The trees around our neighborhood have been budding this week, and it’s lovely to stop, pay attention and notice. Sometimes it’s the small things, you know? Parshat Tzav walks us through the rituals of the burnt offering, the grain offering, the purgation offering, reparation offering, the offering of ordination, and the sacrifice of well-being. It’s heavy with repetition, and a bit of a repeat of the instructions we already learned. But this time, something shifts. This is the first moment where it starts to move from theory into lived experience. By the end of the parsha, Moses performs the ordination ceremony on Aaron and his sons. It’s a true transition moment – the beginning of doing. The first real glimpse of na’aseh v’nishma—we will do, and then we will understand.
Chapter 8 describes the public ceremony in which Aaron and his sons are consecrated as priests, with the whole community has gathered at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to witness. Moses performs all the preparations – he washes Aaron and his sons, dresses them in their priestly garments, and anoints the tabernacle and the alter.
Moses then goes through the order of offerings: first a purgation (sin) offering, followed by a burnt offering, next the ordination offering. As a part of the ritual, blood and oil are placed on Aaron and his sons, symbolizing their sanctification for what lies ahead.
Finally, through Moses, God commands that they remain inside the Tent of Meeting for seven days. They don’t step into their role immediately. There is a waiting period. A holding space between preparation and full entry into the work. And so, they obey.
To be completely honest, at first I was having a challenging time connecting this particular parsha to my modern life 3,000 years later. But then I thought about my first pregnancy. All the reading I did — books about pregnancy, books about childbirth, and books on how the first few months at home would look. From pregnancy through those early months into the toddler years—you understand, not because you were told, but because you did it. You moved through it. You performed it, step by step. You’ve performed the ritual sacrifice, another version of “we will do and then we will understand.” And the second time, and third time, and even the fourth time around land completely differently because – all though every child brings it’s own unique challenges to the table – we’ve walked this road before. Because something in you has already been initiated.
(We found out we were expecting our first baby right before Passover this time, eight years ago).
Happy Passover. See you back here next week.