Tzav (Leviticus 6:1-8:36) March 27, 2021/14 Nissan 5781

This week's reading, Tzav, details the ceremony of ordaining and installing Aaron and his sons as priests. Part of the ceremony involves the slaughter of a ram which was offered as an ordination sacrifice, and the meat of which the newly ordained priests were to eat during their week-long seclusion in the Tabernacle. The description of this slaughtering is unique not in word choice or in spelling, but in the metatextual function of the cantillation. When the Torah is read publicly as part of the synagogue service, it's chanted using a system of notation developed in the tenth century (different communities developed different musical motifs, but the symbols are consistent). In addition to indicating the melodies used for the words, the markings - called "ta‘amim" in Hebrew, which means something like "sense" or "meaning" - indicate where the stress in a word falls and also function as a sort of punctuation. There's a whole taxonomy of different types of ta‘amim and what sort of a break in the phrase they represent.

The word "slaughtered" is marked with one of the rarest motifs in all of the Torah. The symbol, called "shalshelet," appears only three other times in the whole Torah, all in Genesis, and it always appears on the first word of the verse. In the Ashkenazi tradition of Torah reading, shalshelet is one of the most elaborate motifs to exist, with the word being stretched over thirty notes running up and down the scale. From the rarity of ours appearance and the way in which it sounds, we can derive some meaning from the presence of the shalshelet.

Wherever we see a word accented with shalshelet, we can identify some sort of hesitation in the dramatis personae of the story. The first time we see a shalshelet, it is on the description of Lot lingering in Sodom even as the angels he is hosting tell him to leave because the city is to be destroyed. We next find the shalshelet in Parashat Hayei Sarah, when Abraham's servant Eliezer is on his mission to find a wife for Isaac. In that verse, the shalshelet opens the servant's prayer that God send a fitting wife for his master's son. The melismatic tune indicates how Eliezer has doubts about the realism of finding an appropriate match for Isaac. Two generations later, in the story of Joseph as a slave in Potiphar's household, Joseph's refusal to sleep with his master's wife is punctuated by a shalshelet, showing his struggle to resist the temptation.

So, why does the shalshelet appear here, on the slaughtering of a ram? Moses here is conflicted. He has been commanded to install his older brother and his nephews as priests, and therefore as the exclusive guardians of the cultic authority. Up until now, Moses has been the sole leader of the Israelite camp. He has been the only one who can approach the altar and commune with God. While Aaron has always been there to help him, it's always been Moses who is the leader. But now, Moses is having to forfeit some of the spiritual leadership and give it over to someone else. In a previous week, we talked about the fact that the division of leadership between spiritual and secular authority is both good and important, but giving up power is still a difficult thing for most people, Moses included.

Hesitation and internal conflict is both normal and to be expected. It's how we deal with it that matters. Moses may not have been totally ready to step back from his unitary leadership role, but he understood that the role which he must play in the future of the Israelite travel to the promised land required him to share the leadership of the camp. Asking for help is often very difficult. We want to feel like we can do everything on our own. And admitting we can't sometimes feels like admitting defeat or failure. But when we do need help, it's important to rely on those around us who are there to back us up. All the way back in parashat Yitro, we see Jethro advise Moses to appoint lower-level leaders to which he can delegate. Here we have something different, with Moses elevating someone to a rank parallel to his, albeit with a different portfolio. That makes the hesitation and the difficulty even greater. Moses wants, as we all do, to be able to do it all. We can't do it all though. And God knows that, so God doesn't expect us to do it all. Trusting ourselves, trusting God, and trusting those to whom we can turn for help is an important part of leadership. If, as I talked about months ago when I started this project, leadership is about taking responsibility, it's also about knowing when to hand over some of that responsibility. The buck may stop with the leader, but it doesn't start there. Not every buck needs to be passed all the way up the chain, and not every Buck will. Moses, like anyone in his position, has to trust that his delegates and those to whom he is spinning off authority are intelligent enough, capable enough, and responsible enough to make the right choices. And if the buck does get passed all the way to Moses, he's able to address it.

Shabbat shalom and a happy and kosher Pesach to all.