The fire burning on the Altar must not be allowed to go out, for although Divine fire descends from heaven to consume the sacrifices, you must start burning them up with fire produced by human agency.
The priest chosen each day for the task must kindle fresh wood upon it every morning, and he must arrange the cut-up pieces of the morning daily ascent-offering directly upon it—i.e., this should be the first sacrifice offered up each morning, such that no parts of any other sacrifice intervene between it and the fresh logs placed on the fire each morning. The priests must burn up the fats of the peace-offerings, as well as any other sacrifices that may be offered up that day, upon the remains of the morning daily offering, i.e., only after the morning daily offering has been offered up. Similarly, the last sacrifice offered up each day must be the afternoon daily offering.
The fire that will burn upon the Altar must also serve as the source of the fire used to kindle the lamps of the Candelabrum, which must be lit regularly, every evening.
The just-articulated prohibition against letting the Altar-fire go out is herewith repeated in order to make anyone who infringes it liable to two rounds of lashes: The fire on the Altar must not go out.
When the Tabernacle will be succeeded by the permanent Temple, the priests must maintain multiple fires on the Altar: at least one for burning the sacrifices and one for producing the coals used to burn incense every day on the Inner Altar, with the possible addition of two others—one for keeping wood burning in case the main fire needs to be augmented and one for burning those portions of the sacrifices that were not consumed by the main fire. In addition, the priests must make another fire on Yom Kippur for producing the coals used to burn the incense used in the sacrificial rites of that day.
Chasidic Insights
As mentioned previously, anyone offering up a sacrifice must intend to thereby offer up himself and draw closer to God. The different types of offerings reflect the specific aspects of the self that must be refined, elevated, and brought close to God, but the common denominator of all types of offerings is the general, all-embracing submission to God that must precede the refinement of the particulars. This underlying aspect of every offering is superior to its particular element, since our general submission to God reveals our inherent selflessness in His presence. When refining a specific aspect of the self, this inherent selflessness lies dormant, since we are, after all, focusing on and preoccupied with our self (albeit for the sake of refining it).
The submission of the total human being is expressed in the donation of the wood for the Altar, on top of which every offering was placed. In donating the wood, the donor knew that his donation would be subordinate to the chief entity—the animal being sacrificed. Furthermore, his wood would not necessarily be used to burn his own offering; it would most likely be used to burn someone else’s. The absence of the self in this offering parallels the selflessness manifest in our general submission to God.
The greatest self-effacement, however, was demonstrated by those who chopped down the trees for the wood. Unlike those who donated the wood and saw it immediately attain the holy status that made it fit for the Altar, the woodchoppers did their work long before the wood was consecrated. They did not see the logs they cut become holy and part of the Temple service, even though this was their intention. Their task, therefore, afforded the least possibility of becoming caught up in the exhilaration of achievement and thereby forgetting that true greatness and worth are achieved through serving God with complete selflessness and transparency.
The goal, then, is to be a “woodchopper”: to remain focused on serving God with consummate selflessness.
Chasidic Insights
The fire on the Altar must be kept burning even on the Sabbath, despite the fact that starting or stoking a fire on the Sabbath is normally prohibited. In addition, we have seen (and will see further on) how ritual defilement precludes a person from entering the Tabernacle and performing sacrificial rites. However, if no undefiled priests are available, ritually defiled priests are allowed to enter and perform the rites, including tending the fire on the Altar.
The Divine fire within our hearts—our enthusiastic desire to cling to God through studying His Torah, fulfilling His commandments, and revealing His presence in the world—must also be constantly stoked and kept alive. The law that the Altar-fire must be kept lit even on the Sabbath and even in times of defilement teaches us the following lessons:
We have seen that the essence of the Sabbath is the ascent of consciousness from its active orientation toward transforming the world into God’s home into a passive orientation toward experiencing the world as already being God’s home. This is why we are forbidden to engage in weekday work on the Sabbath: involvement in worldly affairs contravenes the higher reality of the Sabbath. Cognizant of this fact, we might think that whenever we enter into a “Sabbath” experience—i.e., whenever our minds become entranced with God’s presence in our lives and we become absorbed in “basking” in this revelation—we are not only allowed to detach ourselves from the world but encouraged to do so, and we need not bother to make this ascent of consciousness have any impact on our emotional involvement in our daily observance of the Torah’s laws. The Torah therefore teaches us that the fire of the heart must be kept aflame even “on the Sabbath.” Our connection with God must never become a purely intellectual affair, but must always set our hearts aflame, as well.
At the other end of the spiritual spectrum, we may sometimes feel so distant from the Torah’s expectations of us or encumbered by negative spiritual baggage that it is hard for us to imagine how we could even begin to live in accordance with such ideals. In times of such pessimism, we are told to keep our Divine fire burning also in times of “ritual defilement,” even when we feel unqualified or otherwise unable to enter realms of holiness.
