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TZAV
The entire relationship between God and Israel is reflected in the opening verb of this week’s Torah reading. The word “tzav” reflects an attitude of command and of subservience. Even though explanations for the command may be given and understood, the command itself remains viable and imperative no matter what.
The Lord called the Jewish people “an army of God.” An army operates on commands and discipline, on following orders and executing them faithfully and accurately. Though individual initiative is always to be treasured and admired, an army that operates completely on that initiative is doomed to defeat and destruction.
In all relationships in life a command structure is necessary in order for achievement and accomplishment to occur. By the nature of human society there must exist those who will command and those who in turn will obey and execute those commands. That is why the word for an imperative fulfillment of a positive act of spirituality – mitzvah - has as its root the word for command.
The difference throughout the ages, between traditional Judaism and those groups within the Jewish people who created for themselves new and different ways of Jewish thought and observance, has always been this concept of command. We are commanded to observe the Torah in a detailed and sophisticated manner. By substituting our own whims, ideas and political correctness for God’s command we invariably slip down the road of historical extinction.
At Sinai we declared that we would do and obey and only then submit the command to rational explanation. In an age when loyalty and obedience to any authority has become rare and even subject to being looked at askance, the triumph of traditional Judaism is based, now as always, on obeying commandments and executing them faithfully.
Judaism has a moral code that prevents it from obeying the commandments and orders that are within themselves intrinsically evil and immoral. The explanation given by all of the Nazi war criminals for their bestiality and atrocities committed in World War II has always been that they were only following orders.
Judaism does not allow for obeying immoral orders of murder and the deprivation of other human beings. Even at the risk of sacrificing one’s own life, one is not allowed to kill others wantonly. The Torah therefore emphasizes that one is not permitted to add or detract from the Godly commandments ordained for us.
The rabbis of the Talmud and of later generations built a fence around those commandments to protect them and preserve them. But there is no change in the value and method of observance of the commandments. A commandment that can be countermanded or ignored at one’s own whim is in reality no commandment at all.
In a society where there are no fixed commandments and all morality is relative and subject to change, chaos and immorality will undoubtedly eventually prevail. All of history, both Jewish and general, testifies to this immutable truth. We are sanctified by obeying God’s commandments and Jewish tradition.
Shabbat shalom
Rabbi Berel Wein
