Do Not Extinguish Your Flame, Even Through Life's Journeys

These are mostly the stories of the priest's induction or investiture into the priesthood that will start at the tabernacle and continue in Temple Jerusalem.

And we're told of ways that sacrifices would be offered at tabernacle,

On the altar,

And eventually,

As I said,

In the Temple,

That you must eat in a sacred space,

Which draws to mind descriptions I've had of this studio where I work,

Your studio where you paint,

The recording studio where you make the album as sacred space.

We don't often think about it that way,

But I do.

And I would encourage you to think about the sacred time and space you spend in your arts making.

But this is pretty crucial.

You can't just stay there.

You can't live your whole life in a recording studio.

Sure,

You'd probably need some vitamin D having spent some time in a recording studio.

But there is a metaphorical staying in space,

A metaphorical resting in the studio,

A metaphorical resting on your laurels.

So Maimonides,

The medieval scholar,

Brilliant man,

Smartest man in the room,

Said,

Among other places we find this,

That the location of the altar is precisely defined in Temple,

Never changed.

It's a tradition where that's where David and Solomon built the altar.

It's where Abraham built the altar.

It's where Noah landed the ark,

Where Cain and Abel brought their offerings.

That was where we were formed,

That this is an eternal space,

Whether it's literally a geographic location,

Longitude,

Latitude,

And minutes,

It's an eternal verity and space.

But that goes with us,

Perhaps,

But also any particular space can be a trap.

Any particular institution can become calcified.

Any focus of mind and process of art making can become its own hobgoblin,

To quote the poet.

So there is that challenge.

We need to create sacred space.

We need to create sacred time and structure our making,

Our creativity,

Our productivity and prayer,

But it can become stultifying.

It can become soul-deadening and creativity-hampering.

And then there's a way to go beyond gathering,

Go beyond thinking and thought process,

Go beyond creativity and cultivating and fritter time.

I hate to say this while I'm on YouTube and Instagram,

But we know that social media is a big one these days,

But there's always been opportunities.

Alcohol,

Gambling,

Sleeping for too long,

Not getting out of bed,

Not dealing with mental illness.

That we can engage in things that don't behoove us,

That limit our ability and capacity to create,

To make,

To love,

To share,

To express our passion and vision.

There is a sacrifice called the olah,

The completely offered offering.

It's completely burned to smoke.

And it's for transgressions of positive mitzvot,

Of transgressions of things that God ought for us,

That God wills for us,

That we avoid.

The majority of which,

Say some of our sages,

Arise from what they call devarim b'telim,

Voided acts or vacuous acts,

Or at the very least,

Useless speech.

I don't believe most of the time that it's possible to be lazy or truly procrastinate.

We can act out of fear,

We can act out of avoidance,

But sometimes what looks like laziness or procrastination is self-care or a gathering of material that will later go into the novel.

A reading,

A watching of TV.

I watched a long interview just now between Stephen Colbert and Paul Simon,

As recommended to me by someone I work with.

And it was worth it just for the last minute to hear Stephen Colbert express his theology,

Which I invite you to look.

We're not always wasting time.

We're rarely wasting time.

It's a used time.

I think it was in the Tao of Pu.

You can't really waste time.

You can only use it well.

We can sit still,

Can become paralyzed or petrified or frozen.

And I think that's the idea of what they called varim bitilim,

Voided time,

Vacuous acts,

Useless speech.

We can wear those incredible clothes of the priest.

We can create uniforms,

Whether it's a painter's apron,

Whether it's rock and roll clothes,

Whether it's the time,

The clothes we love to put on,

The pajamas we put on in front of the typewriter,

Whatever it would be in your process.

Whatever the sacred space is,

We can get stuck.

We can get habituated to things that no longer serve us.

The priests had robes,

Very luxurious garments,

Linens.

I've always wondered,

So they're doing these sacrifices,

Which imply,

More than imply,

Ensure a lot of blood.

And all of us know how hard it is to get blood out of cloth.

Having murdered two people,

It's hard to wash the blood out,

Even if you bury the body in the woods.

Actually,

I think I'm quoting Eminem there.

But I've always wondered,

You know,

How did they clean these clothes?

I don't think they had bleach.

I don't know what their access to soap and cleaning agents was.

And there is a Jewish experience of a Passover tablecloth that you've spilled wine on over the years.

And you bring out the old sacred tablecloth,

The old special tablecloth for Passover,

And it's got the stains of memory.

So,

I think the priestly robes must have had stains of memory.

But even so,

The priests changed their clothes regularly.

When they were engaged in new tasks in service,

They brought on new clothes,

New furniture,

New accoutrements.

There's a saying that,

You know,

When you serve the master,

Which is God,

It's not the same thing as eating with your friends.

You have to dress differently,

Be appropriate to the day,

Be to code switch,

To use a modern word.

And so,

Amid the possibility of staying in the same clothes all day,

Staying in the same place all day,

Not learning anything new,

Wasting time without growth,

Which I think that's the real tevarim b'teilim.

The way to waste time is really to spend a year and not make any efforts to change.

This week's Torah reading is called Tzav,

Which more or less means command.

But say some of our sages,

It's the language of diligence.

We are commanded to be diligent,

To be active.

It doesn't mean you can't take a nap,

Doesn't mean you can't rest,

Doesn't mean you can't stretch,

Doesn't mean you can't practice basic techniques,

But you are commanded to grow.

Life is short.

There are only a limited number of artworks one can bring forth in a lifetime.

You are commanded to make the move.

And it's daily.

It's,

As I say,

Often continual,

Not continuous,

Right?

Again and again and again.

We can't stop.

Or to quote Goethe,

Do not hurry,

Do not rest.

They're both important.

There are priests who would officiate a tabernacle and then temple.

There were Levites who would sing and chant.

I always picture that recently,

Sort of like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and the Qawwali.

And then there was the high priest,

The most senior,

The most important,

The most talented,

Perhaps,

The most knowledgeable,

I think.

Most priests just sacrificed about a week a year,

I think.

But the high priest could offer sacrifice any day.

He could take over the whole system.

Anytime,

He could just jump in.

And that's our highest spiritual aspiration,

To be ready day by day,

To be renewed day by day.

This is one of our traditions.

Daily sacrifice requires that we continually renew on a daily,

If not yearly basis.

The arts making can never just be a one-time thing.

We are continually making effort and endeavoring to deepen the practice,

To not stand still,

To kindle the fire of our passion.

So I want to finish with that idea of passion.

The Torah of Moshe,

Moshe Alsheikh writing a few centuries ago,

Talks about the altar.

And I think this is fair to say one of the most important aspects of the tabernacle is the fire.

These fires that are continually set,

These fires that lift up pleasing odor to God.

Moshe Alsheikh says that a person always stokes the ember of the divine fire.

It should never be extinguished,

Must be treated and tended day by day.

That's the work.

I don't ever imagine that the work is easy.

I don't want you to ever hear in my mind or my thoughts or my words that what I'm asking of you and of myself,

God willing,

Is that this should be easy.

It is hard.

It's hard to kindle the fire.

And one of my great mentors,

Suzanne Hassel,

Said it's important to,

Quote,

Remain faithful to that day,

That we are faithful to the day we live in,

That we work each day to our fullest so that we have nothing left to give at the end of the day and we sleep soundly.

So in this eshtamid,

In this continual or eternal fire that was around the tabernacle,

And in these stories in Leviticus,

These are laws,

But this is still given amid the travelings of the Israelites through the wilderness.

So the idea of an eternal fire,

If you think about just how hard it is to light a cigarette in the wind,

Right?

How do they keep the fire of the tabernacle burning?

Who keeps those fires stoked?

How do they keep it going throughout journeys?

So there was this idea of maybe a concavity they had,

Like a shell,

Maybe a bell that they would put the embers in and line it with sand to keep it warm,

A sort of picture like a clam bake or a kosher clam bake,

Let's say.

And that's how they would travel.

They would travel with the embers,

I guess probably not unlike the travel of the Olympic flame.

I don't know enough about that to be sure.

Sometimes all you have is the ember.

Sometimes your passion is quieter and God-willing not quenched,

But tender and small and you coax it and you gather it and you carry it safely and carefully.

You treat yourself kindly.

But the work really is to keep it going.

There is a phrase that took me a long time to translate,

Although as I look back on it,

I don't know why it says,

That you should not extinguish even on a journey.

That was the ideal of the Esh Tamid,

The holy fire,

The sacred and eternal fire of tabernacle.

If you kept it in this laver,

This bronze shell and lined it carefully,

You could keep the embers going through a journey.

And that's the trick,

Right?

To keep yourself going through all the vicissitudes,

The vagaries,

The challenges of life,

Through all the joys and heartbreaks,

Through all the heartbreaking gratitude,

Even through heartbreaks,

Says Stephen Colbert.

It's not easy to keep the fire stoked and to not lose them on the journey,

But that's the hard work of an artist.

I saw,

I guess I'll conclude with this.

Big Ears was here in Knoxville,

One of the great music festivals,

And I paid an extra premium to see Andre 3000 in his new flute experience,

Which somewhat does it a disservice.

There was sound,

But I wouldn't have exactly called it music,

But it was a religious experience that involved sound and community.

Coincidentally,

The concert I saw,

I was sitting in the front pew,

Right in the middle of a local church where he performed.

He's on a dangerous journey.

He's on a soul journey that I think I could honestly worry for him,

Given those who have preceded him,

John Coltrane,

Eric Dolphy,

And that lineage and the lives they have led of challenge.

So I wish for all of you,

Don't stand still,

Do not hurry,

Do not rest,

And do not be extinguished even on the journeys.