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Last week, we read in some detail about the building of the Ohel Mo’ed, the Tent of Meeting, aka the Miskhan, aka the Dwelling Place of the Divine. In this week’s parasha, called Tetzaveh, we read the elaborate descriptions of the clothing that the priests must wear when they serve God.
Our storyteller from G-dcast comments that the Torah is often sketchy about details we would like to know more about. But here, in describing the clothes of the priests, “the Torah goes into OCD mode” — there are so many precise and detailed descriptions, one might think that God was instructing Ralph Lauren on his new fall fashion line.
Jackie Hoffman, in her 'Shavuot' song. Click the image to listen. (Note: lyrics aren't fully PG-friendly.)
The yarns to be used are blue, crimson and purple; the design specifies embroidered pomegranates, and they are to be placed all the way around the bottom hem. And then, in between each pomegranate, there is to be a golden bell attached, a real bell, which will produce sound as the priest moves. Sounds exquisite, on par with the clothes the women of Downton Abbey wear when they visit their cousins’ castle in Scotland! In our own times, the highest ranking priests of the Catholic Church wear sacral vestments that are in the tradition of these ornate, highly decorative and expensive garments.
This leads us to ask some questions about both the Torah’s descriptions and why so many religious traditions dictate the exact kind of clothing to be worn when one is serving God. Why is it so important to know about the sash, the turban, the robed tunic, the exact colors, and what fabrics need to be part of the clothing? And further, why should God care so much about what the Priests wear when they perform the ritual sacrifices on behalf of the people? When a Catholic worshipper of today goes to church and witnesses the Mass performed by richly garbed cardinals (or even the Pope), how does the clothing worn by the priests impact the experience of the worshipper?
Anglican Archbishop and the Catholic Pope know what to wear!
As we approach the next book of the Torah, the book of Leviticus, we will see that many prescribed rituals fall into the “OCD” mode, as the video’s storyteller says. Look at the instructions for the sacrifices in Exodus 29 verses 19-21. This is what the priests, in their finery, must do: they must “…slaughter the ram and take some of its blood and put it on the ridge of Aaron’s right ear and on the ridges of his sons’ right ears and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the big toes of their right feet; and dash the rest of the blood against every side of the alter round about.” Wow! Talk about precise instructions that are pretty inscrutable. Here we have it in abundance.
Even though Jews no longer offer animal sacrifices, we still have laws that are considered puzzling and have no obvious purpose. Those laws are known as “hukkim” as opposed to laws which make some common sense, which are known as “mishpatim.” A mishpat (single form of mishpatim) is something like “don’t steal” or “don’t kill.” The sorts of laws in the category of hukkim are like the laws of kashrut, dietary restrictions for keeping kosher. We just do them (if we want to be observant) because they were commanded, not because they necessarily make sense or make society work any better.
Before we leave the parasha of Tetzaveh, with its opening focus on the clothing of the priests, I also want to acknowledge the lovely coincidence that the Torah reading points to the holiday that comes on its heels — the joyous holiday of Purim, which falls on the 14th of Adar, which is the evening of February 23 through the 24th this year. Parashat Tetzaveh and Purim both have clothing and costumes interwoven in them. One of the fun aspects of the Purim festivities is dressing up in costumes and disguises. This is our topsy-turvy festival where nothing is what it seems. In Hebrew, the word for clothing is beg’ed, the root, b.g.d. This root also forms the word bag’ad, to betray or lie. Think of it this way: when we wear clothes, we cover-up our bodies and a “cover-up” is also used to describe hiding something, not being transparent, maybe even betraying someone’s trust. On the holiday of Purim, we masquerade; we put on costumes to appear to be someone other than ourselves. What is it about covering up or hiding oneself that is so central to this festival? And what is it that the clothing of the priests is covering up, if anything?
Our G-dcast storyteller this week correctly informs us that Parashat Terumah is all about the Israelites’ newest project: building a portable sanctuary (mishkan) for worshipping God, right there in the middle of the desert. God gives the instructions to Moshe/Moses, and then we, as readers, get the dozens of details as a kind of blueprint in what might be considered numbingly boring minutiae.
But we need to ask ourselves: what is the point of laying it all out so exactingly? And does God really care about gold, silver, lapis lazuli and dolphin cloth??? And if not, why would these specifications be made?
Our storyteller suggests that we need to zoom in and zoom out of these particulars in order to see the bigger picture.
Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him/her.
What an incredible thing to find here in the Torah, a book full of commandments for so many things. Here, we are told that gifts are only to be brought if one WANTS to participate, if one’s heart is so moved… Only then, should he or she bring a gift to help build the sanctuary. This is the first startling thing in this huge, complicated new construction project the former slaves are undertaking.
The second verse that is at the heart of Parashat Terumah is also from chapter 25, a few verses later in verse 8:
And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.
God is actually telling Moshe that God wants to be “among” the people (b’tocham — in their midst). Not above them, not in a special place rooted in a specific locality, but AMONG them, in this portable tent-like santuary that moves with the people as they wander in the desert. What kind of God wants to be AMONG the people? What is God’s need, if we could be so bold in asking?
The storyteller also uses several words for this building, this “sanctuary.” First we get the Hebrew name, Mishkan, which has the same root as shakhen/neighbor and shekhinah/feminine presence of the Divine. The portable building is also referred to as a tabernacle (which always makes me think of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir). Finally, it’s also called the Divine Dwelling Place.
Sanctuary implies a holy place, a sanctum, a place with sacred dimensions (mikdash/holy place). There is also the name Ohel Mo’ed /Tent of Meeting, referring to the function this place provides — it’s where Moshe encounters the Divine and receives instruction. These names seem like they might be interchangeable, but as we proceed through the book of Exodus and Leviticus and get more information on the Mishkan, we will see that each name implies a different function and/or is describing another part of the whole compound.
Still, think about what it could mean to have the Almighty say that S/He wants to “dwell among the Israelite nation.” Not only is this a profound gloss on the relationship between God and the people, it also suggests possibilities in the way we build our contemporary synagogues and places of worship right now, in the 21st century. Chancellor Arnold Eisen of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America writes about this in his column on Parashat Terumah.
To consider as you continue reading:
If you believe in God, is your concept of the Divine immanent or transcendent (close-by, near you or above you, far away)? In other words, is God inside you or way outside?
What is the purpose of adorning holy worship places with gold and other precious materials (think of the great cathedrals of Europe)? What does it do for the worshipper?
Our G-dcast story teller this week, David Henkin, asks some pretty provocative questions about why it was that Moses/Moshe decided to write down the words he heard from God and record them in a book, that we now call the “Torah.” He ponders what happens when people have the capacity to read words rather than to only hear those words spoken aloud.
Jews have been known as “People of the Book.” I am also wondering about the differences between cultures that revere reading and cultures with more of an oral tradition. What kinds of changes do you imagine take place when people go from listening to words to the act of reading them?
The name of this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, actually can mean either “sentences” (meaning a string of words with subject and predicate) or “laws.” Mishpatim enumerates many laws that, on the surface, don’t seem to have anything to do with one another. These laws read like statements and pronouncements; they are terse, not well detailed, and, in fact, provide the rabbis of the Talmud (200-600 CE) much raw material on which to construct the whole Jewish system of proper behaviors and observances.
Just look at Exodus 23 verses 19-22. First there is a sentence (a mishpat) about bringing first fruits to the House of the Lord, followed by this: “You shall not boil a kid in its mothers milk,” which is the tiny sentence upon which the laws of kashrut (keeping kosher) are built. This is then followed by a sentence about angels guarding us “on the way” and bringing us to “the place I have made ready.” Huh? We go from a law on first fruits, to recipes, to angels, in quick succession. What possible relationship do these laws have with one another?
This strange list of seemingly unconnected laws gave rise to hundreds of commentaries and interpretations. I think of this parasha almost like a stream of consciousness list, where some laws on the list are extremely important for the moral and ethical functioning of the new society of Israelites. Here’s one such example: “you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favor of the mighty, nor shall you show deference to a poor person in a dispute” (Exodus 23:2-3). In other words, when you are called to be a witness, don’t lie and don’t side with either the powerful or the weak — just tell the truth.
There are also laws concerning slavery, which seems strange given that the Israelites were just themselves slaves; now they seem to be getting laws concerning the proper treatment of slaves, as if they were owners of slaves. The human propensity to enslave another human being seems to have traveled from the days of the Bible all the way to the 21st century. To read more about how we might think about the whole slavery issue, make sure to read Letting Our People Go: Bringing Us All Out of Egypt by Rabbi Jonathan Spira-Savett.
Our stream of consciousness law list also has laws about not tolerating sorceresses and laws against bestiality…. Do you think that we could extract some relevance to our lives today from these prohibitions? I mean, it’s not a leap to get the significance of a law forbidding us to steal or to kidnap, or a law enjoining us to return borrowed property; but some of the laws here really need to be unpacked in order for us to appreciate them.
One of the laws in this parasha that is most frequently quoted is found in Exodus 21:23-25: “but if other damage ensues, the penalty shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” This law is often misunderstood to mean that the perpetrator gets the same exact punishment inflicted on him or her that s/he dealt to a victim. Kind of a “measure for measure” type of punishment. However, the rabbis of the Talmud subjected all of these one-liner laws to prolonged scrutiny and out of their deliberations whole tomes of legal procedures and jurisprudence were written and became the Talmudic codes. They interpreted the “eye for an eye” law to mean that an assailant must pay monetary damages for the injury s/he caused, the heavier the damage, the bigger the fine. This “eye for an eye” law is referred to in Latin as “lex talionis” and was humanized by the rabbis of the Talmud; based on these verses in this week’s parasha, the Talmud explains that the Bible mandates a sophisticated five-part monetary form of compensation, consisting of payment for “damages, pain, medical expenses, incapacitation, and mental anguish” — the same categories underlying many modern legal codes.
To summarize, the laws in this parasha merit the full treatment of years of discussion by rabbis and teachers, collected in codes from the Talmud to today, to make them relevant to Jews and to Judaism…. It’s all in the details.
And one more thing: take a moment to read the mystical narrative of Moshe, his brother Aaron, Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, and the 70 elders, as they ascend the Holy Mountain to meet God, in Exodus 24:9-11. There seems to have been quite a party, complete with a sapphire pavement. Let your imagination run wild as you try to figure out what the text wants us to know. Have fun!