Turn It Again: Torah Wisdom for Today
In Pirkei Avot, a book of maxims in the Mishnah, an ancient rabbi, Ben Bag-Bag said about Torah study, “Hafokh bah, va’Hafokh vah, d’khola bah.” Turn it over and over, for everything is in it. For two thousand years, that’s what Jews have done. Here is another turning.
Parsha Tzav 2025
An Abundance of Flame
Our cabin in the woods primarily relies on an older Hearthstone wood stove. Lined with soapstone, it radiates heat gently, until every corner is warmed equally. Soapstone is inert, meaning it doesn’t expand or contract due to temperature fluctuations. As a consequence, it is one of nature’s best heat batteries, which means it stores the energy of the flames, slowly releasing it after the fire has died down. Even after the stove has gone dark for a full day, it continues to push away the chill with an ever fainter memory of the fire. But eventually, even that fades away.
This is equally true with all sorts of warmth—emotional, charismatic, or spiritual. There is the social warmth we experience in the presence of generous hospitality or inclusion. There are even more types of physical warmth than a fire, such as the ambered light of an old incandescent bulb, or the sense of moral warmth when we experience compassionate justice or reliable integrity from another person. We experience an afterglow from such encounters.
When Bell’s Palsy temporarily stole my smile, a sort of emotional coolness suffused my being, providing a hitherto unknown lesson of how intrinsically the muscles of the face pass on instructions to our hearts and souls. During that ordeal, I began to practice a smiling meditation, visualizing a beaming face. That exercise became an emotional battery, filling me with the slow burn of joy that kept me warm enough during my period of facial paralysis.
So it is with all our fires; tangible and metaphorical alike, they all require periodic stoking. Peter, Paul, and Mary immortalized this dictum when they sang, “don’t let the light go out, it’s lasted for so many years.”
Parashat Tzav, in Leviticus 6:2-6 portrays this timeless human need when it instructs:
“Command Aaron and his sons thus….A perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out.” There was a practical reason for this commandment, as it ensured that the priests were ready to offer up sacrifices at any moment on behalf of the nation or an individual. Yet this is not the only purpose of this “eternal flame.”
There is a history to sacred fires stretching back to early human history. In Mesopotamian temples, a fire was kept burning as a unceasing representation of God’s presence. The Zorastrians, who believed in dual divinities of good and evil, likewise maintained a temple fire as a symbol of their supreme deity (Ahura Mazda). Most likely, this practice has its roots in prehistory, when humans first gathered around a night fire. There are echos of this in numerous traditions. As a child, I was captivated by Colin Turnbull’s book, The Forest People, which was a study of the BaMbuti pygmies, especially the fact that they didn’t know how to create fire. Instead, they would carefully wrap coals in several layers of leaves, then they would carefully bring the glowing ember back to life when needed.
From my interfaith work, I once met a woman who is a shaman in the Yoruba tradition. When she gathers people for African rituals, she utilizes a fire started by the sun. It is then preserved by transferring to candles, then back again to a wood pile. It is a perpetual fire that has not gone out, connecting the earth with the heavens.
So too, the fire on the altar served this symbolic purpose, reminding the ancient Israelites of God’s consistent presence. In this way, it is reminiscent of the pillar of fire that accompanied the people during their wilderness years.
Once a tangible ritual picks up symbolic significance, a gateway is opened that deepens the ritual further as future generations attach their own meanings to the original action. Two Hasidic commentators who have engaged in this meaning making are Rabbi Jacob Joseph Katz of Polonne and Rabbi Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl. Both were disciples of the Ba’al Shem Tov, which places them as second generation Hasidic masters from the 18th century. According to Rabbi Katz, the fire of the altar is a reference to Aaron, for the altar is a symbol of compassion and the flames of God’s earthly presence, the Shechinah, which is also called the altar, is to be perpetually on inside the priest. In other words, serving God and the people requires a compassionate leader who keeps the personal flames of passionate dedication stoked.
That’s a fine teaching when the fire is lit, but what about when the stove’s gone cold? What are we to do when it seems that God is not present, while we have lost our passionate concern?
Rabbi Menachem Nachum addresses this anxiety by referencing an old midrash, in which the first human, Adam, was able to see the wonder of the entire world illuminated by the light of creation. But then, Adam stumbles, as we all do, and in his fall, that initial primal light disappeared.
According to this ancient tradition, God hid this light, this or haganuz, within the material world.
Isn’t that what we all struggle with? We peer out into a coarsened reality, unable to see how miraculous the world is. Rabbi Menachem does not end his commentary there, but reminds us that in a previous time, Rabbi Meir would teach the people of his generation and enlighten their eyes so that they also could arrive at the hidden light.
It’s always best to keep the fires burning. A positive or virtuous habit doesn’t require much energy to maintain, yet when we drift away, the habit dies. It is at such a moment that Rabbi Meir reminds us that a teacher is waiting to show us the light, helping us to see that the fire never actually went out. It lingers, hidden, until we are ready to return to it. Like the BaMbuti practice, it awaits our care to tend to the fire within. Seek and you shall find.
