Tetzaveh

In depth

The word tetzaveh, “you shall command,” also means “you shall connect” and “you shall bond.” The previous parasha was about the construction of the Mishkan. This** parasha is about the priests, their selection, their vestments and their inauguration. Once they had been elevated to priesthood, their offspring would automatically inherit the role as well.

N In the beginning G-d Speaks directly to our Patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In fact, He even Appears to them. Hundreds of years pass by and then G-d reappears and once again both Speaks and, on occasion, Appears to Moshe Rabeinu – throughout his life. In contrast to the “occasional” interaction which our Prophets.

Q How many times has G-d spoken to goyim, and/or appeared to non-Jews?

That they bring to you pure olive oil . . . to raise an everlasting lamp . . . from evening to morning (27:20–21)

The oil for the menorah was to be absolutely pure, just as the Kohanim were expected to maintain a state of absolute purity and separation. Just as the blood of the sacrifice had to be from a completely pure animal. These represent the two liquids (and main elements) that comprise most of the body, and are essential in the maintenance of its health.

Note: This is the time when we believed that one maintained a state of purity by keeping oneself separate from evil. This changed with the idea of tikkun olam, where the concept was our need to enter into the dark spaces into order to release the spark of light contained, or trapped, in them.

These verses contain a paradox: “everlasting flame” implies a state of perpetuity and changelessness; “from evening to morning” implies fluctuating conditions of lesser and greater luminance.
For such is our mission in life: to impart the eternity and perfection of the Divine to a temporal world, and to do so not by annihilating or overwhelming the world’s temporality and diversity, but by illuminating its every state and condition—from “evening” to “morning”—with the divine light.
—Lubavitzer Rabbi

Pure olive oil, crushed for the light (27:20)

Just as the olive yields light only when it is pounded, so are man’s greatest potentials realized only under the pressure of adversity.
—The Talmud

Chapter 28

n28:4-43] The vestments. All the priestly vestments had to be made of materials that were the property of the nation and had been contributed by the people for the Temple service (Yoma 35b). This symbolised that the Kohanim were not private parties engaged in a lofty enterprise to better themselves; they submerged their own personalities and became representatives of Israel, carrying out the nation’s urge to raise itself to ever higher spiritual plateaus in the service to G-d. … He and his vestments were like a single unified vessel performing the Divine Will.

n28:2] Glory accrues to a person even because of God-given abilities, while splendour refers to the regard he has earned through his own accomplishments.

They shall make the ephod. . . . It shall have its two shoulder-pieces joined at its two edges . . . And the finely wrought girdle of the ephod, which is upon it, shall be of the same (28:6–8)

I haven’t heard, nor have I found in the Talmud, an explanation of [the ephod’s] form. My heart tells me that it is tied on the back, its width the width of a person’s back, its form like the apron worn by princesses when they ride horses . . . (Rashi)

“My heart tells me” is an uncharacteristic phrase for Rashi, who usually relates the simple meaning of the verse without citing sources or telling us how he arrived at a particular meaning. A popular explanation (which the Lubavitcher Rebbe relates to Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov’s famed dictum, “Everything that a person sees or hears should serve him as a lesson in his service of G‑d”) has it that Rashi one day happened to come across a party of noblewomen on horseback, and wondered as to what purpose divine providence had shown him this apparently meaningless scene. Then, when he was struggling to describe the form of the ephod, he realized that this was the model that fit its biblical description.

28:6-10] Is the order same as on the two shoham stones, by birth?

12 Stones

28:17-20] 12 stones for the 12 tribes arranged on the choshen in 4 rows.

This English rendition is but one of several possible translations of the Hebrew odem, pitdah, bareket, nofech, sapir, yahalom, leshem, shevo, achlamah, tarshish, shoham, yashfeh. For a comprehensive anthology of renditions, see The Living Torah by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (Moznaim, 1985). Note: We actually don’t know what most of these “stones” are.

According to the Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 2:7), the colorings of the stones were as follows: Reuben’s stone, odem, was red; Simeon’s stone, pitdah, was green; Levi’s stone, bareket, was white, black and red; Judah’s stone, nofech, was sky-colored; Issachar’s stone, sapir, was dark blue; Zebulun’s stone, yahalom, was white (lavan, which can also mean clear); Dan’s stone, leshem, was of a hue similar to that of the sapir; Gad’s stone, shevo, was gray; Naphtali’s stone, achlamah, was the color of clear wine; Asher’s stone, tarshish, was “the color of the precious stone with which women decorate themselves”; Joseph’s stone, shoham, was black; Benjamin’s stone yashfeh, had the colors of all twelve stones.

In addition to the names of the tribes, the Talmud states that the stones also contained the words “Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, shivtei yeshurun (‘righteous tribes’),” so the breastplate should contain all 22 letters of the Holy Tongue.

n28:28] The breastplate shall not budge from the ephod

The ephod was worn in back and below the waist; the breastplate, on the front and upper part of the wearer. Thus the deeper significance of the commandment “The breastplate shall not budge from the ephod” (which ranks as one of the 365 prohibitions of the Torah) is that there must be no “gap” between the upper and lower aspects of life, or between its forward and backward elements. True, the human being consists of both the sensitive heart and the functional foot; true, life is composed of sublimely spiritual moments as well as the daily tending to one’s material needs. But the “ephod” must be securely bound to the “choshen.” The upper must permeate the lower, and the external must never lose sight of its inner essence and purpose.
—The Lubavitzer Rabbi

v28:30] Urim v Tumim

n28:30] The Breastplate was folded in half to form a pouch-like pocket. Into it Moses was to insert a slip of parchment containing the Ineffable Name [according to Rambam there was more than one]. This name was called Urim, from אור light, because it would cause individual letters of the tribal names on the Breastplate to light up; and it was called Tumim, from the word תָמים, completeness, because, if read in the proper order, these luminous letters presented complete and true answers to the questions of national import that the Kohen Gadol would ask of G-d (Rashi from Yoma 73b_).

There are then two examples of this given. The first is around which tribe should begin the war against the Canaanites. The second is the regarding Hannah, when the Kohen Gadol Eli saw her and consulted the Urim v Tumim, the letters שׁ ,כ ,ר ,ה lit up. Instead of reading כְּשַׁרָה, a worthy woman, he read שִׁכֹּרָה, a drunken woman.

During the waning years of the First Temple era, King Josiah realised that Eretz Yisrael would be conquered … and he removed the Urim v Tumim from the Breastplate and hid it. He also hid the Ark containing the tablets and the anointment oil. None of them were ever found again.

The Urim and Tumim (“illuminator and verifier”) was an inscription of the name of G‑d. Inserted in the folds of the breastplate, it caused the letters inscribed on its stones to light up in response to queries posed by the community leaders, as it is written (Number 27:21): “[Joshua] shall stand before Elazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of the Urim before G‑d: by this word shall they go out and by this word they shall come in, both he and all the children of Israel with him.” This is why it was called the “breastplate of judgement,” since it decided and determined things for the people.
—Rashi; Talmud

Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before G‑d continually (28:30)

Why are the sections on sacrifices and the priestly vestments written next to each other? To teach you: as sacrifices make atonement, so do the priestly vestments make atonement.
The tunic atoned for bloodshed, for it is said, “They slaughtered a he-goat, and dipped [Joseph’s] tunic in the blood” (Genesis 37:31).
The breeches atoned for lewdness, as it is said, “You shall make them linen breeches to cover the flesh of their nakedness” (Exodus 28:42).
The turban made atonement for arrogance—let an article placed high up come and atone for an offense of hauteur.
The sash atoned for [impure] meditations of the heart, beneath which it was placed.
The breastplate atoned for neglect of civil laws, as it is said, “You shall make a breastplate of judgment” (Exodus 28:15).
The ephod atoned for idolatry, as it is said, “Without ephod or teraphim” (Hosea 3:4).
The cloak atoned for slander—let an article of sound (i.e., tAaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before G‑d continually (28:30)
—Talmud, Zevachim 88b

Note: This is an example of Talmudic connections. Few of these examples are relevant in a greater sense. It allows a certain amount of license in the interpretation of phrases, or the usage thereof in their bolstering of an interpretation.

On the hem [of the cloak] you shall make . . . bells of gold . . . and its sound shall be heard when he goes in to the Holy (28:33–35)

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said: There are four things which the Holy One, blessed be He, hates, and I too dislike them . . . [the fourth thing is,] one who enters his house suddenly—how much more so his neighbor’s house . . .
When Rabbi Yochanan went to inquire after the welfare of Rabbi Chanina, he would knock at the door, in conformity with the verse “Its sound shall be heard when he goes in.”
—Midrash Rabbah

n28:33] Pomegranates: 72 bells, 72 pomegranates => 72 shades of white (מצורה metzora)

n28:41] ומלאת את ידם - inaugurate, as in “fill hands” as opposed to empty-handed. Fill position, invested with authority - as in full hands.

Chapter 29

29:6-7] First place the turban on his head, then anoint him with oil?

29:14] Removing fat from the animal. How does that work?

29:18] Not the fragrance of the sacrifice, but the “aroma of the offering”.

29:21] Sprinkle blood and oil on the vestments… would that not soil them? Yet instead, it makes the clothes holy?

29:25-26] “You shall wave them, as a waving before HaShem”.

N: Interesting choice - what are they waving— not the people! It might be similar to the waving we do at the football matches.

29:35] 7 days of inauguration; twice a day. That would require $14 * 3 = 42$ sets of vestments or some subset of that.

[The priestly garments] shall be upon Aaron, and upon his sons, when they come in the Tent of Meeting, or when they come near to the altar to minister in the holy place, that they not bear iniquity and die (28:43)

There was once a prince whose tutor would enter into the presence of the king on behalf of the prince; but the tutor was afraid of those who stood by the king, lest one of them should attack him. What did the king do? He clothed him in his royal purple cloak, so that all who saw him might be afraid of him.
Similarly, Aaron used to enter [into the presence of G‑d] . . . and had it not been for the many merits which entered with him and aided him, he would have been unable to go in, on account of the angels that were there. For this reason G‑d provided him garments after the pattern of the Divine garments . . . as it says (Isaiah 59:17): “[G‑d] donned righteousness as a coat of mail, and a helmet of salvation upon His head, and He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as with a cloak.”
—Midrash Rabbah

Note: Firstly the language is extremely evocative. But, in addition, these are examples of outward symbols of authority that were honoured. Not, like in the modern day, where one’s leadership must be “earned!” That we believe our leaders should represent and exhibit a certain level of morality, as an example to those they wish to lead. However, since time immemorial, it seems, that we have judged our leaders (and still do) by their titles and their prestige, and not by their character, nor, often, by their deeds.

n29:41] Offer as a fire offering; continual elevation offering; at entrance; before HaShem, where “I shall Set up My Meeting with you.”

29:43-46 Set my glory upon you

n29:45] וְהָיִ֥יתִי לָהֶ֖ם לֵֽאלֹהִֽים — And I shall be their G-d. God rests among us to accept with favour our prayers and service, and He guides our destiny without recourse to intermediaries (Sforno). It is not enough for G-d to rest His Presence amongst us; we must recognise that He is our G-d and act accordingly. We dare not take His closeness for granted.

n29:46] וְיָֽדְע֗וּ… — They shall know… When G-d dwells among the nation, the people will realise that G-d’s purpose in taking us out of Mitzraim was to be our G-d and rest amongst us (Ibn Ezra). This show that G-d rests among us not merely for our benefit, but for His, as it were, because only Israel bears witness to His omnipresence and greatness (Ramban, R. Bachya).

Chapter 30

30:7-8] What is happening here? קְטֹ֣רֶת סַמִּ֑ים — Here we have the mysterious spice-incense. Every day, morning, and afternoon, continually “before the Lord”. In addition, no “alien incense”, קְטֹ֥רֶת זָרָ֖ה.