Past, Present, and Future

“And the Kohein… should lift the ashes that the fire consumed the olah on the Mizbeiach, and put them next to the Mizbeiach.” (Vayikra 6:3)

There are two mitzvos related to the removal of the ashes that accumulated on the Mizbeiach. The first was terumas hadeshen, the separation of the ashes. Each day, the Kohein began the avodah by taking a shovelful of ashes and placing them on the floor near the Mizbeiach.

The second mitzvah was hotza’as hadeshen, the removal of the ashes. This was a more involved removal of the ashes that had accumulated on the Mizbeiach. (According to Rashi, this wasn’t done on a daily basis, but rather when the ashes accumulated to the point of clutter.)

Two questions come to mind: Why is the removal of the ashes given such significance that it constitutes a mitzvah, let alone two? Why was it different from any maintenance of the Mishkan? And secondly, why was the removal of the ashes divided into two distinct services, terumas hadeshen and hotza’as hadeshen? Why not take them all out at once? (Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, Torah.org)

I was in Baltimore visiting my mother, together with my youngest daughter, who was then 16 years old. We were in Seven Mile Market when a woman approached.

“Faigy Weinberg, is that you?” she asked. The woman looked familiar, but she was eyeing my daughter, not me.

I mentally searched, then placed the face and voice as a teacher who’d taught me briefly in high school, and greeted her warmly.

“You look just like your mother!” she gushed to my daughter. “I thought I was in a time warp when I saw you!”