Parshas Tzav: The Fire That Stays
I had to be in New York on Monday night for a wedding. The original plan was simple, a quick trip in and out. Then my sister had a baby boy, with the bris set for Thursday, and I decided to stay instead of going back and forth.
Only after looking at the calendar did I realize it would also overlap with my Zaidy’s yartzeit (7 Nissan). I hadn’t planned to be there for it, to be with family, to visit his kever. But I was.
It brought me back to exactly one year ago, when I made two back to back trips to New York, first for this same sister’s wedding, and then again for Zaidy’s yartzeit. That contrast stayed with me as I thought about this week’s parsha.
Parshas Tzav opens with a quiet instruction:
אֵשׁ תָּמִיד תּוּקַד עַל הַמִּזְבֵּחַ לֹא תִכְבֶּה
A fire shall always be burning on the Mizbeach. It may not go out.
Last year felt like fire. This year feels like coals.
A year ago, my life felt like something was opening. There was a kind of inner fire, a sense of movement, something I could feel as it was happening.
I knew what it was then. It had a name. It had intensity. It asked for attention.
This year feels different.
The work now is quieter. Less about entering something new, more about tending what’s already been opened. Finding balance. Letting life itself be the place where things are worked through, not only the moments that feel like fire.
Just showing up. Tuesday night at my Bubby’s house for Mishnayos and a siyum, the room filled with voices saying the words together, being there with family.
And then again Wednesday morning, going to his kever on my own before heading to work. No crowd this time. Just standing there, speaking to him quietly. Remembering.
Some people were there later for Tehillim in person, others scattered around the world in their own cities, but on a day like this there’s a quiet awareness that we’re all thinking about the same person. And maybe, in a way we don’t fully understand, he’s thinking about us too.
——
Reading today’s Hayom Yom, 7 Nissan, it lists the different family names of the first three Chabad Rebbeim. The names change across generations, but the line itself continues.
Standing there, it feels familiar.
His own family looks like that now. Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. Different last names. Different homes. Different directions. And still, all tracing back. Not only to one person, but to a home that was built, a life that was lived together — with Bubby, who should continue to be healthy and strong until 120.
The world doesn’t look the same anymore. Not from the Rebbeim’s time to when Zaidy was born, and not from then to now. And still, something carries through.
Not as something new, but as something that continues.
Something continues. And something genuinely new takes shape.
Only after looking at the calendar did I realize it would also overlap with my Zaidy’s yartzeit (7 Nissan). I hadn’t planned to be there for it, to be with family, to visit his kever. But I was.
It brought me back to exactly one year ago, when I made two back to back trips to New York, first for this same sister’s wedding, and then again for Zaidy’s yartzeit. That contrast stayed with me as I thought about this week’s parsha.
Parshas Tzav opens with a quiet instruction:
אֵשׁ תָּמִיד תּוּקַד עַל הַמִּזְבֵּחַ לֹא תִכְבֶּה
A fire shall always be burning on the Mizbeach. It may not go out.
Last year felt like fire. This year feels like coals.
A year ago, my life felt like something was opening. There was a kind of inner fire, a sense of movement, something I could feel as it was happening.
I knew what it was then. It had a name. It had intensity. It asked for attention.
This year feels different.
The work now is quieter. Less about entering something new, more about tending what’s already been opened. Finding balance. Letting life itself be the place where things are worked through, not only the moments that feel like fire.
And then again Wednesday morning, going to his kever on my own before heading to work. No crowd this time. Just standing there, speaking to him quietly. Remembering.
Some people were there later for Tehillim in person, others scattered around the world in their own cities, but on a day like this there’s a quiet awareness that we’re all thinking about the same person. And maybe, in a way we don’t fully understand, he’s thinking about us too.
——
Reading today’s Hayom Yom, 7 Nissan, it lists the different family names of the first three Chabad Rebbeim. The names change across generations, but the line itself continues.
Standing there, it feels familiar.
His own family looks like that now. Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. Different last names. Different homes. Different directions. And still, all tracing back. Not only to one person, but to a home that was built, a life that was lived together — with Bubby, who should continue to be healthy and strong until 120.
The world doesn’t look the same anymore. Not from the Rebbeim’s time to when Zaidy was born, and not from then to now. And still, something carries through.
Not as something new, but as something that continues.
——
In the middle of all that, there will be a bris tomorrow, iy”h. A new child about to enter that same line. Another name being added. Another home beginning to take shape.
He’ll receive a first name of his own.
But he’s also born into a last name that already exists. Into a home shaped by two families that came together.
It makes you wonder what is already there, and what will be shaped over time.
What moves forward without being noticed, and what is chosen more intentionally.
On the surface, it’s simple. A name carries a story you can recognize. A language, a place, a style of life. You hear it and you already know something.
In Hebrew, names aren’t just identifiers. They’re made of letters. And those letters carry something — energy, story, a kind of life force we don’t have a full formula for.
When two people build a home together, she brings her whole world into it, even if the name on the door is his. A child is born carrying both. Something passes forward that no name can fully capture.
In the middle of all that, there will be a bris tomorrow, iy”h. A new child about to enter that same line. Another name being added. Another home beginning to take shape.
He’ll receive a first name of his own.
But he’s also born into a last name that already exists. Into a home shaped by two families that came together.
It makes you wonder what is already there, and what will be shaped over time.
What moves forward without being noticed, and what is chosen more intentionally.
On the surface, it’s simple. A name carries a story you can recognize. A language, a place, a style of life. You hear it and you already know something.
In Hebrew, names aren’t just identifiers. They’re made of letters. And those letters carry something — energy, story, a kind of life force we don’t have a full formula for.
When two people build a home together, she brings her whole world into it, even if the name on the door is his. A child is born carrying both. Something passes forward that no name can fully capture.
Something continues. And something genuinely new takes shape.
Maybe this is how a fire actually stays.
Not everything we inherit is something we choose.
But what we carry forward always is.
Sometimes that choice doesn’t come as something loud.
It comes as something quieter.
A small sense of what to hold on to.
What to soften this time.
What doesn’t need to be carried forward.
Not a new fire being lit.
More like a whisper you decide to listen to.
Gently fanning the coals.
That’s also part of what it means for it not to go out.
——
Tzav is not a parsha of beginnings. It is a parsha of continuation. Of tending to something that already exists, even when nothing new is being added, even when there is no visible change.
Tzav teaches that this too is a kind of avodah.
To stand inside something that began before you.
To receive it as it is.
And to decide, quietly, what continues through you.
Not with noise. Not with a new fire every time.
But by staying.
Good Shabbos,
Berke
P.S.
If you can, please give tzedakah or do a mitzvah in his memory.
מרדכי ליב בן חיים דובער
His Neshama should have an Aliyah 🩵
Not everything we inherit is something we choose.
But what we carry forward always is.
Sometimes that choice doesn’t come as something loud.
It comes as something quieter.
A small sense of what to hold on to.
What to soften this time.
What doesn’t need to be carried forward.
Not a new fire being lit.
More like a whisper you decide to listen to.
Gently fanning the coals.
That’s also part of what it means for it not to go out.
——
Tzav is not a parsha of beginnings. It is a parsha of continuation. Of tending to something that already exists, even when nothing new is being added, even when there is no visible change.
Tzav teaches that this too is a kind of avodah.
To stand inside something that began before you.
To receive it as it is.
And to decide, quietly, what continues through you.
Not with noise. Not with a new fire every time.
But by staying.
Good Shabbos,
Berke
P.S.
If you can, please give tzedakah or do a mitzvah in his memory.
מרדכי ליב בן חיים דובער
His Neshama should have an Aliyah 🩵