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The Weekly Davar - Tetzaveh

(Exodus 27:20 – 30:10)

10th February 2011
6 Adar I 5771
 
Good Afternoon!! I saw an amazing video this week of 6 thieves robbing a jewellery shop on a high street in broad daylight in Northampton with sledgehammers. (you can probably still watch it here if you are interested). Everyone just stood and watched (other than the person who stood and filmed!), apart from an elderly lady who ran up and starting hitting one of the thieves with her handbag. And, incredibly, they all ran away. When asked why she did it, she simply said, ‘somebody had to do something’. There are times for all of us when that ‘somebody’ who has to ‘do something’ is me. And if we’d notice, they come a lot more often than we appreciate. We aren’t observers of our lives and we aren’t filming our lives – we are here to act, engage and make a difference – as this elderly lady clearly did.

I’m excited to announce a new innovation – I am now recording a version of the Davar weekly as audio as well - so you can now subscribe to weekly Davar on iTunes by clicking here. To download or listen to this week’s weekly Davar directly use the player above.

Torah Portion

This week’s portion is about the clothes of the Priests who worked in the Tabernacle and subsequently the Temple. Like last week, it’s quite intricate details and not for the fainthearted. Next week will be much more interesting.
 
Davar Torah

The clothes of the priests were a simple affair – trousers, a tunic, a hat and a belt. All of them completely white. That was it. Enough to do the job of clothes – cover their nakedness – but no more. Clothes maketh not the man – especially when he is a Priest in the service of God.

In order to understand the idea of clothes, we need to look at the first time we encounter them in the Torah. Adam and Eve are naked – but once they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they covered themselves. In their pure and naive state, they were able to relate to each other on a purely spiritual level. They were not distracted by the desires of the physical body. So they did not need clothes.

However, once they made their mistake, their desires became more prominent and they suddenly became attracted by the physical body and needed to cover it if they were to maintain a spiritual focus. So the purpose of clothes was, and is, to enable human beings to relate to each other as just that – human beings and not animals; souls and not bodies. By covering the physical, the spiritual is emphasised.

It’s funny how the world has changed.

In many cases, clothes nowadays have actually become an expression of the physical. They emphasise form and shape. They attract with colour and design. They create status – albeit an inflated one. Instead of focusing us on the Godly soul in those around us, they do precisely the opposite; they distract us from who a person really is by drawing us towards a superficial impression.  

It’s important to look smart and presentable. But if we don’t take care, ‘looking good’ can so easily become a simple substitute for ‘being good’. It’s all too appealing to go for form over content. The clothes of the Priests were simple and smart. They didn’t ‘look good’. But the people they were and how they lived their lives spoke volumes; their actions spoke for them, not their clothes. Those intent on making an impression by how they dress often do so because they know their actions will not suffice.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Shaul Rosenblatt

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