Tetzaveh

Hashem tells Moshe to command the Jewish people to get שמן זית זך כתית למאור, pure, pressed olive oil for illumination.
Rashi explains that pressing means that they squeezed out one drop from each olive so that it would be pure with no sediment.

The Midrash infers from this verse that it was only the oil for lighting the menorah that needed to be pressed, but the oil for the karbanos could be crushed in the mill & ground. It did not need to be so pure. Not only did the oil for the menorah need to be pure, it had to be pure from the onset by pressing out only the first drop. One couldn't crush the olives & then filter out the sediment.

Rav Dovid Feinstein asks, what's the difference? Why couldn't one filter out the sediment as long as the end result is the same & you have the pure olive oil? Who cares if it was like that initially or you filtered it, as long as now it's pure?

There's a story told of רב יוסף שלמה כהנמן who once came to Frankfurt to collect funds for the Ponevezh yeshiva. He stayed at the house of ר יעקב רוזנהיים who wanted to lessen the embarrassment of the Rosh Yeshiva from having to go door to door. He told him to stay in the house & he would go to some of his wealthy friends & set up a few meetings for the Rosh yeshiva to collect what he needed.

One of the wealthy men who he approached said he would be happy to meet with the rabbi, however, he was heading out of town the next day & was very busy until then. Then he said if the rabbi would come to the train station in the morning, he could meet with him before his train leaves at eight.

The next morning the rabbi wakes up, looks at the clock & cannot believe his eyes! It was already seven and he had overslept! What should he do? Should he just skip davening with a minyan & run to the train station or should he go to shul & lose out on the donation?
He decides that the right thing to do is go to shul & daven. He goes davens with a minyan & then runs to the train station in the hopes that maybe by some chance the man will still be there.

When he gets there he was told that the train already had left, he sits down on the bench to catch his breath from running so fast to try to make his meeting. A few minutes pass & the wealthy man that he was suppose to meet comes running up to him apologizing for having made him wait so long. He had gotten held up & felt terrible that the rabbi had to wait so long for him. When the rabbi told him that he too was late the man said it doesn't matter. I made up to meet you at a certain time & you waited for me. He felt so bad that he gave him an even bigger donation & then went on his way.

When the Rosh Yeshiva would tell over this story he would say, look what we could learn from this. Had I skipped davening & went to the meeting I would have waited around for a while, and being that he was so late I would have given up & left I would have totally missed out, but now because I did the right thing, I gained double!

We can compare this story to the oil, just like the olive oil has to start out pure, if we start with pure intentions we won't lose out. The rabbi could have thought that its more important to get the donation so the yeshiva would benefit, but thats like filtering the sediment from the oil. Once you start making your own calculations & rationalizations, your taking away from the purity of the Torah. This is why says Reb Dovid that you couldn't just filter out the impurities. The menorah represents the Torah, and the oil that we put in it has to be pure from the start with nothing polluting it at any point. We have to accept and follow the Torah & teachings of our rabbis without putting in our own "two cents" or rationalizing ensuring that all we do will be sediment free too!