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The Eternal Light of Redemption

Tzav 5776/26 March 2016

March 29, 2016

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

— Robert Frost, “Acquainted with the Night

In this poem Robert Frost speaks, as he so often does, of a universal human experience: throughout our lives, we experience moments of “night,” challenging moments of existential darkness. This week, as the news carried reports of brutal terrorist murders in Brussels, we were all forced, once more, to be “acquainted with the night.” And yet I could not help thinking that what was a day of horror and brutality in Belgium unfolds every day in Syria and Iraq; the threat of stabbings and rocket attacks casts a shadow over daily life in Israel; and even here, in the Land of the Free, we do not live free of fear that mass violence, foreign-inspired or home-grown, might descend upon us. “Acquainted with the night” of pain and apparent helplessness, I feel compelled to ask: how can we hold on to a sense of hope and possibility in the face of such brutality? We have, this morning, an unusual alignment of the parshah with the Jewish calendar. Only in a Jewish leap year does parashat Tzav fall so close to Purim; but our Torah portion this morning, read together with Megillat Esther, offers a potent antidote for the despair that we might otherwise feel on a week like this.

Our parshah opens with the mitzvah, אֵשׁ תָּמִיד תּוּקַד עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ לֹא תִכְבֶּֽה, “The eternal fire, kept burning on the altar, shall not be put out.”[1] Today, without a Temple or an altar, we symbolize this mitzvah with the נר תמיד, the eternal light in our sanctuaries; but our tradition also sees a spiritual dimension in this mitzvah that remains in effect. “The eternal fire… shall not be put out” — not the physical fire of the altar or even its decorative representation here in the synagogue, but a deeper fire that burns within the Jewish soul. The Torah tasks us with a sacred responsibility: each of us carries a smoldering sacred coal within that must be protected, nurtured, providing light and warmth in times of existential darkness. This small, fragile divine spark provides the passion to serve God and the light that guides us to stand for justice and righteousness, if only we would fan its flames. As Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the early 20th-century mystic, poet, and Zionist, who also served as modern Israel’s first chief rabbi, explains:

את הצמאון האלהי, הבוער וסוער בשלהבת עזו בלב, אסור לכבות. אם כל המכבה גחלת מעל המזבח הגשמי, עובר הוא בלאו של אש תמיד תוקד על המזבח לא תכבה, קל וחומר המכבה גחלת רוחנית עליונה מעל גבי המזבח הרוחני, המלא חיי קודש, הלב הישראלי.

One is forbidden to extinguish the divine thirst that burns and rages with powerful flame in the heart. If anyone who extinguished even a single coal from the physical altar violates the prohibition of “The eternal fire, kept burning on the altar, shall not be put out,” all the more so a person who extinguishes a heavenly spiritual coal from the spiritual altar that permeates the holy life, the Jewish heart.[2]

This “heavenly spiritual coal,” this burning, raging, divine thirst in the Jewish heart, represents the very essence of what it means to live as a Jew in the world. No matter the circumstances, no matter how dark or cold the night may become, we cannot allow the light to go out. To fulfill this imperative, to live up to our calling as individual Jews and as a People, we must understand with clarity the essence of this mission.

Perhaps the most succinct, and yet most challenging, articulation of our mission comes from the great prophet Isaiah: אַתֶּ֥ם עֵדַ֛י נְאֻם־ה’ וַֽאֲנִי־אֵֽל, “‘You are My witnesses,’ declares Adonai,  ‘And I am God.’”[3] Our Sages of Blessed Memory read these two statements as intrinsically linked: in an audacious midrash, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai asserts: “If you are My witnesses… I am God; but if you are not My witnesses, then I am not God.”[4] The Master of the World depends on each of us to stand witness to God’s presence in the world, to make God manifest through our actions on behalf of justice, truth, and peace.[5] “God’s Divinity is revealed in the world,” the Hasidic Rebbe of Gur teaches, “In direct proportion to the Jewish People’s bearing witness.”[6] If we wish to see a world infused with God’s mercy and blessing, we ourselves must bear witness to those divine qualities.

We spoke last week of the eternal antipathy between the Jewish People, defined by compassion and mercy, justice and humanity, and Amalek, who serve the false gods of power, cruelty, and violence. The bitter conflict between these diametrically opposed worldviews, Israel and Amalek, appears before us sharper than ever before. The fires of chaos and nihilism rage in every corner of the world; liberty trembles before the growing thunder of totalitarian ideologies. And still, in the face of such great terror, our tradition stands firm: we will not waver from our conviction that we serve the one eternal God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, who calls us to act with compassion and justice, to serve others created in the sacred image of that one eternal God.

Some have called anti-Semitism “the oldest hatred,” and here we see the truth in that moniker: those who hate the Jewish People, each generation’s manifestation of Amalek, seek to destroy us not because of the particulars of our Jewishness but because of the universal values we represent: the idea that there are real, eternally valid moral principles and values in this world that stand beyond self-interest, to which we owe our loyalty and service. At our best, the Jewish People represents a value-oriented approach to life, one that recognizes and prioritizes human dignity, mentschlichkeit, justice, and fairness; and Amalek, who can not tolerate any value beyond its own self-gratification, who mocks kindness and preys on the weak, can not stand to see any manifestation of hope or redemption in the world. Amalek, in each and every generation, seeks to destroy us precisely because we bear within us the sacred flame that insists the world can and will be different — more compassionate, more just — than it is today.

Indeed, the entire story of Purim speaks not of hope but of faith in an inevitable redemption. In our Sages’ imagination, the Megillah offers more than an account of historical deliverance: rather, it lays out the paradigm for all redemption. A midrash from the Jerusalem Talmud illustrates the true significance of Megillat Esther:

רבי חייא רבא ורבי שמעון בן חלפתא הוו מהלכין בהדא בקעת ארבל בקריצתה, וראו איילת השחר שבקע אורה.

אמר רבי חייא רבה לרבי שמעון בן חלפתא: בירבי, כך היא גאולתן של ישראל. בתחילה קימאה קימאה, כל מה שהיא הולכת היא רבה והולכת. מאי טעמא? (מיכה ז, ח) “כי אשב בחושך ה’ אור לי.”

כך בתחילה (אסתר ב, כא) “ומרדכי יושב בשער המלך,” ואחר כך (אסתר ו, יא) “ויקח המן את הלבוש ואת הסוס,” ואחר כך (אסתר ו, יב) “וישב מרדכי אל שער המלך,” ואחר כך (אסתר ח, טו) “ומרדכי יצא מלפני המלך בלבוש מלכות,” ואחר כך (אסתר ח, טז) “ליהודים היתה אורה ושמחה.”

Rabbi Hiyya Rabbah and Rabbi Shimon ben Halafta were walking in the Arbel Valley at daybreak, and they saw the light of dawn breaking forth.

Rabbi Hiyya Rabbah said to Rabbi Shimon ben Halafta: In the School of Rabbi [they taught], so will be the redemption of Israel: at first bit by bit, but as it goes on it becomes progressively greater. What is the source? [As the prophet Micah declared,] “Though I sit in darkness, Adonai is my light” (Micah 7:8).

Thus at first “Mordechai sat in the king’s gate” (Esther 2:21); and then “Haman took the [royal] clothes and the [royal] horse [and dressed Mordechai, and caused him to ride through the streets of the city, and proclaimed before him: “Thus shall be done for the man whom the king wishes to honor”]” (Esther 6:11); and then “Mordecai returned to the king’s gate, [but Haman hastened to his house, mourning]” (Esther 6:12); and then “Mordecai went forth from the presence of the king in royal apparel (Esther 8:15); and then The Jews had light and gladness” (Esther 8:16).[7]

Notice two things here: first, that the trajectory of redemption is mapped directly onto the Purim story; and second, that the overarching metaphor is that of the dawn, a natural process that unfolds in its own time and according to its own logic. Sunrise is not a question of “if” but “when,” and so too the holy fire within each of us burns with the faith that redemption will come.

Jacob, you spoke earlier about inherited responsibility, and how right you were: as Jews we may not choose the obligation to bear witness to God in the world, but we must fulfill our destiny nonetheless. I heard in yourd’var Torah echoes of Mordechai’s challenge to Esther:

Do not think to yourself that in the kings palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews.  For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?[8]

Those verses give me chills every year because I so identify with Esther. The danger is so palpable: if we approach the king’s chamber without being summoned, if we stand up and bear witness to God’s eternal truth in the world, we arouse Amalek’s anger. Perhaps it would be safer to play along, to keep our head down and hope for the best. Maybe I am just not brave enough, not strong enough, not firm enough in my faith to withstand such a test. And now hear the intensity of Mordechai’s conviction: “if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place” — the inevitability of redemption, the ever-approaching dawn — “but you and your father’s house will perish,” we can only save ourselves if we are willing to stand up on behalf of the timeless values that the Jewish People, as a collective, represent. “And who knows,” Mordechai asks each one of us, “whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Each of us, at some moment in life, stands where Esther stood, where we must choose the dangerous road toward collective redemption over the false illusion of safety in looking out for ourselves alone. The danger is real, for us just as it was for her, and so is the fear; but as Rachel Naomi Remen reminds us, “being brave does not mean being unafraid; it often means being afraid and doing it anyway.”[9] Underneath the costumes and revelry, the silliness and celebration, Purim brings us a message of life-or-death importance. What will you do, when your Esther moment arrives? Just as the dawn comes in its own time, we do not get to choose whether redemption will come; we can only decide if we will let it pass us by or if we will stand and play our part, if we will allow the sacred coal in our heart to go cold or if we will stoke the fires of justice, compassion, and human dignity. אֵשׁ תָּמִיד תּוּקַד עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ לֹא תִכְבֶּֽה, “The eternal fire, kept burning on the altar, shall not be put out.”


[1]        Lev. 6:6.

[2]        Kook, Orot HaKodesh 3:2.11 (p.210).

[3]        Isaiah 43:12.

[4]        Pesikta d’Rav Kahana (Mandelbaum ed.), Piska 12.6.

[5]        cf. Pirkei Avot 1.18.

[6]        Sfat Emet, Yitro 5650.

[7]        Jerusalem Talmud, Berakhot 1.1 [2c]

[8]        Esther 4:13-14.

[9]        Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom, 50.

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