26 Mar TZAV: GOOD MORNING SOUL THE ONLY JOB WHERE YOU START AT THE TOP IS DIGGING A HOLE

And then the fight
started …
“My wife sat down
on the couch next to
me as I was flipping
channels. She asked,
‘What’s on TV?’

I said, ‘Dust.’
“And then the fight started…
“When I got home last night, my wife
demanded that I take her someplace
expensive… so, I took her to a gas station.
“And then the fight started…
“My wife and I were sitting at a table at
my high school reunion, and I kept staring
at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she
sat alone at a nearby table.
“My wife asked, ‘Do you know her?’
‘Yes,’ I sighed, ‘She’s an old friend. I
understand she took to drinking right after
we split up many years ago, and I hear she
hasn’t been sober since.’
“’My G-d!’ says my wife, ‘who would
think a person could go on celebrating that
long?’
“And then the fight started…”
The Fire

“The fire on the altar shall remain aflame
on it, it shall not be extinguished; and the
Kohen shall kindle wood upon it morning
after morning… A constant fire shall burn
upon the Altar; it shall never go out.”
(Vayikra 6:5-6).
With these words the Torah describes, in
this week’s parsha (Tzav), the instruction
to continuously maintain a flame on the
altar which stood in the Mishkan and then
later in the Beis Hamikdash in
Yerushalayim. For this purpose, the Kohen
was required to place new firewood on the
altar each morning, in order to feed a flame
which must never go out.
As the biblical commentators and the
Jewish mystics acutely grasped, each
mitzvah in the Tanach contained, in
addition to its concrete and simple
meaning, many symbolisms relating to the
inner psyche of the human being. This
mitzvah is no exception, and it captures a
simple but profound truth about our daily
patterns.
“A constant fire shall burn upon the altar”
– the altar, in the writings of Jewish
mysticism, is symbolic of the human heart,
the space in each of us most capable of
sacrifice. The heart however needs a

continuous fire burning in it. For the
human heart to live deeply, for it to feel
empathy and experience the depth of love,
it needs to be on fire, passionate, aflame.
But how? There are times when our
hearts and souls are inspired and aflame;
but often we feel numb and apathetic.
Sometimes we get cynical and detached
(as in the above anecdotes.) How do we
maintain the flame and the inspiration in
our own inner altar?
There is only one way: “The Kohen shall
kindle wood upon it morning after
morning.” Each and every morning we
must place “wood” on our altar, in order to
feed its potential flame. Fire cannot exist in
a vacuum; the fire in our heart and soul,
too, requires “wood” to sustain it.
What is the “wood” that is capable of
feeding the soul’s flames each morning?
Study, prayer and charity. They are the
morning encounters with the living G-d
that allow the fire of the soul to hold on to
something and take root into the human
psyche.
A delicious piece of cheesecake, reading
and answering your e-mails, listening to
the news – they don’t do the trick of turning
on your soul, your inner depth. They lack

the properties to bring out the flame of the
soul. In the morning, before you do
anything else, you need to engage in a
labor that will let the flame of your soul
emerge. Good Morning Soul must precede
Good Morning America. Then you’re set
for the day, because as Goethe said, a man
sees in the world what he carries in his
heart. If your heart is aflame, your world
that day will be on fire.
And you must place the wood on your
altar each morning, no exceptions.
Consistency is the key to a meaningful and
inspiring day. There are no shortcuts to
inspiration; everything comes with a price.
The only job where you start at the top is
digging a hole. But life is about climbing
mountains, not digging holes. And in
climbing mountains you must begin on the
bottom.