Change Your Clothes, Change Your Attitude
Leviticus is filled with inordinate and detailed lists about rituals we no longer perform. This week we read more about the sacrifices. The priests, descendants of Aaron, were charged with performing these offerings.
One would expect given the priests’ lofty position they would not have to perform mundane activities. Yet, they had to do things like tending to the fire. It is not left to the temple custodian but instead to the priests.
The Torah proclaims, “The fire on the altar shall be kept burning, not to go out: every morning the priest shall feed wood to it.” (Leviticus 6) Keeping such a fire going was no easy task. It was physically demanding. And yet, it was left to the priest. Tending the fire required constant attention and care.
What is ordinary becomes holy when performed in the temple’s sacred precinct. What is mundane becomes elevated in the priest’s hands.
Furthermore, the priest was charged with other ordinary jobs. One in particular seems rather disgusting. The large sacrificial fire must have produced a tremendous amount of ash. Again, every morning it was the priest’s job to remove the ash. “He shall then take off his vestments and put on other vestments and carry the ash outside the camp to a pure place.”
Why did he have to change his clothes? He does not change his clothes to lift the ash out of the fire pit. It is only when he removes the ash from the sacred precinct and carries it outside the camp.
The Hasidic rebbe, Simchah Bunim, responds. He writes, “The first act of the priest every morning is to put on ordinary clothes and remove the ash of the previous night’s sacrifice. This ensures that he will never forget his link to the ordinary people who spend their days in mundane pursuits.”
The Torah insists that the priest is not exempt from menial tasks. It also insists that he never forget he is just like everyone else. His change of clothes helps guard him against thinking he is unlike others, that he is better than others.
Too often leaders allow themselves to believe they are extraordinary. They forget the central responsibility of leadership. Leaders only become extraordinary when the people they lead are lifted to extraordinary heights.
Likewise, we often think that our synagogue services, and the prayers we recite, are somehow disconnected from our everyday, ordinary lives. They are not. They may seem like they are only about God but instead they are about changing our frame of mind.
Our prayers are meant to reinvigorate the everyday with meaning. They are intended to provide us with renewed strength. Then the ordinary can feel extraordinary.
I just wish it was as simple as changing our clothes.