below. The boundaris that I refer to above are very much engraved in both oral and written Torah. One could easily say that Torah is a gift of boundaries enabling us to pray.

We are prayer are Torah. We are gifted with Torah and prayer and ourselves from both the heavens above and the earth below. We keep this burning. This is who we are. We keep doing it with more and more focus then we will become that which we do. And it takes all of us. Eliminate one spark and it can’t happen. Eliminate one spark, cut a spark off from the people for no reason…and it goes against the very action/process of Hashem. As complicated as it seems, it is that simple. It is stamped on us. We only need to be in the one opening to feel and see the stamp of the flames, to lead the next flame, the next person, the next prayer into the live being of radiance.

So may we be the blessing. May we be the prayer. May we be Torah. May we allow ourselves to be led by flames of greater height and depth. May we allow our flames to grow. May we keep the one fire burning from ember to ember, from offering to offering, from each of our pieces as we lay them on the wood on the fire on the altar…. until we transform beyond our very humanity into Hashem, the light, the beauty, the overwhelming knowledge of Mt Sinai and home.