Tzav, צַו  Command!   Vayikra (Leviticus) 6:1-8:36 

Passover 5783 The Commandment 

Poetic Notes on the parashah of Tzav and Passover 5783*

Once and forever and even upon a time,

there was a word written with God’s own rhyme

In a time and beyond all time,

even before the sound of one soul was heard

the sound of God’s word

echoed forward and echoed back

Everywhere it echoed it destroyed what lacked

The echo rang out

The echo rang deep within,

warning about

the world of doubt

In that world is the most deadly poison of the soul,

the poisonous knowledge of how to

mix good with evil

Do your work with faith 

because you want to alleviate doubt

Do not give praise and honor to doubt,

since you cannot continue to exist for an instant

without Hashem deciding that you should,

without the power of his word 

calling your existence good,

without Hashem kindly sharing 

his own existence with you

Do you not know the certainty of faith

in the one true eternal Holy Blessed One?

Can your work succeed without faith in him?

Can life thrive without complete reliance on Hashem?

The commandment came to work with you 

The imperative of God came to empower you

You were not made to be on your own,

as you work for him who made you and sustains you

Do not mix good with evil and evil with good,

as those do who feel entitled to self-centred pride,

and in whom truth has died

They have lied in a wide circle that orbits them

They make knowledge and idol

and try to ride Nature with reins and bridle

Do not confuse good and evil

Do not deepen this world’s corruption

I fear my Maker, the Redeemer of heaven and earth,

on account of the subtlety of humanity’s false pride

They will build their global city without God

Will they be free?

There is no one holy except Hashem

There is no freedom except God’s holiness

Truly, the cruelest slavery 

is the slavery of unholiness

Adam doubted the Blessed Holy One 

That doubt was embedded 

in the seed cells of a certain tree

with which Adam and Chavah found an affinity

Warning against this wild doubt-born knowledge,

the word of God echoed back and forth and created time

On the day you eat of it you are going to die!

Yet the warning held a secret

The rebellion of doubt created an evil day,

a day on which the enemies of the Jews

looked forward to ruling over them

But that day was reversed:

On that day time was turned 

inside out and upside down

The Jews would rule over their enemies 

on that very day

In order to know what happens in the end

you have to go back to the beginning

You have to reveal the truth that there is a concealment

It must be learned that there is something that is lost,

something concealed

only then can it be understood that there is 

something to look for

The philosophers gather round 

In the gloomy light of the unknown,

by their own fearful souls they are tied and bound

They express their views about Reality

They turn their face from God

and make a covenant with Fatality

The repentant know

that the only reality is morality,

and that the only morality 

is the morality of redemption

And so, we can learn now the mystery of God

Here is that mystery:

In order that the Adam would not be an orphan,

Hashem, in planning to be revealed as 

the God of Torah Israel, 

gave Adam one commandment

That commandment was to Adam 

like a parent upon the earth

It was given to the first man and woman

to be for them like a womb,  

like a mother, to give them birth 

out of the dangers of corruptibility,

to give them birth out of the limits of mortality, 

to bring them to the end of time,

to present them as little children to the Torah,

as a mother presents her newborn ones 

to their father,

that Torah Israel might be complete,

as God had always had in mind,

from before the foundation of the universe

What was this universal commandment?

Hashem Elohim said to the Adam,

Of all the trees of the garden you may freely eat!

It was this one commandment that gave Adam freewill

Only authorization from God’s own holiness 

could give Adam freedom 

Only the Garden of Life planted for them 

could give Adam the choice to trust God and live

This is the commandment to have freewill 

and to exercise choice and choose life

This is the commandment that uncovers 

the concealment of the mystery of God,

that God rewards all who labour in good faith to find him

But Adam disobeyed the commandment

and sought to establish their own freedom of choice

through knowledge built on doubting God

and wrestling with the unknown

Such wild autonomy is not freedom but delusion

It does not establish humanity’s authority and independence 

but rather humanity’s slavery to Creation’s entropy,

leaving humanity to be stillborn in Creation's short time,

unable to fill its lungs with the life of Creation's long time

Yet Adam’s transgression 

had no power to nullify the commandment

And in the form of that commandment 

remained human dignity

And in the power of that commandment remained

the mystery of the hope of repentance and redemption

Freewill was not the choice between good and evil,

which blew into the garden 

and grew up on its own, a wild tree

For Adam without the commandment 

was an orphan of the earth

They were fashioned from heaven’s dust and earth’s ashes,

having neither mother nor father

Concealment was the very fabric of their creation

So Hashem Elohim, by reference to his name,

commanded the Adam, and when he did,

Adam’s existential loneliness began to abate

Adam’s existential holiness began to incubate

Hashem Elohim commanded them to eat

of the spiritual chromosomes

of the trees of righteousness and life

With one commandment he gave them authority

to be festive with joy in the garden of lovingkindness

Through the universal commandment,

the concealing quality of creation was rolled back,

and the embracing Spirit of God was revealed in their souls

to be living with them and nurturing them to a Godly life,

breathing with them in all their thoughts and labours

It was truly something 

that Hashem should command the Adam!

It was something very special, indeed!

Through this, Adam would be adopted

as a son of the commandment of God, 

and as a daughter of the commandment of God

The Adam made from the lowest elements

would have a family from the highest realms

Being given an imperative from Hashem,

that imperative would become the mind of Adam,

the foundation of meaning for Adam

For it was the means by which Hashem

embraced Adam most intimately,

to raise them up 

and make them worthy of divine marriage

The commandment spoke mysteries 

of love and righteous mercy,

mysteries of wisdom to be learned

wisdom in faith, to be thought and spoken,

giving birth to children 

and teaching angels and animals,

wisdom to eat and live, and not die

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth

Fill the earth with children of wisdom

with children of the obedience of faith,

trusting the One 

who planted the garden of the tree of life

Let the family of Adam teach all the earth

the commandment of Hashem!

Then the commandment shall become a house 

and a home to you and a dwelling place

for Hashem your God in the earth

But the commandment given to Adam

went in one ear and out the other

Adam was lost in self-infatuation

When Adam was lost, Adam was stolen

from the house of the commandment of God

Then, like a mother with a fierce love,

the commandment pursued her child, Adam, into exile

Like a father with a ferocious righteous jealousy

the commandment of God set out to rescue his child, Adam, 

from the angels of rebellion and death

Wandering Adam 

looked up in the dark at the stars and thought,

God must live somewhere beyond the stars…

Exiled Adam thought about God's commandment

and all they could see was a double edged sword

of God’s incompressible transcendence and 

his terrifying immanence

In truth, Hashem’s transcendence and immanence

are not opposite sides of a sword or even close to it

Only to exiled Adam they were a double edged sword

Because the mystery of God was concealed from them

God is transcendent in all qualities

including immanence

His home is in his compassionate love

and in his commandment,

which arises from his holy, transcendent authority 

His commandment is not far from you

It is in your mouth and on your tongue

to separate what is good,

the way of life,

from what is evil,

the way of death,

This is the path that leads to loving Hashem your God

with all you are

How can we who are wanderers walk in the path

of friendship and mercy towards all others,

the path of returning to the knowledge of Hashem?

How can we return to a foundation of knowledge 

that is not based upon doubt,

upon mixing together good and evil?

Only by walking according to Hashem’s commandment

This is the commandment of repentance 

to trust in his covenant of Israel,

waiting for its promised fulfillment

This is the eternal path of life,

a path to be walked step of faith by step of faith,

one obedient step following another

There is no other way to walk without falling,

to walk on the path of faithful mercy towards others

This alone is the final Purim miracle

This alone is the final Passover miracle 

For the commandment shall say unto them

"Hear, oh Israel, Hashem your God,

Hashem is one"

Adam shall hear and live

Adam, who was cut down

and left for dead like a fallen tree

on the day they ate the corrupting seed,

shall hear and live

On the day that the enemies of the Jews

looked forward to ruling over them,

to owning them forever as slaves,

or to exterminating every Jew,

on that day it was reversed

On that same day

the Jews would rule over their enemies

Then the commandment shall become

a commandment of celebration and joy,

a commandment of friendship on a holy day

And the table of the Torah

shall be set for a thousand years

And Adam and Eve shall come to sit and eat freely

at the table of Torah Israel