By Sholom Olensky
This week in the Torah:
A Commandment regarding cleaning the Altar in the morning to allow room for the day’s sacrifices. The Kohain (Priest) was to shovel the excess burnt matter and place it on the ground next to the Altar. Then, he was to change into lesser clothes and carry some of that excess outside the Jewish settlement and leave it there.
Rashi:
The change of clothes was so as not to wear the daily Priestly garments while he left the settlement. One does not wear the clothes of cooking a dish for one’s Master while pouring the wine before one’s Master.
Question:
Seemingly, the obvious reason for this changing of clothes is in order to preserve the cleanliness of the regular Priestly-service clothes. Walking with a panful of charcoal out through the settlement was surely opportunity for soiling one’s garments. Why does Rashi need to explain the instruction for the Kohain to change his clothes?
Answer:
Rashi is answering an obvious question: Why does the Torah here care about the cleanliness of the Kohain’s clothes more so than during any other of the Sacrificial services dealing with all kinds of soiled matter?
To answer this, Rashi brings the analogy to two different tasks done for one’s Master, done in different clothes; cooking and serving wine. The major difference between them is that cooking is done away from one’s Master (like walking the excess burnt matter outside the settlement). Pouring wine into the goblet is done before one’s Master (like the first task of ascending the Altar and placing the larger amount of excess on the ground beside it).
From a spiritual perspective:
These two services, one before G-d, so to speak, as opposed to the other which is away from His “Presence,” represent two types of service – the essential and the prefatory. Nevertheless, they were fit to be done by the same person. This teaches us to value G-d’s varying but always G-dly desires, whether they feel essential or merely subordinate and prefatory.
The fact that it could be the same person to do both services, in the Temple and outside the settlement, teaches us that regardless of one’s preference to stay in “holy indoors” and serve therein, there is work to be done outside as well, equally important to the true servant of G-d: To reach out and draw those with colder attitudes towards G-d, closer to His Torah and its Mitzvahs.
The connection to Passover:
G-d Almighty Himself descended into corrupt Egypt to redeem the Jews and draw them close to Him and give them His Torah.
Wishing you a Kosher and happy Pesach!
(Based on Likkutei Sichos Vol. 37, Tzav)
