The Ohr HaChaim then says an amazing statement: “This is why the exile is so long. The Golus has been extended for such a long time because Bnei Yisrael do not engage and actively toil in Torah study and mitzvos and Moshe does not wish to redeem a people who are batlonim from Torah!”
This is all hinted at in our pasuk: “You shall command Bnei Yisrael” – Tetzaveh is a directive for royalty and kingship, and the condition that Moshe should rule as our king once again is that we toil in Torah. This is why it says to take “pure olive oil”; the Torah is compared to olive oil, for just as oil illuminates the world, so does the Torah. It is “pure” oil just as the Torah needs to be pure and refined – lishma – purely and sincerely for its own sake. Ulterior motives, such as the desire to use Torah as a means to become great or honored are like dregs and impurities that need to be filtered out. The pasuk continues, kosis lamo’or – “pressed or beaten for illumination”. A person who toils in Torah needs to press himself, beat himself and subjugate his body, as Chazal say (Berochos 63b) on the pasuk in Bamidbar 19:14, Zos haTorah odam ki yomus – “This is the Torah law of he who dies...” The Torah can only exist and perpetuate in one who kills himself pushing past his limit and exerting himself to death to acquire it!
