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Shabbat Shalom. Our parasha for this week is parasha Tzav, which translates to “Command” and covers Leviticus 6:1-8:36.

We begin in Leviticus 6 and then continue into chapter 7, where we are given more information about the five different types of offerings to the Lord, and instructions concerning them for the priesthood, specifically their disposal.

The burnt offering is described first and in detail it is recorded how the priests of the Lord were to remove and cleanly dispose of the remains of the offering.  There is also a command that the fire on the altar was always to remain lit.  In this way, our people showed our devotion to the commands and instructions of Adonai at all times by not allowing this fire to go out.

The grain offering is described next and that only a small portion is to be offered to the Lord.  The rest of this offering was to be made into unleavened cakes for the priesthood and special emphasis is made on the fact no leaven was to be included.  Leaven is used throughout God’s Word as a symbol for sin and so by having this offering remain unleavened its’ holiness was preserved and emphasized.

Moses continues his teaching with the rules for the sin offering. Anything that came into contact with it was considered holy and had to be properly handled afterwards.  Clothing had to be washed properly, clay pottery had to be broken, and any bronze vessels used in its preparation must be scoured and rinsed.  The idea of kashering items used in cooking kosher meals comes from this passage.

The guilt offering is described next with special mention of what types of fat were not to be consumed by the priests.  The final offering that is described in this chapter is the offering of thanksgiving.  Anyone who desired to give an offering of thankfulness were to bring cakes of bread made with and without yeast.  It is made extremely clear in this passage that anyone who offers of partakes of this offering while in a state of sin and uncleanliness is to be exiled from Israel into the wilderness.

In these chapters, we see the seriousness of offering sacrifices to the Lord and the duties of those who are in God’s ministry as priests.  Every detail regarding how sacrifices were to be offered and handled are outlined in the Torah.  The Lord rightly demands that we are to treat Him and His commands with the utmost respect and attention.  Disrespecting the Creator of all things and deciding to offer sacrifices in a manner different then what has been given is to invite death, as we will see with Aaron’s sons in a few chapters.

Chapter 8 records the actual anointing and inducting of Aaron and his sons as priests.  Moses led Aaron and his sons forward with the bull for the Sin Offering, Two Rams, and a basket of unleavened bread.  In front of the people Moses washed them with water and dressed Aaron in his priestly garments.

Moses then took the anointing oil and anointed the entire tabernacle consecrating it to the Lord.  He anointed the altar seven times and then took some of the oil and poured it over Aaron’s head to consecrate him.  His sons were then dressed and the bull was brought forward and slaughtered.  The blood was placed on the horns of the altar and the base to consecrate it and for atonement.  The ram for the burn offering was brought forward and was offered in the prescribed ways.  Next, the ram of ordination was brought forward.  Using its blood Moses anointed Aaron and his son’s right ear, thumb and big toe.  Moses then used the blood and the oil to consecrate Aaron and his son’s vestments. He then instructed them to stay in the tent of meeting for seven days and contemplate the seriousness of their new responsibilities for their ordination to be complete.

Parasha Tzav is rightly named “Command”.  We see in these chapters once again the seriousness and detail that went into the Lord’s commands for our people.

There is a temptation when we come to parashas like Tzav, to have a feeling of “so what?”, that these things do not apply to us today, none of us are active priests of the Aaronic priesthood after all.

But in Exodus 19 part of our peoples’ covenant with Adonai was that if we would obey His commandments we would be to him a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.  The Apostle Peter echoes these verses in 1 Peter 2 and calls Messiah’s Community of Jews and Gentiles a royal priesthood and a holy nation as well.  So even if we may never clean up a burnt offering from God’s altar or go through Aaron’s anointing, the lessons of these chapters are still relevant and timeless.

So what are the lessons we should take away from parasha Tzav?

First, we need to understand that there is only one way to offer proper worship and sacrifice to the Lord, His way and not our own.

It is an unpopular but needed message in our culture today that we must know the Lord is God and we are not. That we must come to Him on His terms.  In Moses’s day that was through sacrifices in the Tent of Meeting, in our day it is through the sinless sacrifice of Messiah Yeshua, our Passover Lamb.

Second, we see in this parasha the deliberate and detailed thought that went into every aspect of the Mosaic covenant, this was not for the Lord’s benefit but for our own. Through these details we can see that to serve the Lord is not something we can do casually and without thinking.  The Lord demands our full attention, the first and the best of our lives, and cannot be an afterthought.

Finally, because there is a standard for our behavior and worship we must examine our lives.  With the Lord’s help we can figure out if we are giving Him the attention and reverence He deserves, or if we are merely “going through the motions”.

Parasha Tzav causes us to ask hard questions, “What is our relationship with and our worship to our Great Creator?”  “Are we approaching Adonai on His terms or our own?” “Do we still have zeal, passion for the Lord, or have our fires begun to wane or been extinguished?”

As we move through this coming week may the Lord enable each of us to rightly understand the answers to these questions in our lives.  May He also draw us back to Him if we have strayed. So just as the fire of the altar was never to be extinguished may the Lord rekindle and preserve our fire, our zeal and our connection to Him so that it continues to remain strong through Messiah Yeshua.