Parashat Tzav
(delivered by Student Rabbi Maayan Lev on March 18, 2022)
Purim has come and gone, and, oh, what fun we had! It was so great to see everyone’s costumes, to hear the Megillah, and to sing songs together. I think it’s important to have time to relax and enjoy ourselves. In Judaism, that time comes every week, on Shabbat. But it’s also wonderful when Purim falls on a weekday, because many of us do not usually have time for relaxation during the week. It’s quite unique.
Now that Purim is over though, we return to our regularly scheduled Torah readings. This week is Parashat Tzav. It is the second Torah portion in the book of Leviticus, but we did not actually have services at Am HaYam last week, so this is the first time this year that we will be reading from the book of Leviticus. I feel a special connection to the book of Leviticus, and it’s not just because my last name is Lev. More on this connection later.
Leviticus is a book full of commandments and laws. To many people, it is slow, dry, and skimmable. And if you do not follow Halachah, you may even think it is irrelevant. But to me, that is very wrong. As I mentioned in my class last week, Leviticus is truly the heart of the Torah. It is how Judaism first became established.
We often say that Abraham and Sarah were the first Jews, but a better word for them is “Israelites.” And since their grandson, Jacob, also known as Israel, was not alive yet, even the term “Israelite” might be a stretch. Abraham and Sarah were chosen by G!d to lay the groundwork for a new religion, and G!d blessed them and told them that their descendants would be as numerous as the stars and the sand. But Judaism didn’t really get up and running during their lifetime.
When the Israelites left Egypt, they had few religious rules, and relatively speaking, a weak religious identity. After the events at Mt. Sinai though, they received the Torah and had been chosen as G!d’s people. It was a mutual decision. But to truly be a unique religion, Judaism needed its own culture, an identity separate from the masses. One of the reasons they took 40 years to reach Israel is because they needed to have an established culture by the time they arrived. It is much easier to establish a new culture through rules, ritual, and repetition. After 40 years of repetition, they were ready to enter. And though we do not need 40 years of repetition anymore, we still read the book of Leviticus each year to remind us of our roots, and the laws that made us who we are as a people. Because of the absence of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, a lot of these commandments no longer apply. But many of the laws in Leviticus are still followed today!
This week’s Torah portion, Tzav, talks about the different categories of sacrifices: burnt offerings, meal offerings, wellness offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. We do not do offerings this way anymore, but that doesn’t make it irrelevant.
This portion seems to be identical to last week’s, but it is not. As Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber explains,[1] while last week’s Torah portion was about knowing how to choose the proper offerings, it was a set of instructions for the whole community, written in lay terms. On the other hand, this week’s Torah portion is actually written for the leaders, and shows us how those offerings truly get sacrificed. And who are these leaders? The priests! Aaron and his sons.
A new category of sacrifice is also introduced in this week’s Torah portion: the offering of ordination. This is the week that Aaron and his sons actually get sworn in as priests, and have their initiation ceremony. Fittingly, it involves the blood of the sacrifice being smeared on their ear-lobes, since this is a similar procedure to how the Israelites earned their redemption from Egypt, by placing the blood of a sheep on their doorposts.
All this talk about priesthood though, really got me thinking about the modern-day equivalent of Jewish priests: rabbis! As a student rabbi, this idea of initiation or ordination is something that I often think about.
The rabbis of today do not have their leadership passed down from generation to generation. You have to choose it for yourself, and then go to school, and pay a great deal of money. But I still feel like the rabbinate has been passed down to me like it was for Aaron’s sons, because my father is a rabbi. I feel like I am following in his footsteps.
When Moses told Aaron and his sons that G!d had chosen them to be priests, they were probably honored to be chosen for such an important role. They might even had said, “Great! When do we get started?”
It wasn’t so simple. Rabbis of today have to go to school for five years to be ordained. Some of us take even longer. Because of my health, it will certainly take me longer. While Aaron and his sons did not have the same five-year education that the rabbis of today get, they had their own unique education. They had a lot to learn about the rules of sacrifices, and, unlike rabbis, they didn’t get five years to learn it! According to this week’s reading, they got seven days.
There were no other priests to officiate at the ordination of Aaron and his sons, so Moses officiated the ceremony himself. He was the first one to offer the sacrifices, and he showed them exactly how it was to be done in the future. But after that ceremony, Aaron and his sons actually had to remain in the Tent of Meeting for seven days. What were they doing all that time?
Seven days is a really long time to sit in a tent and do nothing. I have to imagine that they were educating themselves, discussing what Moses had shown them, and training themselves to emerge seven days later as fully qualified leaders.
But can you really learn everything you need in just seven days? Their education seems a bit rushed. I don’t think it is a coincidence that eventually, Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, broke the procedural rules and ended up dying for it. They were replaced by their younger brothers, Elazar and Itamar. Did they truly break the rules on purpose? Did they simply forget them? Perhaps they just wanted to see if G!d would truly be upset if they pushed the boundaries and experimented a little.
I think it is important to get experience, try your hand, and figure out who you are before you get ordained. Sometimes that means making mistakes and learning from them. Aaron and his sons did not have that chance. In the words of Shakespeare, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”[2]
For Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, two of out the three categories applied. They inherited their position. They were born with it. But they also had all these rules thrown at them all at once with only seven days to learn them. Their greatness was thrust upon them. But did they truly achieve greatness? Perhaps for a time. But eventually they made a mistake and their greatness was lost.
As a student rabbi, I often worry about making mistakes. But I also know that it isn’t the end of the world. I have a line to use when I need an excuse for my mistakes: “No human is perfect, and if they were, they would be G!d.”
But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be the best that I can be. Especially once I achieve ordination, I want to make sure I’m ready. I don’t have seven days to train. I might actually have seven years. When I finally say goodbye to rabbinical school, I will think of the words that George Washington spoke towards the end of his farewell address.
“While I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country” [or in my case, my synagogue], “will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after 45 years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal,” [It sounds like I am have some years ahead of me if I want to catch Washington.] “the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion.” Or, as we say in Judaism, may my mistakes be k’afra d’ar-ah, like the dust of the earth.
Of course, we don’t actually want to forget our mistakes. Judaism says that we should remember them, and use them to better ourselves. Even if a mistake is not intentional, Leviticus talks about guilt offerings, and also sin offerings. And even when we repeat prior sins, we get to come before G!d every Yom Kippur, and say the words of the great sage, Britney Spears: “Oops, I did it again.”
Just because we make mistakes doesn’t mean those mistakes can’t be a positive experience. As an intern at Am Hayam, I will hopefully make more mistakes here than I will once I receive ordination. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy my internship. I embrace it. I truly love being here with all of you.
And while no other human can compare to Moses, the greatest teacher of all time, my mentor is certainly highly esteemed as well. Thank you Rabbi Sacks, for helping prepare me for my ordination. Your mentorship is highly appreciated. And since it takes more than seven days to mentor me, your patience is highly appreciated as well.
Thanks to Rabbi Sacks. Thanks to all of my teachers in rabbinical school. And thanks to all of you.
Shabbat shalom.
[1] Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber, “”This Is the Torah’ for the Priests Performing the Offerings,” TABS [Torah and Biblical Scholarship], TheTorah.com, https://www.thetorah.com/article/this-is-the-torah-for-the-priests-performing-the-offerings.
[2] Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 5, Malvolio reading the letter of Maria.