Tzav:ashes

Tzav:ashes

This is the kind of parsha that gives the book of Leviticus its name.  The talmud calls this book:" Torath Kohanim," the Preistly Law.  This chapter is about the priestly functions in the  sacrificial rite, the rewards given to the the priests from the sacrifices and  the ritual of Priestly initiation. 

 Tzav means "command." It is the root of  the word Mitzvah: commandment. The names of two parshioth  in the Torah  devolve from  tzav: this one, simply named Tzav,  and Titzaveh  in the book of Exodus.  Both deal  directly with the  Kohanim, the priestly aristocracy that performed the human functions in the  Mishkan and temple, mostly the sacrificial rite.  The sons of Aaron  are the recipients of tzav, a direct, unquestioned order. 

The first order that requires an action is the removal of the ashes from the altar.  This janitorial  task is the first command  for the chosen  of the chosen.  Somebody must remove the accumulated, spent,  non-flammable material, the waste produced from the sacrificial process. It will not be a hired hand, an underpaid,  low status person  ( with a presumed drinking problem).  No, it will be a priest, dressed in (white) linen who shovels the detritus; only a priest may approach the altar so intimately. 

The white, linen robes are the attire for another service.  When the  high priest  performs the service on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement,  he is dressed in  these white  (work) robes .   Thus doth he dress for  the ritual that  is the community part of the expiation for the sins of the year.  The  products of that  ritual  are ashes, the aftermass of the fires of passion.   

The priests could be commanded effectively.  They had a noble  tradition of obedience.  From the first time we meet Aaron, he is the  duteous brother that Gd - exasperated by Moses'  self-doubt and demural from the opportunities to work for the liberation of the Israelites - appoints as the executive assistant for the task.   Was Aaron's acquiescence to participate in the creation of the golden calf  a manifestation of the ability to follow orders?  Nicht Schuldig. 

The priest needed to maintain a special, high level of obedience.  His thoughts of eating the designated portions of the offering at the wrong time ( pigul)  could invalidate the  sacrifice and leave him with a very significant burden of sin ( kareth).  The ability to follow instructions, when your thoughts are read, is a very high bar and requires training from earliest youth. 

Orders and ashes: Words that have come to mean something far more sinister than the ritual slaughter of animals.   In the temple service the blood is animal blood, the ashes are animal ashes. The temple service was a performance.  New axes of interpretation emerge from events in history. Does the ritual deflect the evil?

Progress is founded on following orders.  Obedience is the alternative to constant, inefficient re-invention. 

The product of every fire is ahes

Vayikra: the unseen

The sacrificial rite is the enemy of science. At the end of tractate    Succah we have : 

בְּמִרְיָם בַּת בִּילְגָּה שֶׁהֵמִירָה דָּתָהּ וְהָלְכָה וְנִשֵּׂאת לְסַרְדְּיוֹט אֶחָד מִמַּלְכֵי יְווֹנִים כְּשֶׁנִּכְנְסוּ יְווֹנִים לַהֵיכָל הָיְתָה מְבַעֶטֶת בְּסַנְדָּלָהּ עַל גַּבֵּי הַמִּזְבֵּחַ וְאָמְרָה לוֹקוּס לוֹקוּס עַד מָתַי אַתָּה מְכַלֶּה מָמוֹנָן שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאִי אַתָּה עוֹמֵד עֲלֵיהֶם בִּשְׁעַת הַדְּחָק

 Miriam, the daughter of a member of the Bilga watch, who apostatized and went and married a soldier [sardeyot] serving in the army of the Greek kings. When the Greeks entered the Sanctuary, she entered with them and was kicking with her sandal on the altar and said: Wolf, wolf [lokos], until when will you consume the property of the Jewish people, and yet you do not stand with them when they face exigent circumstances?

The ritual slaughter and burning of animal flesh ( or meal) is a terrible waste of resources and time  to the rational mind. Every year, as we extirpate the leavened in preparation  for Passover, we read the description of various voluntary and compulsory offerings of cattle, sheep, goats, birds and matzoh. 

This conflict with the scientific view  involves a difference in the  perceptions of the dimensionality of the world.  Science  is about knowledge, what can be sensed. This has changed over time.  Science, in the usual sense of the word,  has become the knowledge that is not "common sense";  it is philosophy about things that are measured with instruments ( the fancier the better).  Galileo is credited with fathering science through his belief that the stars, as viewed through the telescope,  represented a greater truth than  ideas of celestial forces that are allowed in its absence. Science has gone on to discover many invisible phenomena: electromagnetism, atomic energy, neutrinos, DNA, loss aversion.  These "new" things- that have always existed -  are the stuff of science. 

 Accepting the sacrificial rite requires  a belief that there is more to the the universe than has been, or will be, discovered. Our lives depend upon other, undiscovered forces. The monotheist places these forces under the control of the single Gd. It is fitting to acknowledge our gratitude  and respect by the performance of  rituals. 

The Exodus and the receipt of the Law echo Genesis.  The Hebrews are expelled from Egypt.  Although this is accompanied by the liberation from slavery,  all of the emancipated Israelites had all been born in Egypt. It was a banishment from the only place these people had known. (Consider Liberia after the American Civil War).  The receipt of the commandments is an act of acquiring knowledge, like the ingestion from the tree of knowledge. ( The commandments at Sinai, instructions for following Gd's plan  are an undoing of  the rebellion in Eden).  

Both episodes are followed by drive toward ritual. Abel immediately sacrifices sheep, Cain offers his product: meal. The Israelites create the Golden Calf.  Was the urge to ritual the consequence of eating from the tree of knowledge? Perhaps enlightenment  leads to a comprehension of the  higher dimensionality of the world and our dependence on forces beyond imagination and hence to the sacrificial rite. 

The parsha deals with two kinds of sacrifices.  The first (olah and shlamim) are voluntary.  These could be expressions of gratitude for the forces that are sensed, but not seen.  The Torah then goes on to describe offerings given for transgressions (chatoth)  or guilt with shame ( asham).  These obligatory offerings are a recognition that human actions can damage an substance that only our spiritual sense can detect.  They affirm that Gd is offended when we fail to have the courage to keep our promises.   They offer an entry to the process of repair.  

What do our actions mean?  Which actions are meaningful? We can not understand everything. 

Vayakheil- Pikudei: public art

Vayakheil- Pikudei: public art

The book of Exodus ends with two chapters about the construction of the Tabernacle.  This exciting book that starts with the enslavement of the Hebrews, contains the emergence of Gd as a public entity.  Gd appears to  the fugitive Moses,   brings the miraculous signs and plagues, splits the red sea, provides food and water to the Israelites in the wilderness, appears on Mt Sinai, transmits the law ( twice), forgives the sin of the Golden calf.  Then... 41/2 chapters are dedicated to the Temple and Priestly Vestments.  

This week we read the last 2 chapters of the book of Exodus.  These chapters chapters repeat elements of the construction of the Tabernacle, which had previously been described ( in slightly greater detail)  in Teruma and Titzave 2 and 3 weeks earlier.  Separating the descriptions is the episode of the Golden Calf, the archetype of idolatry.  The juxtaposition forces the exploration  of  the relationship between art and idolatry.   

The Tabernacle was a complex artistic product. It was commissioned by Gd, but it served a purpose for the community.  It was built around the ark which contained the tablets of the convental law and was covered by a pure gold kaporeth which had images of cherubs hammered out of it. The ark was covered by images and contained tablets with a commandment against creating such images.  The golden cherub covered ark was separated from the remainder of the Holy of Holies by a tapestry with the images of cherubim.  Art often deals with contradiction, it is part of the pleasure of surprise. 

The (apparent) inconsistency of the ark raises the question of where the rules apply. I have always thought that the innermost sancta have an exemption from that the laws that emanate from them. That seems to be the nature of physical reality.  The intimate details of the nature of matter are governed by  quantum principles that seem quite strange when imagined on the level of ordinary human experience.  The personal lives of many political figures shows that  many think themselves  not bound by the norms of society.  Thus, art can be truth  - or at least remind us that the inner truth may be inconsistent with the usual, public truth. 

This Tabernacle is what Gd wants. It contrasts with the Golden Calf that Gd hates. The Calf was made from pure gold, the most valuable material anyone had.  The ark cover was also made of pure gold, but the contents of the ark were stone, the most abundant of materials. The ark had a gold veneer, but it was made of wood.  The contributions to the tabernacle  ranged from gems to goat hair, they came from every stratum of society and it was the product of all who were moved and had the skills to participate. The Golden calf looked like a populist project, but it was elitist. It was  a vehicle for the advancement of the loudest voices. The Tabernacle  followed a blueprint from Heaven and was administered by the Divinely selected elite, but it was made by all the people and it was the conduit for communication from Gd. 

The Oxford English Dictionary lists 19 definitions for "art". The first:  Skill; its display or application.  Medicine ( ever less a vehicle for creativity)  is called an art, a healing art.  Patents protect arts like the making of widgets or computer programs.  The construction of the Tabernacle involved the arts of metallurgy ,  jewelry, tapestry, carpentry, etc. 

It also involved the art of instructing and organizing people.  Bezalel was made the manager of the building enterprise.  He was imbued with the talent :   

וּלְהוֹרֹ֖ת נָתַ֣ן בְּלִבּ֑וֹ  to give directions Onkelos translates this וּלְאַלָּפָא יְהַב בְּלִבֵּיהּ.  He uses a word that means "teach" but also carries the connatation of "lead," 

Bezalel had the art of the project manager. The art of Edison, Jobs and Elon Musk

The second of the two parshioth for today begins with an accounting of the precious metals used in the construction of the Tabernacle.  This serves to flaunt the generosity of the contributing populace, to reinforce the significance of the Tabernacle  and to demonstrate the responsibility  of the builders to provide an audit. 

The Tabernacle was art in the sense of  the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects. It was an aesthetic object, something to be appreciated for the pleasure and  insight it provides.  That  is a quality shared with the Golden Calf,  It is not a surprise that same concepts and skill sets can be used for good and evil. 

I am confused about how to distinguish idolatry from art. Perhaps  that is a key part of the human endeavor.

Ki Thisa: How you see it

Ki Thisa: How you see it

The Golden Calf is one of the climatic moments in the Torah.  Standing at the foot of Mount Sinai in the anticipation of the giving of the law is the event that unified the Israelite people. It is  amplified by the descent of the cloud onto the volcano of  mount Sinai.  This  is the setting  for the great treachery: the populist production of a molten idol. The people's bacchanal is halted by the smashing of the Tablets, Gd's handiwork.  The idol is cremated and ground into dust which is cast into the water supply, 3000 are killed for their treachery, and Moses ascends to ask for ... and obtain ...expiation from Gd, the Law Giver.  Moses hews new tablets and the laws are reproduced.  When Moses returns with the second set of tablets (a collaboration between Gd and Moses) Moses is no longer an ordinary human. He is luminous. 

The  Mt Sinai drama started  back in parshath Yithro, 31/2 parshaioth back. Jethro had recommended that the the law be publicly available and the system for justice be a hierarchy with Moshe at the top.  A description of a  spectacle with a smoking, trembling, very dangerous mountain,  and brave Moshe ascending toward  the trumpetting voice from heaven, follows the outline of the plan.  Presumably,  this was part of the Jethro plan to validate ( his son in law) Moses and the law he delivered to the people.  In  this week's parsha, after a detour into civil and religious laws and a description of the plan for the Tabernacle, we have the rebellion of the golden calf, the  second Tablets of collaboration,  and the separation of the shining Moses from the rest of humanity.  This chapter adds to the unapproachable and immutable nature of the Divine Law as transmitted by Moses. 

In the absence of Moshe. the people go beyond creating their own law. They knowingly create their own god(s).  They create a force behind their whim-driven sense of justice. They storm the capitol. 

There are some interesting aspects to the way the calf is referenced.

The creation of the calf is described

וַיִּקַּ֣ח מִיָּדָ֗ם וַיָּ֤צַר אֹתוֹ֙ בַּחֶ֔רֶט וַֽיַּעֲשֵׂ֖הוּ עֵ֣גֶל מַסֵּכָ֑ה וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ אֵ֤לֶּה אֱ    יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר הֶעֱל֖וּךָ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃

This ( the broken off  golden earrings) he (Aaron) took from them and cast in a mold, and made it into a molten calf. And they exclaimed, “These are your god(s), O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”

Why do they refer to the calf as these, pleural? 

I think it relates to the nature of the idol.  It was מַסֵּכָ֑ה. molten... fluid.  The fundamental property of a liquid is that it retains its  substance (volume) but can assume  the shape of its container.  The idol has such a fluid nature.  It could mean what the observer imagined.   The accumulated riches was the force that brought the people out of Egypt.  The  unification of the people behind a single force brought the people out of Egypt. ...

The events described in this parsha are all about testimony.  The clouds and the voice emanating from the  fiery mountain were evidence of the Divine origin of the law.  The tablets were to be placed in the ark of testimony. 

 The people had worn jewels testifying to their engagement  with Gd, their עֶדְי֖וֹ,  The root of the word ayd  means witness.  They remove the  ornaments  when they are told that Gd will not personally accompany them to the Promised Land; and then Gd tells them to remove them.  The intimate relationship is broken, now it will be more distant, more formal. Moshe manages to repair the relationship. 

The Golden Calf was needed to establish the nature of the law as a bond between humans  and the Divine. It is an echo of the first interaction involving knowledge ( and its tree) in the Garden of Eden. There, the theft of the forbidden enlightenment is punished by death and exile.  Here the knowledge ( of the law) will be a source of rapprochement between Israel and Gd.  

  Had everything gone smoothly, the relationship between Gd and Israel would not have been tested, the law -set in stone - would be too rigid, its violation too lethal.  The second tablets are the paradigm of repentance.   The broken  relationship can be salvaged, but new tablets now must be provided by the work of the (best of) penitent, and the writing is dictated by Gd and transcribed by Moses. The law is cooperative, but it is not entirely fluid. 

Now we know that the "gift" of knowledge leads to the ability to destroy the world ( by nuclear holocaust or the irresponsible  management of carbon as fuel).   Can  another kind of knowledge, the law,  be a path to saving the world?