Tizaveh: dressup

When the Bible speaks of clothing, it evokes many stories.   For  Adam and Eve it is a story of self awareness.  Clothing  covered their embarrassment. Previously, their embarrassment had been covered by ignorance.. Fantasy had been superimposed on the innocent biological process.  They had to cover themselves so that they could get on with other aspects of their lives.

In the story of Noah, clothes are the sources of dignity. They cover Noah's aging body.  Intoxication caused Noah to cast off his clothes, to devalue his dignity. It is better not to look

 In the story of Yaakov and Esau,  clothes are an element of  identity , They distinguish individuals and mark divergence

Yosef has two clothing experiences.  The coat  that his father makes for him, the kitonet pasim,  sets him apart for honor, it is the original  bespoke suit. The gemarah (Kethuboth 19b) mentions a pasim note.  This is a note that does not reflect an actual debt, bur is a device intended to demonstrate the feigned wealth of the bearer.

The ketonet padim was removed from Yosef by his brothers, sprinkled with goat blood , and brought to their father as proof of Yosef's ill fate.  The sacred garments of the High Cohen  are also sprinkled with blood in their sanctification.  There is a hint of Cain and Abel here.  The conflict  of Cain and Abel involved their sacrificial rite.

 The wife of Potifar  also strips Yosef of his clothing.  The Levite high Priest strips Josph's descendants of a position that might have been theirs, per the blessings of Jacob.

The high Cohen's clothes  are intended to confer  honor and grandeur,  lichovod ulitiferes.  In the second temple, we have a true case of "clothes make the man" It was by dressing in these clothes that the high priest was consecrated ( meruba bigadim)

There is a tradition that Alexander the Great bowed to the High Cohen because of his apparel.  Alexander had seen this style  in his dreams.

And so , we get Jews in the shmateh business.

Teruma; The Mishkan

Teruma; The Mishkan

This parsha describes the construction of the Mishkan, the (portable) sanctuary. The idea of the mishkan is very foreign to us. A tent for Gd? What is that?  Our concept of Gd is omnipresent,  Gd cannot be contained in a tent.  

The mishkan is further removed from us by the fact of the Temples in Jerusalem.   The mishkna was permanently replaced, its concept uprooted,  by these structures.  When the exiles occurred, there could be  no new mishkan. Only a restoration of the Temple at its sacred site in the Holy Land would do.  The mishkan  was absolutely temporary, tied to its time, never to happen again. 

The last 5 parshioth of Shemoth look like they are motivated by the golden calf. There are 2 1/2 parshioth describing the mishkan , followed by the golden calf story,  followed by 2 more mishkan parshiot.  The story of the golden calf is buried in the mishkan,  It presents the story of the gulden calf as a misdirected need to worship, which can be properly directed by the mishkan.  The amorphous, dangerous desire  for a physical object to worship is channeled in an "appropriate" direction.  Give the people what they want. 

The heart of the mishkan is the tablets, entombed in the ark.  The message on the tablets is public, but the original is never to be accessed. This encasing of words also happens with Tefillin and mezuza. The words have powers beyond the message:  The amulet, the spell.  In a world with so little power, words are the most powerful thing.  In our world , powerful word remain: password,  computer code -  words enshrined in boxes

                   

Mishpatim: elliptical

Mishpatim: elliptical 

You quickly see the problem, there are just too many contingencies, too many if's. The law cannot be codified in detail, there are too many branchpoints, too many possibilities. Each case has unique elements. The important core needs to remain, but every ruling pulls on the core, moving it from its old center to a new location The law is elliptical: guided by the current human values and the Gd given statements.

It is the ellipse that that brought our understanding of the universe into the modern era.  The ellipse brought us Newtonian mechanics,  Tycho Brahe's observations allowed Keppler to improve the map of the planetary orbits and discover that they are elliptical.  Newton gave the reason: objects attract each other in proportion to their masses. The sun is not special.  Earth is not special.  To some,  that has implications for Gd.  Add a focus, lose a focus. 

Relative to the circle, the  ellipse is strange.  Its shape is less well defined.  Thus, the word elliptical comes to mean obscure ( like these posts) 

The tradition is a helix , an ellipse moving through time.  We try to preserve the true core(s).

  

Yithro: the outsider

Yithro: the outsider

Contrast the beginning of Beshalach with the beginning of Yithro.  Beshalach begins with Pharaoh sending out the Israelites. Yithro: Yithro heard of all  that Gd had done for Moses, and for Israel His people, how that the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt. The actor for the Israelites was Pharoah.  For Yithro, it was Gd.  Two perceptions of the same event. 

The fact that Yithro is an outsider allows him to see the events as acts of Gd.  Those who experience the Exodus see it as a  battle between  Pharaoh and them. The miracles were  what had become of the natural world for them.  An exercise in Relativity. 

Yithro also sees that the absolute, unshared monarchy of Moshe is not sustainable.   He suggests a hierarchy.  Gd and Moshe accept the outsiders suggestion.

To validate the basis of this court system, there is a sound and light show  ... and a product - the word of Gd hewn in stone. A set of laws that come from a place outside the  human realm.  Laws that cannot be questioned, enforced by the ultimate, unrepresentable outsider.