spirituality » to rah por tion

NANOMEDICINE is

Keep Your Inner
Fire Burning

So are the returns
from an AFHU Hebrew
University Gift Annuity.

Parshat Tzav: Leviticus 6:1-8:36;
Jeremiah 7:21-8:3;
9:22-23.

R

ecently, I saw a great Facebook
posting that explored the dif-
ference between how people
today view organized religion vs.
spirituality. The posting defined the
difference between the two
as, “Religion is when you
sit in a religious service and
daydream about kayaking. On
the other hand, spirituality is
when you are out kayaking
and think about God.”
Today we live in an age
where fewer and fewer people
regularly attend scheduled
Jeffrey
religious services. Pew
Lasday
Research Center reports in
detail how people are on a quest for
spirituality, while at the same time
dropping out of formal religion. Set
prayer times and fixed prayer seem
antiquated.
When we think about today’s quests
for spirituality, it’s very difficult for
digital savvy 21st-century Jews to
relate to fixed congregational prayer.
And if the reading of fixed prayers in a
religious service has lost its meaning,
then how can we even get our heads
around and make meaningful the
whole concept of burnt offerings and
sacrificial rites that are highlighted
throughout the Torah?
This week’s portion, Tzav, goes into
great detail describing the different
laws and rituals of burnt offerings.
• Leviticus 6:2: “... place firewood
upon the altar all night into the morn-
ing and the fire of the altar shall be
kept burning”
• 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 offering of wellbeing.

HUGE .

• Leviticus 6:6: “A perpetual fire
shall be kept burning on the altar not
to go out.”
Three times in the above opening
section of the parshah the text refers
to the importance that the fire
on the altar never goes out.
This repetition is a signal to
us to pay attention. It’s not
enough to light a fire and pro-
vide an offering. The charge
is to light a fire that will never
go out and will always be
there burning.
Keeping the fire alive was
so important that even on
Shabbat it was permissible, in
fact commanded, to keep the fire alive.
According to Rabbi Arthur Green,
the attention to the sacrifices can be
interpreted as speaking of the most
inward form of spirituality. For the
Israelites, the burnt offerings and the
physical maintaining of the fire were a
striving toward spirituality, a quest to
reach out and connect with God. Later,
when words and fixed prayers replaced
burnt offerings, the intent was the
same — to reach a spiritual high and
connect with God.
The question then that confronts us
today (and which has always confront-
ed us) is how to keep the fire burning
within us on a daily basis?
Part of our responsibilities as Jews
is to figure out a way to keep the fire
inside us continually burning. If in the
past it was fixed burnt offerings, and
in the recent present fixed prayers,
then what fixed future “something” do
we need to keep the fire from going
out? More kayaking?

*

Jeffrey Lasday is the senior director of com-
munity development for the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit.

Conversations

• How do you maintain your passion for being Jewish?
• What prayer experiences have you found spiritually uplifting?
• When have you experienced a spiritual moment outside of a religious service?
• How/when do you feel a spiritual connection with God?

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AFHU Hebrew University Gift Annuity Returns

Age

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March 24 • 2016

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