It starts with a command: Tzav. Same root as mitzvah. Here though there is an extra urgency. The voice of the Talmud came to me in my morning meditation; extra urgency, Tzav, hurry! Do this thing.
What thing.
Lift up the ashes, thus says your Torah. And put on some fine clothes. Which ashes, which clothes? (Leviticus 6:1-6)
The ashes from the ‘olah the offering, lifted up, all burnt, yesterday’s ashes lift them up hurry lift up the remains of yesterday, put them next to the holy altar the fire shall not go out. Clean up your ashes, man, this I heard in the voice of the Talmud.
I went searching for the rest of the story. The voice of the Mishnah began to speak through me.
Nothing of the offering can be used, everything burnt up, except the hides. You might make a nice jacket out of the hides.
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The hide business not a very fashionable business these days, I thought. Still the idea that I could sport a fine jacket a great suit some lovely overalls today this is how the story moved me. I wasn’t expecting an embrace of the outside in the inside-outside dynamic. Generally I opt for the inside.
But here is something I learned from the Zohar, classic text of Jewish mysticism: that after all the wandering, one returns to the pshat, the plain sense of the text, because through the plan sense of the text the surfaces relax and everything appears. The surfaces release so to speak their opacity and become transparent.
There is no outside-inside dynamic it’s all inside Zohar might say. Or once you have been inside, the outside-inside crunch ceases and through the outside you have everything. It’s all inside or it’s all outside, it’s all One anyway and transparent.
Those who understand – will understand. Now if I am sporting a fine jacket or a great suit some tasteful overalls you will understand I am not shallow, I am transparent. I have lifted up the remains of yesterday to the best of my ability, I have kept the fire burning the best I can. I cleaned up yesterday’s ashes and lifted them up yom yom — daily — to the extent that I could, and I am wearing a really fine jacket that I have made from the hides, and it is making me look pretty darn good and some days I need to look pretty darn good from the outside because the inside may be wounded or in turmoil or confusion or doubt or fear and a really fine jacket made from those hides is about what I can manage and it will have to be enough.
That day.
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