February 12th, 2022
12 Adar I 5782
Click here to listen to a recording of Rabbi Sarit's sermon for this Shabbat.
I’ve never had a job with a uniform. And as a child, I never went to a school with a uniform. But I have often thought that a uniform would actually suit me well, no pun intended. I remember, as a young girl, putting on my Girl Scout sash. It was hardly a uniform, but it signified a type of change. Even as a 7 or 8 year old, it signified that I represented something bigger than myself, that I was connected to an institution, to a set of ideals.
I am a person of routine, and I also know that my outer trappings affect what happens on the inside. I feel spiritually differently when I put on my tallit and tefillin. On days when I would start my work day from home, I’d be sure to put on shoes because what happens on the outside affects how we feel, how we act, and perhaps most importantly, how we conceive of ourselves. How we understand our sense of purpose.
In this week’s Parashah of Tetzaveh, the bulk of the parashah is comprised of descriptions of the tremendously ornate clothing of the Kohein Gadol, the High Priest. There is a very distinct uniform that this class of Israelites wore when they engaged in the work of the sacrifices and in their priestly duties. There was a headdress, and pants and a robe on top, and a breastplate - all of these together are actually referred to as bigdei Kodesh - holy clothing. They are holy, I believe, not because the fabric or the gems inside are intrinsically holy, but because they are the outer trappings that help transform the priests to do holy work, and more importantly, to serve a holy purpose. They help the priest get to that place, embodying the actions and special status of this group of individuals.
A uniform itself is representative of a role and a purpose. When the Kohein Gadol would put on his uniform, piece by piece, I imagine he felt the weight - literally and figuratively - of what he was stepping into. As they wore something different than all the people, and as they functioned in a different and unique way from all of the other Israelites, I wonder about their purpose. Not just the way that the Torah describes their purpose - leading the people in the sacrificial rites - but how they saw their purpose. How did they understand their own role in Israelite society?
The Kehuna, the Priesthood, was an institution. It set aside this group of individuals in a very particular way, with certain rules they had to abide by and certain rituals they had to help orchestrate. They were not treated the same way as the other Israelites. There were greater expectations placed upon them, and they were also considered special, elevated.
I’ve wondered how the priests may have felt about this status, one that they were born into. Did they experience their uniqueness as a burden, or as a privilege? Did they have to help the people offer sacrifices in the Temple, or did they have the privilege of doing so? Was the eating of sacrifices that they were commanded to do payment for the job they had done, or was it a bonus? There was probably an element of their work that felt burdensome. There was a rotation of priests that were in the Temple around the clock tending to the needs of the people. You never knew who was going to come in with a gratitude offering or a sin offering, and of course there were the regular sacrifices that were offered throughout the day. The Temple had to be cleaned in a certain way, and you, your brothers and cousins, were the only ones allowed to do it - mandated to do it.
But the other side is that they were a privileged class. The Kohanim were the ones to wear the fancy clothes with the jewels. They were the ones who inherited this special, elevated status from their fathers, granting them the spiritual responsibilities of carrying out ritual for our people. They healed those that were sick, they were the ones allowed into the most holy of places. If we view the priesthood as a privileged class that is elevated above the others with certain rights that others don’t have, it’s easy to view this as our own type of caste system. This one, not based on race or finances, but rather on lineage, can feel complicated at best. What is this doing inside of our precious holy community? Were some better than others?
But in thinking about who the Kohanim were, and how these priests functioned in the community, it seems like there may be a third way that we can really view them, and perhaps, how they viewed themselves. This way doesn’t understand them only as living a burdened life of service, or a privileged class above others. The Kohanim were meant to be a group of people that could model for this nascent Israeltie nation, one that didn’t know how to execute their own spirituality, how to put on their own religious uniforms, so to speak. They were a group that could inspire others to think about their own spirituality, allowing them to see individuals that were empowered leaders, and wonder how they too may feel inspired, how they, too, may take on some religious practice of their own.
Perhaps, as we are just becoming a people cognizant of religious law and ritual itself, developing our own sense of spirituality, there’s some usefulness in having role models, in having those we can emulate, those that can set an example for us of how to connect with God. God actually tells us, just a bit earlier in this book of Exodus, that we, as an entire nation, will be a mamlechet kohanim v’goy kadosh - we will be a nation of priests and a holy nation. The goal is for all of us to see ourselves as empowered spiritual servants. We should be an entire nation of people who cultivate that sense of closeness with the Divine.
Sure, there may have been times when the Kohanim felt the burden of their leadership, and there may have been times when they felt privileged in their ability to serve in a unique way. But ultimately, I believe that they could have seen their service and their role as preserving something essential ethically and ritually so that it can expand to the rest of the nation, so that they can all be a mamlechet kohanim v’goy kadosh - a nation of priests and a holy nation. We can be that, we just may need some models of how to get there.
I started by speaking about the special outfits, the ornate uniforms that the Kohein Gadol wore, and I’d like to end there as well, speaking to their sense of purpose. There is a particular detail that the Torah describes about the hemline of the priest’s robe - this is how specific the instructions were! Along the hem were golden bells and pomegranates. Some commentators say that one was inside the other, and others say that they alternated around the hem - bell, pomegranate, bell, pomegranate. But the pomegranate later becomes a symbol for the entirety of mitzvot in our tradition. As a child I remember attempting to count the seeds inside to see if there were actually 613. There weren’t, but it didn’t matter because the robustness, the sweetness, the “here’s one more!” nature of it still allowed them to represent the entirety of our sacred commands.
And I realized this week, just like the Kohanim put on a robe that had these pomegranates, these symbols of our mitzvot woven into the fabric, woven into their uniforms, we do the same thing. The tallit that we put on every morning, or every Shabbat, allows us to step into that same reality. Because the tzit-tzit on each of the 4 corners represent the very same thing, the entirety of mitzvot. We have transformed what this notion of priesthood can be for our people, becoming a nation of priests and also taking on what it can mean to serve as religious role models. Every single time we put on a tallit, every time we put on our own religious uniform, we have the ability to become our own priest, to embody and take on those 613 mitzvot, and just like our ancient priests did, to model what serious engagement with our tradition looks like, for others. We can follow their lead of what it means to fully embrace our covenant, to feel empowered by our ritual and to feel spiritually engaged.
In our wearing of a tallit, and our connection to the priests themselves, we work towards becoming a mamlechet kohanim - a nation of priests. And every time we do so, when we put on that spiritual uniform, we can be elevated. We can be transformed, and we can take on the purpose the uniform represents. In this way, the uniform is far from a silly costume. It is a tool, one that changes who we are on the inside, and one that models for others, how they can become their own agent of religious engagement as well. Our religious engagement can sometimes be both a burden and a privilege. But more than either of those, I pray that taking on the uniform, fully enveloping ourselves in the richness of what religious practice can be, gives each of us a sense of purpose, and shows others how they can do it too.
Ken Yehi Ratzon.
