Keep the Fire Burning
As they wandered the desert, the Israelites carried the Tabernacle, and all its holy objects, so they could offer the sacrifices G-d had required of them. The Tabernacle provided a venue for these offerings, as the priests burned some or all of the sacrifices brought to them by the people.
Fire was an essential component to the Israelites ritual sacrifices, and in this week’s Torah portion, Tzav, G-d commands the Israelite people to build a perpetual fire, never to be put out, under any circumstances.
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Last week, as we were talking about vaccines and travel for Passover, I said to my wife, “hopefully we’re only like 9 months away from being out of this.”
In some ways that statement is comforting, but it’s also horribly disheartening. Even as backbench distribution continues worldwide, with more and more people filling my social media feeds with selfies of their bandaids and vaccine cards, we’re still a long way off from the place we know we’re headed towards—normalcy.
This weeks Torah portion finds the Israelite people in the midst of their own journey, on a 40 year detour as they wandering from Sinai to Canaan. They carry the Tabernacle with them as they go, and all the priestly objects G-d has commanded be crafted so the people can offer the sacrifices G-d has commanded of them.
The Israelites made sacrifices by giving their offering to a priest who would them burn it on the sacrificial altar. Which meant of course that fire was an essential part of the sacrificial process, and early on in this weeks Torah portion, G-d commands that a perpetual fire be built and kept burning on the altar.
Leviticus 6:5
The fire on the altar shall be kept burning, not to go out: every morning the priest shall feed wood to it, lay out the burnt offering on it, and turn into smoke the fat parts of the offerings of well-being.
A perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out.
There’s a redundancy in the language here, the same commandment is presented twice—once in the positive, to keep a fire burning, and once in the negative, to not put that fire out.
Rabbinic commentators over the years have pointed to this redundancy as a sign of this double commandment’s tremendous importance.
The Isaraelites kept a fire burning atop the altar for the entirety of their journey. Chizkuni, the 13th century French rabbi comments that fire would be fed even on Shabbat, and even if it were to become ritually impure in some way.
“Even while the Israelites were journeying through the desert,” he writes “G-d’s honour demanded that precautions be taken that this flame be kept going. According to Rabbi Yehudah in the Sifra. they used a kind of metal dome fixed above it to insure that it was kept going.”
There’s an editorial note, in the Sefaria translation of this commentary from Chizkuni, about the metal dome fixed atop the perpetual fire. The note says that G-d’s presence in the Israelite camp protected them from rain, sandstorms, and other inclement weather, so their effort to protect the perpetual fire wasn’t really that exceptional, since the fire didn’t need their protection. But when I saw this note, I couldn’t help but wonder, maybe it didn’t help the way they intended, but surely the dome didn’t hurt the fire. And surely the effort is a sign of how seriously the Israelites took their responsibilities to maintain the perpetual fire.
We have so much further to go in our own journey, and yet we’re closer now than we’ve ever been to regaining the world we had to shut down. Now more than ever, we have to keep the fire burning, for ourselves and each other, our own honor depends on it, and any honest effort to help make that happen is more than welcome. We’re slowly gaining the protection modern vaccine science can offer, covering us in a slowly expanding shelter of peace, like the clouds of glory that protected the Israelite camp. But there’s always more we can do, on the ground, like covering a perpetual fire with a metal dome, in a camp that never gets rained on, just in case.
I’ll leave you this week with a new source for this podcast. I haven’t offered much from the Kabbalistic tradition here, mostly because it can be dense, and doesn’t always translate well to this medium. But I had to bring in this quote from the Zohar, and the deeper meaning behind the perpetual fire that only underlines its importance.
Zohar 73a
One older person stood up from behind a wall, and said: Rebbe my teacher, The Holy Light, come and light candles, for that is a Mitzva (commandment), on that it is said: An everlasting fire shall be kept burning on the altar, it should not be extinguished.
And, on that it is also said: To light the eternal flame. This is surely the light of the divine, the light that shines within the soul of every person.
Come, light it with her.
Shabbat Shalom
