Parshat Tzav: The Importance of Shoelaces - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

at first sight some things in Judaism look somewhat weird I remember someone who wasn't religious discovering the halacha that you should tie your left shoelace before your right he said to me I find it hard to believe that God actually cares about which shoe I tie first now I could have explained him that we tie the left shoelace first as a gesture of respect to the leather strap of the tefillin which is worn on the left arm I decided however that what was bothering him was something more fundamental those of us who were born in the West have grown up in a world where religion is at best a weekend activity the role of the clergy is to hatch match and dispatch religion is compartmentalized and so to his god the Western mindset is that if there is a God he is limited to making guest appearances on the weekend and any further intrusion into our lives is considered to be extremely urgent as Lord Melbourne remarked in 1898 on hearing a sermon things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life now Judaism however does the see our relationship with God as a weekend leisure activity it's not just one aspect of life its life itself Judaism views every single activity in life as an opportunity to bring ourselves closer to God what we eat what we think what we say what we do what we don't do nothing in this world is devoid of the potential for spirituality nothing is neutral if the whole purpose of the world is for us to recognize God and to be close to him then of course everything in this world must be created to that end the alternative would be that there are vast areas of this world that have absolutely no part in God's purpose and that would be accusing the master of the universe of tremendous sloppiness in his creation in this week's torah portion the verse says the cohen the priest shall separate the ash where the fire has consumed the burnt offering the word for ash in hebrew is - in our - n can be read as an acronym for the VAR shallow next shove something without importance when the Torah says he shall separate the ash it's telling us to take everything even those small insignificant things like ash insignificant without value and place them next to the altar of our divine service in other words to raise up the little unthought-of parts of our lives and use them to serve God for there is nothing in this world that cannot be used to serve God even the humblest shoelace [Music] [Applause]