Tzav / Shabbat HaGadol 5772

By Simon Goulden

This Shabbat is Shabbat Hagadol (the Great Shabbat) and our Parashah, Tzav, tells of many different sacrifices - individual and collective- covering different times, occasions, and intentions. Each sacrifice, according to the Torah, was to be offered by the Priests in specific ways and with specific detailed procedures. In describing these sacrificial rites, the Torah records that the fire was not to be extinguished, but rather: “A perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out.” As there is never even a superfluous letter, in the Torah, what does this seemingly unnecessary phrase show us?

The Jerusalem Talmud Yoma 4:6 explains: “It (the fire) is never to be put out – even in your travels. When they travelled (in the desert) what did they do? They would cover the flame with a large pot”. Rambam, Maimonides, the great Spanish mediaeval codifier, even presents this as a positive Torah commandment. But, you might ask, why couldn’t it be re-lit at each new location or as needed for each new sacrifice? And now, when the Temple no longer stands, how are we to fulfill the mitzvah and what are we to take out of its message?

Perhaps this is a link to the Pesach table to be set in a few short days and to the Shabbat table we set this and every week. Our rabbis tell us that our table is like our ‘altar’. Our ritual hand washing and the pouring salt on the bread as we make Hamotzi are just two ways that the tradition hints at the connection between the meal at our table and the ancient sacrificial altar. Put in this context, the hint of our verse ‘a perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar’ reminds us that the ‘fire’ of the Jewish people forever lives at our Shabbat and festival table and it is our job to keep it burning.

Our table can merely be the place where we eat, but when we share our meals with guests, talk about our customs and traditions and speak words of Torah, then we make our table something much bigger: we are passing on the torch.

Shabbat shalom