Back To The Future (Tzav)
Do you remember the film “Back To The Future”?. In it the protagonist Marty McFly awakens to find his life as he knew it, utterly transformed. It seems that because certain things which should have happened, failed to happen, it resulted in the destruction of his life as he knew it. Marty learned that without the past there can be no future.
If we are to have a future it begins by honoring the past. We must be mindful and respectful of the past. Yesterday is the foundation of today and tomorrow. In this week’s parashah God considered the remains of yesterday’s offering to be holy. Each day the priest had to tend to the hearth on which the burnt offering was made. But consider in what manner this was done; 'And the priest is to put on his linen robe, and he shall put on undergarments next to his flesh; and he shall take up the ashes to which the fire reduces the burnt offering on the altar, and place them beside the altar. (Lev 6:10). It was with great reverence that the priest handled the remains of the days offering. It too was considered sacred and holy. In the same way we too must regard things which served us in the past. What has come before must never be despised. Where we have been, our experiences, our decisions, our successes and failures, all contribute to who and what we are today. And we in the Messianic Jewish movement have glorious, and rich traditions from which to draw. Traditions which encompass both the long history of our people Israel, and the Body of Messiah. We need both if we are to understand who and what we are today. If we look to jettison either we, like Marty McFly, will find that we are losing ourselves. So must we consider our past, its traditions and heritage to be a sacred thing. If not we will have nothing upon which to build.
It is in the remains of yesterday that today is built. The fire of yesterday is our fuel for today. 'And the fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not go out, but the priest shall burn wood on it every morning; and he shall lay out the burnt offering on it, and offer up in smoke the fat portions of the peace offerings on it. (Lev 6:12) Our past determines our trajectory. So then if we are to be true to that calling to which we were called, we must recognize, and understand that whatever we build, should be built on the foundation which has been laid. It says in the book of Proverbs; “Do not move the ancient boundary, or go into the fields of the fatherless.” (23:10). We do not need to utterly redefine ourselves, to do so is to risk making ourselves unrecognizable to our own people. It is necessary then to be true to our vocation as Jewish people, committed to the calling and covenants of our people, and at the same time witnesses of the promises and power fulfilled in our Messiah Yeshua.
So then we must carry the past into the future. 'Fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar; it is not to go out. (Lev 6:13) Every day we must stoke the flame. We stoke the flame in ourselves and in our children lest the flame die. We must work hard to keep that flame alive first in ourselves through devotion to God, and in our children by building upon that tradition to give them a religious heritage that leads them to faith and the desire to see it continue in their turn.
In a few days we will begin celebrating the Passover Season. In this season we are commanded to ‘observe’ and ‘remember’. We continue to build on the embers of our past doing what our ancestors did, experiencing what they experienced, and bringing that experience with God into our world today. As we do, we must build upon it and pass it on to our children and their children in turn. So on that first night of Passover we will stoke the flame again, continuing a cycle that began almost 4000 years ago. Lets do it with all the vigor we can muster so that the flame will never die out.