Do you have a really strong passion for something? Maybe its cooking, doing art, science, a sport or really anything else.

In this weeks parsha, tzav, it says “And the fire upon the Altar shall be kept burning, it shall not go out, and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning.” (6:5) Although this is referring to the altar, one could also infer another idea. One idea behind this is that this fire constantly burning, is similar to the fire in our soul, burning for love of G-d and His Torah. But similar to the light upon the Altar, you can’t just sit back, relax and watch it burn. Eventually its going to go out if you don’t place more wood in it. In other words, if you have a passion for cooking and one day you make a meal and it tastes amazing. Everyone that ate it loves it. You posted pictures on instagram/ facebook/ snapchat and got a whole lot of likes. Everyone loves your food. So the next day for lunch and dinner you have leftovers and you’re still doing great. But the next day comes and you ran out. So what do you do? You have to make the food again! And maybe even experiment with different recipes! This is similar to judaism. Your passion can last for a while, and others can also be inspired by it, but you have to keep it up.

Just like making good tasty food, creating for yourself a passionate Jewish identity is too. If you want a microwave dinner every night, then thats the quality you’re going to get. If you spend hours making a wonderful dinner for yourself, you’re going to be way more satisfied. So too, if you do the bare minimum of Judaism, then you’re not going to get a lot out of it. If you work hard at your jewish identity and learn Torah and go to NCSY, then you’ll do great.

Judaism does not come easy to anyone. You have to work for your connection you can’t just wait for it to come.

So what are you going to do this shabbous to re-ignite YOUR flame?

Shabbat Shalom!

Ariel Cohen