Tamid can mean both “forever” and “regularly.” In that double significance is part of the secret of Jewish survival.
By DAVID WOLPE ‘And he shall cut it into its pieces; and the priest shall lay them, with its head and its suet, in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar’ (Leviticus 1:12). Vayikra, Leviticus 1:1-5:26, is read on March 20.(photo credit: ISRAEL WEISS)
‘The burnt offering shall remain on the altar all the night and the fire kept going in it (Lev. 6:2).”So the Torah tells us, permitting the hassidic commentators to note that “in it” – tukad bo – can be read “in him.” The fire must be in the Priest; he must be filled with hitlahavut, the burning wish to serve God. Being filled with the fire to serve God, however, is not as uncomplicated as it may sound, and the very wording of the Torah hints at this truth.The fire to be kindled is an esh tamid, a perpetual fire. It must be burned upon the altar and shall not go out (ibid, 6:6). The word tamid has a curious ambiguity. In Exodus 27:20 we read of the ner tamid, the eternal light. Similarly, Lev. 24:2 speaks of a ner tamid. Yet in both cases it does not say they shall burn all the time, but rather “from evening until morning.” Some translations therefore render it as a “regularly kindled light.”Tamid can mean both “forever” and “regularly.” In that double significance is part of the secret of Jewish survival. The Temple was supposed to be tamid – forever. Yet it was destroyed, so how do we keep its messages alive? Through ritual, which is done regularly, b’chol yam tamid – renewed every day. In an imperfect world, the only way to keep something forever is to return to it periodically. Judaism is not a steady state tradition; it is one that requires constant renewal.Consider the modern ner tamid itself. In every synagogue there is a ner tamid, an eternal light, that hangs above the ark. When that synagogue, or that city, is no more, the light will go out. We might conclude that the appellation “tamid” is mistaken, and all light is by its very nature temporary.Yet the Shabbat candles have been lit tamid, regularly, for thousands of years. In a deep sense they are the eternal lights of the Jewish people. It is in repetition, regularity, that we keep both memory and meaning alive. Something done once disappears; as the Germans say, einmal ist keinmal – once is nothing. But the Torah’s lesson is the lesson of Tamid – do something over and over again, create sacred habits, and the meaning of that which you do will endure. We cannot study Torah but once or pray one time and expect that the words will dig deep grooves into our souls.Returning to the High Priest, the imperative that he be aflame with religious enthusiasm is something that cannot be true at every moment. There are times in life that require something very different from religious ecstasy. We are bound to live in this world, to balance checkbooks, cook our meals and mop the floor. The religious personality is someone who has a pilot light inside that can be over and over kindled into a flame. Wordsworth spoke of poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” There must be both – the fire and the tending to the fire, the initial burst of wonder and the careful shepherding of that experience to yield repeated fruit.When Moses approaches the burning bush, he sees a fire that does not consume. It is a reminder that a life lived solely on the plane of passion is fleeting and destructive. Rather we must reground ourselves, keep the flame in check, make sure it does not consume us. Jews are the people of the ner tamid, the ever-renewable flame. There have been times in our history when it flickered and seemed in danger of going out. Our faith and history teach us, however, that even in times when the glow seems dim or the day dark, the light will shine again.■The writer is Max Webb Senior Rabbi at Sinai Temple, Los Angeles, and author of David and the Divided Heart. On Twitter: @rabbiwolpe.
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