By Bob Braun, April 12, 2025
Shabbat Shalom
When I began to prepare for this drash, last night, I read that on Shabbat Hagadol, it is customary the leading rabbi of the community give a long drasha on the laws of Pesach and inspire the people, in preparation for the coming holiday.
Naturally, I began to wonder whether that might make me a leading rabbi of our community, so I asked a few of the rabbis we are lucky to have in our Minyan. Michael Berenbaum looked at me, and asked me if my kids were coming to us for Pesach. Gail Labovitz questioned the existence of leading Rabbis in our community at all. Rabbi Rembaum taught me the history of Shabbat Hagadol, and its chiastic structure with Shabbat Shuvah and Shabbat Shekalim. And when I asked Mickey Rosen – while not a rabbi, certainly knowledgeable in these affairs – he said that the problem with our community is that everyone thinks they are a leading rabbi. Elliot Dorf, however, agreed that I was a leading Rabbi, but it was contingent on my paying overdue tuition. So I guess I’m not a leading rabbi in the community, and I’ll have to refund the deposits for the weddings that I contracted to officiate.
This was complicated by the fact that Pesach begins in but a few hours, and is it really appropriate for us to talk about the laws of Pesach – the Sermon is supposed to address the purging vessels, the destruction of chametz, the baking of matzah and the other laws of Passover — when there’s not much we can do about it? If you haven’t done that already, it’s really too late.
Moreover, the Mishnah Bereurah (429:2) says that when the Shabbat before Pesach occurs erev Yom Tov, we advance Shabbat Hagadol to the previous Shabbat. So this isn’t really Shabbat Hagadol, and Michael could have given a much longer drash last week.
So we’ve resolved that I am not a learned Rabbi – or a Rabbi of any kind – and that I shouldn’t feel compelled to discuss the laws of Pesach. All of which is something of a relief, but it leaves me with just the parasha hashvuah – Tzav – to talk about, and frankly, that’s a challenge.
What do we read Parashat Tzav? A continuation of the laws of sacrifices, and the ordination of the High Priest. But these are contingent on the existence of the Temple, and that’s unlikely, at least in the foreseeable future – after all, just getting building permits in Jerusalem is more than a challenge. And how excited are we to sacrifice animals at all? We haven’t done that for 2,000 years.
At the same time, we study the laws of sacrifice, whether in the Tanach, the Mishneh, the Talmud and the commentaries over the centuries. For those who daven daily, Brachot hashachar begins, after the introductory brachot, with laws of sacrifice, including the first psukim from this parasha, and includes even more detailed laws of the sacrifice (although you’ll have to go to an orthodox siddur to find this; it’s not in Sim Shalom).
Realistically, no matter how some might yearn for a return to the Temple, it’s probably not going to happen in the near future, and it’s going to take a lot of work; however detailed the descriptions in the Talmud and the various commentaries may be, I can only imagine that there were mountains of unwritten instructions, handed from generation to generation. These are laws that we learn without any practical application.
So why do we study the sacrifices if we can’t perform them? As long as we’re on that point, let’s acknowledge that there are a lot of laws and instructions in the Torah that fall into that category – laws that we cannot perform, whether because they do not apply outside of Israel, or because we don’t have the structure – the courts and government – to implement them, or we simply don’t know the true details.
How do we turn this into a relevant lesson for us, today?
So it was coincidental that, a few weeks ago, I read in Masechet Sanhedrin about the laws of the conviction and execution ben sorer umoreh, the stubborn and rebellious son, a subject much on the minds of parents of teenage boys. The Rabbis assert that there has never been a stubborn and rebellious son and there never will be one, since it is impossible to fulfill all of the requirements that must be met to apply this halakha. And the gmorrah asks directly: why do we study this at all? Rabbi Yehuda answers it is to learn something, to gain new understanding of Torah. One might say that its theoretical value is what makes it so important – it is Torah l’shma, learning Torah for its own sake. Although I must point out that Rabbi Yonatan says that he saw it. But Rabbi Yonatan was that kind of guy. The rabbis say the same thing about the destruction of an Ir Hnidachat, an idolatrous city – the laws are so obtuse, that it will never happen, and we study in order to gain new insights into the Torah. Of course, it was at that point that Rabbi Yonatan raised his hand and said – “nope, I saw it – I even sat on its ruins.” On the other hand, Sanhedrin also recounts the laws and punishment of a rebellious elder, and there’s no indication that the Rabbis shied away from that law.
Applying that concept, that we study not just to do, but to learn, what do we learn from Parashat Tzav?
I will share a learning from Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis – sorry to those who were waiting for Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sachs. The parasha tells us something about the practice of presenting both the Olah (Burnt) and the Chatat (Sin) offerings. Each of the sacrifices is brought on the North side of the Altar, and are designated as the holiest of offerings. At the same time, the Olah and Chatat offerings have entirely opposite functions. The Olah enabled a person to reach great spiritual heights, a prerequisite to bringing the sacrifice. The Chatat was a sin offering, brought by those who had erred in their ways.
Why have the sin offering and the burnt offering brought on the same place, the holiest place for sacrifices in the Temple? The Rabbis suggest that we can, sometimes, enable the Chatat to pave the way towards achieving the Olah. It’s similar to the way we can, or should, react to failure – not as an immutable personal defect, but the opportunity to do better. We are able to move forward, not despite our failings but because of them. If we recognize where we went wrong and if we also learn from the failings and the sins of others, we can utilize that awareness in order to pave the way for future success. If we achieve our objectives, it will be but a short step from Chatat to Olah; from the depths of failure, to the heights of success, from sin to holiness.
Although it is not necessarily Shabbat Hagadol, I do want to suggest something for this evening (and for those who practice it, the second seder). We have all been to many sedarim. This is my 134th seder (but who’s counting), and there may be times when the ritual that we have performed so often loses its meaning, especially when we spend so much time cleaning, cooking, and preparing for the Seder, and learning the unique laws of a Seder beginning Motzei Shabbat. If we can learn something from rituals that we cannot perform, all the more so should we seek to find new meaning tonight in the rituals that fulfill Torah obligations.
And to take it one more step, we live in a world that is troubling, and dark, and often appears random and pointless, a world in which we have so little power over our lives that we are similar to enslaved people. But perhaps we can step back, and wonder if we can’t tease out something in the world that can help dispel the darkness.
Chag Kahser v’sameach