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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 God!’ 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 Priest shall kindle wood upon it morning after morning… A constant fire shall burn upon the Altar; it shall never go out.” (Leviticus 6:5-6).
With these words the Bible describes, in this weeks Torah portion (Tzav), the instruction to continuously maintain a flame on the altar which stood in the Tabernacle (a mobile sanctuary the Jewish people built in the desert to house the divine presence), and then later in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. For this purpose, the priest 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 (commandment) in the Hebrew Bible 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 Priest 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. Bur life is about climbing mountains, not digging holes. And in climbing mountains you must begin on the bottom.
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Light Candles
