Shabbat Shalom--March 18-19, 2011

Parashat Tzav
Cantor Herschel Fox

Tsav is full of laws about sacrifices – Korbanot. In Tzav we are taught in great detail the laws of the burnt offering and the ritual of the grain, etc. In addition, there are other laws we are commanded to perform such as “And the Lord spoke to Moses saying: Speak to the Israelite people thus: You shall eat no fat of ox or sheep or goat. Fat from animals that died or were torn by beasts may be put to any use but you must not eat it.” (Lev.7:22-24)

There is one idea in Tzav that has always touched me deeply. In Leviticus Chapter 7, Verse 19 it says: “Flesh that touches any contaminated thing may not be eaten, it shall be burned in fire.” I remember when we were young and studied with Rabbi Kravets, the Rabbi and principal of the Talmud Torah; we discussed this idea at length. We asked Rabbi Kravets, “Just because something clean or pure touches something unclean or impure for a brief moment, why does the clean thing become impure or contaminated? It starts small but it gets bigger!” Rabbi Kravets told us that the Torah says even if something pure touches something impure only once, it can result in problems.

His answer taught us a great lesson. He began by telling us in Yiddish “Zog mir ver es zenen daine fraint vel ich dir zog’n ver du bist.” “Tell who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are!” We got it. Who is touching your soul?

We all knew somebody who had a friend that created a negative example for him. Everyone knew someone who suggested you try drugs. What could one snort or needle hurt? What could a little fun hurt? Everyone knew someone who snuck out of the house in the middle of the night and go into trouble.

Rabbi Kravets said to us; God doesn’t care so much about our animal sacrifices, God wants us to be “Mentshen.” He would say to us “Men darf zain a mentsh!, You have to be a good person!” Each week on Friday afternoon, the Rabbi would teach us Mussar because the key idea was always that we should be decent human beings “Zai a mentsh” Be a good person!”

Shabbat Shalom