One Size Fits All

“Tzav”

“One Size Fits All!”

We’ve probably all been duped by that assurance! Sure it fits, as long as you don’t mind sleeves so long you could make it into a straitjacket!

One size definitely doesn’t fit all. Do we trust the ad enough to order it online? Do we hire a personal shopper who knows our taste, our height, our weight, body shape, even arm length?

How about prayer? Does one size fit all?

That’s a common question even though it is not usually worded that way.

Frequently I hear objections to Jewish prayer as vain repetition. It’s an uninformed way of looking at it, but we often simply repeat what someone who we respected told us. As we allow the Ruach HaKodesh to turn our spiritual life upside down repeatedly, that may be one area that turns.

To help coach new-to-Torah believers in the basics of Jewish prayer, I’ve written books such as Standing With Israel: A House of Prayer for All Nations, Messianic Shabbat Service, and Creation Gospel Workbook Six: Hebrew Prayer and Worship Traditions. Rather than cover that ground again, I thought I would reiterate one of the principles of Hebrew prayer.

Although the basic daily, feast, and Shabbat prayers are fixed and do not change, they do not need to. The Temple service was the same. Fixed. As the daily prayers took the place of the Temple services after its destruction, they too, were fixed.

There is room in the Amidah prayers for spontaneous, personal conversation with Adonai. The point of Hebrew prayer is that the person is transformed with each prayer. When I pray the Amidah in the evening, I am not the same person who prayed it that morning. The conversation with Adonai changed me. As immersion into Messiah Yeshua makes me a new person, so does the fire of the Ruach burn me on the altar each day.

This is why it is so difficult to advise someone on which siddur (prayer book) to purchase. It’s kind of like picking out someone else’s clothes, especially if you don’t know them personally. I’d need to know several things:

1. Do you want Hebrew text, English, or both?

2. Do you want an English transliteration?

3. Do you need a daily siddur, Shabbat siddur, or a combination of both?

4. Do you want a Messianic siddur?

5. Large print, or are you good with a font the size of a gnat’s tattoo in the pocket size?

You get the gist.

This week’s Ulpan-Or newsletter on the Torah portion is an excellent illustration of the personal relationship with prayer. The ashes from altar that burn down from the previous day are symbolically placed beside it. Today’s sacrifice will be a new one. Today’s prayers will be new because we are new, re-born of fire and water. With their permission to reproduce, I’ve included Ulpan-Or’s lesson below:

TORAH PORTION “Tzav”

This Shabbat we will read Torah Portion “Tzav”.

In our Torah Portion Tzav, G?d instructs Moses to command Aaron and his sons regarding their duties who offer the offerings on the altar in the Sanctuary.

The fire on the altar had to be kept burning at all times.

It is interesting to notice that each and every morning, the first order of the day in the Holy Temple was for the priest to remove a small portion of the ashes from the altar and place it on the floor just next to the altar.

Why particularly the priest had to start each day with removing ashes from the previous day?

What was the purpose of this ritual?

The purpose of this ritual was not merely to tidy up the ashes left over from the fire that had burned all night. The priest only had to remove a very small symbolic amount of ash.

And, in fact, after the first priest would remove a small portion of the ashes, the other priests would place the remainder of the ashes in a large heap in the center of the altar.

Why is it so important that it’s the first ritual performed in the Temple, – the first step in the service of G?d?

What is the significance of lifting and removing the symbolic amount of ashes?

Let us think. What are ashes?

These are what is left over from the previous day’s service.

Your yesterday, may have been perfect.

Yesterday, you may have achieved a lot with your talents and strengths.

But, …. That was yesterday.

However, if you do the same thing today, you do not grow spiritually.

If you repeat what you did yesterday – then you are merely stuck in the past.

You remain the “Old You”.

So, the ashes that represent “the old me” must be removed, in order to clear the way for “the new me,” that today will actualize today’s greater potential.

That’s why the first step in serving G?d each morning is the realization that that the ashes that represent “the old me” must be removed, in order to clear the way for “the new me,”

One must tell himself – Tomorrow will be totally different – not just “a bit different,” The next day’s potential would be so much greater.

Unlike in the Beatles’ song “Yesterday”, one should not long for yesterday, but rather look onward for a better tomorrow.

Remembering the exodus from Egypt is so central to Judaism.

Egypt in Hebrew is Mitzrayim – ?????, and it means “constraints.”

So, if today you are in the same spiritual space that you were in yesterday, you are in Egypt – you are constrained.

The verse in the Torah insists that you “remember the day you left Egypt all the days of your life.”

Each morning when we wake up, we need to remember to symbolically remove the ashes of yesterday and not limit ourselves to the person we were yesterday.

As Dr. Joe Dispenza says in his book: “Breaking the Habit of being yourself: “If you want a new outcome, you will have to break the habit of being yourself, and reinvent a new self.”