The word tzav means “commandment.” The Zohar says very clearly that “commandment” is idol worship. But what is it that we do in a temple, if not follow the commandments? Are we to consider our presence in this temple ordered by God — as conditional and as idol worshipping? Idol worship has only one definition: It is the realm of chaos dictated, commanded, and dominated by the negative side.
"Change requires a constant support system."
Everywhere we go, there’s chaos. We can’t escape this consciousness of the dominion of chaos in our human world. Yet here we are trying to retool our consciousness, to undo millennia of thinking, to change. This change requires a constant support system; it’s not enough to just merely think about this physical reality of chaos as being illusionary. We need a support system, and that’s why we come here every Shabbat. It is impossible to alter our consciousness without having this support.
The world continues on with this fabrication of a concept of what God is about: “Because this is what God wants.” And yet we have found, and we have learned according to the principles of Kabbalah originating with this Zohar, that God never commands. God merely furnishes us with the methodology, the technology, by which we can avoid the pitfalls of chaos. And thus we have an opportunity to understand that God didn’t simply thrust us into this world of chaos without giving us a way to get out.
"God didn’t simply thrust us into this world of chaos without giving us a way to get out."
The Zohar and the kabbalists explain that the word “sacrifice” mentioned here in the Lesson of Tzav means to “sacrifice our chaos.” The sacrifices are our way to connect to and benefit from the power of the Light in our lives. Each sacrifice mentioned in this chapter corresponds to a different level of chaos. We need to understand that chaos comes in different levels, and in different intensities. The different sacrifices are our way of eliminating these different levels and types of chaos from our life.
A person making a sacrifice is given the opportunity and the ability to transcend time, space, and motion, and to repair the chaos that he or she has created in the universe. Sacrifices radiate an energy beyond our perception, and they have the power to instantly repair negative actions committed years before and long distances away.
*Rav Berg on the portion of Tzav, taken from The Kabbalistic Bible (2009).
