Parshat Tzav's Gourmet Wisdom: Cooking Up a Divine Connection

every Yid is a fire, every Yid is a big tzaddik. Every Yid has that pintle of Yid that it factor, that X factor. Every single Jewish individual, every one of us. That's a part of this fraternity and brotherhood that we call the Hebrews and Israelites. We all have unimaginable potential and today we add another title to our names, another skill to our God-given tool belts. What is that skill, god-given tool belts? What is that skill? It is that every single yid is a chef. Yes, that's right, a chef. We are proficient in food preparation. We are that chief of the kitchen, a professional cook.

And now, before you complain, bellyache and whine that, hey, what are you talking about? I never went to Johnson and Wales or Kendall College of Culinary Arts, nor have I attended any of the great courses or lectures, expos, to learn the profession, the skill or, as they call, the art of cooking. So how is it that every year there's a chef, you may ask? Well, allow me to explain and allow me to welcome you into this week's weekly Parsha podcast, the Parsha Tzav Tafshin Pei Dalad Parsha's Para edition. And you are hopefully well aware that Parshat Tzav is very much a continuation of the same narrative that was brought up in the previous Parsha Parsha Vayikra, in which we were introduced to the laws, the customs, the rituals of processing and offering sacrifices in the Besamikdash Sefer Vayikra, called Tairas Kayhanim by the sages, gives us all the rules and regulations, the news and notes of how proper karbanos are processed and offered, and there are myriads cadres of different karbanos that we will learn about in the coming weeks. Now we've already heard of some of them.

A person could offer a karban ola to Hashem. A mensch could offer a karban shlomim. You may sacrifice a karban chatos, an asham, a mincha, a tamid, a musaf, a karban pesach, maybe we'll say that certain offerings of bikurim and the machzatz ha-shekel, maybe different items that are pertaining to the mishkan and Besa Migdash, all described here. An interesting fact even, that out of the 613 commandments that we have in the Torah, the Rambam actually counts them that 100 out of these 613 all are directly concerning proper sacrifice processing. So when a person will endeavor to travel up to the Beis Hamikdash, the Har Abayis, and offer a sacrifice, if he should God forbid fail in his, then he may miss out on a large opportunity. God forbid, he will fall underneath the harsh rebuke of the prophets that Jewish people.

How is it that you bring lame, injured, blind sacrifices? You poorly execute your obligations. Not even a pauper would want your sacrifices, god forbid. For a karban done or gone horribly wrong isn't the best situation. Could it be a zivchei mesim? Could it be a sacrifice to the dead? Could it be filled with wrong intentions? Could it be pigil or nosar, all of these important halachos that are pertaining to a well-executed karban?

But if you should merit to bring a karban and do it right after you've done samicha, you've rested your hands with all of your might upon the animal's head, the blood has been taken care of, dispersed, flicked properly, the fat's burned, the Mizbeach has been properly prepared and you've made it to the Besam Mignesh. And you've now. You've done it. You've been knighted that you have graduated to the level of a job well done. You've brought this karbon and all of its laws. You've done it properly. You get a sticker. You get a job well done. And what is that sticker? That trophy of successfully carrying out a karbon? You get what the Torah calls a reyach ni chayach l'hashem carrying out a karbon. You get what the Torah calls interesting words, but they come up a bunch loosely translated as your offering has been accepted favorably before.

Hashem Bunkalus translates it this way, for he famously tries to steer us away from ever attributing corporeal, physical attributes to the Almighty. So it is a pleasing aroma of sorts. According to Evanesra, the most basic translation your sacrifice. It smells good. God's proud of you, rashi. And he explains what it means to get this sticker of a job well done, says. You'll find it in you have brought. You'll find it in Parashat, vayikra Parak, aleph Pothiktes, nachas ruach lefanai. You have brought a pleasure to me, sha'amarti, because I told you to go and do a karbon and do it this way and not that way, ve'na'aser etzoni, and you have done my will. That is pleasing to God. A job well done, that's. And now it feels like the proper time to introduce this tasty medrash, the medrash in Vayikar Rabah and Zion Dalet, and describing what it's like, physically and spiritually, to bring a proper karban to Hashem.

Isa mashal, there's a mashal Le-melech, there's a king. Like all good Jewish parables, there's got to be a king Shehaylo shnei migursin. I didn't know what that meant, so I looked it up and asked for help. This king had two migursin, two shefs. Pisho lo ha'echa tavshil up and asked for help.

This king had two Megurson, two chefs. One chef cooked up a dish for the king. He tasted it and it was delicious Kind of a next level chef, top chef chef competition who does it better? And a second person also made a delicious dish, a tasty delicacy for the king. But neither chef nor the population, those watching, know which dish was tastier to the palate and belly of the king, ella.

There is one way to figure this out when the king will go back and reorder from the second one. Hey, excuse me, chef, can you make that again? As soon as that happens, he reorders. We know that that one was more tasty, more scrumptious than the other one's dish. The Medrash connects this. It goes on. The karban wasn't ordered again. It seems like there was something that was tasty, but it wasn't as tasty as when.

And Hashem said we know that these sacrifices, that they've been reordered. These are very tasty dishes. These are, and the great spiritual, very tasty dishes. These are reyach, nichoachs, l'hashem and the great spiritual deen, the mashkiach ruchani of Yeshiva Asmir during the Roaring Twenties.

The great Rav, yerucham Levavit, zecher Tzadik V'Kadr Shlivracha. He tells us v'hadvorim avhila, mad ma'od. How incredible these words are. And in his classic style he takes the medrash quite literally Every person has an avodah as part of his service.

We are making dishes. We are chefs, chiefs of our restaurants. We need to be skilled and proficient. Why so? That it should be delicious, that our sacrifices and offerings should have a pleasant aroma when we offer them to Hashem. Every time we travel to the Beis Hamikdash, leading an animal as our soon-to-be carbon, we are pulling out all of our ingredients and our pots and our pans, putting on our chef's hat and mixing up a delicious, tasty dish. That is the proper mindset service and carrying out of the carbon properly. Ketikunam, we are chefs.

And now you're surely thinking that it's all fine and dandy, a beautiful idea, but we don't have karbanos anymore. This idea ain't applicable to me. But lo mechach matish alzos, I don't believe you've asked that question using your wisdom, because the Gemara Masech HaBrachos, perek Tfilas HaShachar tells us in an argument actually back and forth, as to what the institution of Tfilah prayer was in place of. Is it in place of the Avos Avram, yitzchak and Yaakov, or in place of the sacrifices, the Talmud Shal Shachar, the tomed shel bein harbaim and the hekter chalovem ve'evorim? And it comes to a conclusion that our tefillah, the zman hazeh, our daily prayers are our offerings. Our karbanos and our tefillos must be prepared, served by the chef to the king in a delicious and beautiful manner. It would seem manner it would seem there's an Indian of Asiyas Matamim cooking up something to Hashem for Hashem, at our personal restaurants and the mitzvos and tefillah that we do.

We are all chefs and that takes a whole lot and there's a lot for us to learn about what it means to be a good chef and create good tefillah, about what it means to be a good chef and create good tefila. To be a chef, you got to be able to create recipes. You must be able to quickly understand flavor profiles, understand all the different spices and what that za'atar thing is. We must know and be proficient in presentation and in special cooking techniques how to cook with speed, how to run a kitchen, how to handle a sous chef or crisis management. All of this goes into being a proper chef and expanding on this muscle. It would follow that in our tefillah we have to know how to manage our restaurants, create delicious recipes, present them properly, use our special cooking techniques and understanding what a tefillah is and how it differs from a bakasha, understanding different tefillah flavor profiles, understanding the poetic nature, the mystical depth to the words that we say, understanding how one should bow when he prays, how he enters into his restaurant and how he attires himself with his chef's hat or black hat as he prepares for his prayer. And building on this muscle even more.

Sacrifices are actually a pretty bloody thing. Now, it's funny that people think of sacrifices as something that is just, it's holy, it's spiritual, and while it is, it's also blood up to the knees, guts pouring out, tying of legs, gouging out of certain parts, breaking necks with fingernails. But all this has a lot of meaning to it. Yeah, we're told that at the different parts, from the bloody parts to the more pure and less dirty parts of the carbon, we are to change clothes. The same clothes that the Kohen would wear when he would do the spritzing of the blood isn't the same clothes that he used to wear when it was at cleaner times. It would follow that there's times that the chef, while he's to cook his meal, but he should hardly show his face in the serving of it, that's a job that he passes on to the waiter in a bow tie, a black shirt, a black bow tie, belt, slicked back hair. Rashi tells us. That's because there's halachos and certain sensitivities that one has when he is the man behind a five-star restaurant. You dress the part when you pray and when you do mitzvos. And we've already kind of expanded the topic from base hamikdash sacrifices into tefillah and that we're all chefs preparing certain tefillahs and karbanos. But in breaking into the world of Torah and mitzvos, like we've kind of already done, it truly was done.

First, when the Medrash told us that we're to teach Torah, k'shol're to teach Torah. Like a set table. You are to put down the Torah in front of your students. You are to teach it in all of its flavor, beautifully organized and ready to be consumed. Commentaries have been called a mapil ashulchan or a muz tablecloth that he wrote.

And not all food that's served and presented tastes the same. It takes it should salt, oil and pepper. A steak, because a Torah idea given over. That's a beautiful steak but it isn't seasoned and delivered properly, but rather you tripped on your way out or just threw the steak in a big vat of water without any grilling or salting of it. Yes, it's still a steak, but it hardly has the same delicious tom. Yes, that coincidence. It has hardly that same flavor and reason behind it.

You're supposed to grill your fish on a cedar plank At least that's how the five-star restaurants do it and some food, some mitzvahs, should be served as a duet or as a trio or with a certain sauce that will improve the dish. Should be served certain desserts a la mode, with the right time, like a shulchan aruch, because we are chefs delivering mitzvahs, delivering tefillos, and if our mitzvahs and tefillos are tasteless, burnt, underdone or they look like a big mush, it probably isn't going to be a dish that is reordered or an offering that brings a reach ni chayach l'Hashem. A mitzvah, a steak that is USDA prime, cut 18 ounce cowboy steak, grilled with those perfect grill lines, with mashed potatoes, a Dr Pepper or perhaps a glass of Cabernet, or maybe I'm just getting carried away here. But that is a mitzvah well done. It is a Zakeli van Veu that's beautiful to the eyes, but a Shachris, a Kriya Shema, a prayer that is heartless, empty, void of emotion, said with just lip service, without thought, meditation and intention. It's just like serving a bunch of ground meat that's been burnt to a crisp. It's now stuck in your esophagus without anything to wash it down. We are chefs cooking up delicious meals to bring reach mi chayach l'Hashem If you're looking or care to run a five-star restaurant, to get that five-star review on Yelp and Google. There are certain laws and certain ways and certain mindsets to have in preparing and serving your mitzvahs to Hashem a perfectly grilled kriya shema, a beautifully seasoned parak of tehillim and a delicious presentation and preparation of a and a delicious presentation and preparation of a shir in Gemara and Reb Chaim.

Now that that's an offering. That's a karban, that's a mitzvah that brings nachas ruach l'Hashem, that brings not hasruach to Hashem. Noteworthy is, since it is the king that's ordered a dish on our menu, from our restaurants and we are the chefs. So it is a little bit of an up to Annie if Hashem shouldn't like the dish. As we're told right at the beginning of the Torah that Cain and Hevel, one became jealous of the other, stabbed his brother to death. It was over two karbonos that were offered, both valid, but one was beautiful, from choice product and another was also still a delivering of a promise.

A mitzvah, kept technically, but they were hardly comparable and a delicious meal. A re'ech nich'ech l'Hashem can prove the difference between life and death. We all have different talents, different roles and we can all be different chefs. The muscle can keep going. You can work at a hibachi restaurant. You can be a sous chef. You want to be more of the second string. You can be a pastry chef, a sushi chef, a grill master one of those people that loves to grill everything they get their hands on, like those pit masters, things where everything is smoked, if you like that.

We are Megurson, serving up mitzvos, karbanos, tefillos and Torah pshat understanding and heartfelt dishes to the king, who has ordered a dish off of our menu at our restaurant. What we should do is strive to serve dishes, serve mitzvot to Hashem. It's the good type of meal that we all want and imagine we would be served at a five-star restaurant and we should acknowledge that. Every year it's a fire, every year it's a tzaddik. Every year it's a pintle of yid. Every year it has unimaginable potential.

Every single yid, yes, is a chef serving up hopeful reyach ni chayach, slah Hashem. And you don't need to attend Kendall College of Culinary Arts and try to learn all the different flavor profiles of food, but do that. Understand and educate yourself about what it is that Hashem wants when he orders a mitzvah to be done. If we understand how Hashem wants the meal to be prepared, understanding the mindset and the emotion that God wants us to have in the preparing of our offerings, and hopefully it will bring some satisfaction and a pleasant aroma to Hashem and he will want to reorder our sacrifice at our restaurant because ultimately it has been a reyach nichayach l'Hashem.