Parshat Tetzave  13 Adar1 5763, February 2002

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - The Torah portion of Tetzaveh is wholly dedicated to Aaron and his children, the High Priest and the Holy Temple priesthood - even to the extent of the absence of even a mention of Moses' name throughout the reading. And we are given a precise description of the ritual by which they were consecrated for their Divine task, including the specific Sanctuary offerings which were to be brought.

But what is most jarring to the modern ear- and especially to those of us who have become accustomed to the tie-less and jacket-less informality of Israeli dress even on the part of the P rime Minister - is the painstaking description of the unique wearing apparel of the priests, the eight special garments of the High Priest and the four special garments of the regular priests. The Torah itself commands, "and you shall make sacred garments for Aaron your brother for honor and glory" (Exodus 28:2 - Kavod v'tiferet). - and the Talmud stipulates that only when properly garbed, are the priests endowed with sanctity and permitted to minister in the Sanctuary (B.T. Zevahim 7). Is the Torah then teaching us that "clothes make the man?" What about the internal characteristics of knowledge and virtue and commitment? And what of the fundamental Biblical principle that everyone is equal before G-d, that each individual is created in the Divine Image, that external differences - especially if engendered by special garb- has little to do with one's true personality which must be dedicated to the emulation of the Divine, just as G-d is compassionate, so must you be compassionate.."?!

I believe that upon deeper reflection we will come to understand that the priestly garb is not meant to endow sanctity but rather to inspire sanctity - as well as to instill within the priests the confidence that they can make the entire world sacred. Moreover, the Torah teaches that every Jew must see him/herself as a High Priest dressed in sacred vestments, a member of "a holy nation and a Kingdom of priests."

You will remember that immediately prior to the Revelation at Sinai there is a strange dialogue between G-d and Moses, in which the Almighty calls out to Moses, Moses attempts to go up to the top of the mountain, G-d tells Moses to go down to the nation, Moses complains that the nation has been disallowed from ascending the mountain, and G-d again tells Moses to go down (Exodus 19:20-25). My revered teacher and mentor Rav J. B. Soloveitchik ZTZ"L explained that Moses thought, in accordance with the other religions, that spirituality means to leave the material world and ascend to the celestial spheres of the Divine; G-d explains to Moses that Jewish spirituality means to bring G-d down into the material world and sanctify it. This is indeed the basic function of Torah: to sanctify the kitchen and dining room with Kashrut, to sanctify the bedroom with family ritual purity, to sanctify the market-place with business ethics, to sanctify the calendar with holy days and sacred moments. Hence our Sages declare that what the Almighty truly has in this world is the four ells of halakha (religio-legal practices).

The previous Torah portion of Terumah began with the Divine charge,: "And they shall make for Me a Sanctuary so that I may dwell among them. " In effect, G-d gave us a world- albeit an imperfect, incomplete world with darkness a well as light, evil as well as good (Isaiah 45:7) - and expects us to perfect it, to re-make the world into a veritable Sanctuary so that the Divine will feel comfortable dwelling among us. This is the charge as well as the challenge, the model as well as the mission, of the Sanctuary. And those who are expected, - at least in the first instance, - to transmit and effectuate this message are the priests, and especially the High Priest.

In order to do so, the High Priest must first see himself as being capable of carrying out such a formidable task, he must see himself as a powerful king, representing the King of all Kings, garbed in regal robes of honor and glory. And his dress expresses a message. Just as the ideal King of Israel dare not involve himself with opulent, material blandishments like numerous wives, horses, gold and silver but must demonstrate his devotion to G-d by always having with him a copy of the Torah (Deuteronomy 17:16-20), so must the High Priest wear the "tzitz" on his forehead "always," a gold head-band on a thread of tchelet (heavenly royal blue) on which was written "holy unto the Lord" (Exodus 28:36-38). And just as the ideal king of Israel must understand that his authority derives from his nation, that his rule must be by virtue of the will of the people and for the sake of the people (Deuteronomy 17:18, 19 especially in accordance with the interpretation of the Ha'amek Davar and the Talmudic dictum that a king cannot relinquish the honor due him because it is in actuality the honor of his nation, by whose will and for whose well-being he must rule), so does the High Priest wear the breast-plate of justice over his heart, upon which were embroidered twelve precious stones upon which were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. "And Aaron shall carry the names of the children of Israel in the breast-plate of judgement upon his heart when he enters the Holy Place as a reminder before the Lord always" (Exodus 28:29). In order to succeed in his daunting task of perfecting the world in the Kingship of G-d, he must learn from his special garb to lead the priests in total devotion to G-d and the nation.

And every Israelite must also see himself as a High Priest in function, as a proud representative of a holy nation and kingdom of priests. After all, does not the Israelite dress himself every day in his tefilin-phylacteries, the head tefilin atop his forehead on the place of the High Priest's tzitz and the hand tefilin opposite his heart, the place where the breast-plate of the High Priest expressed the names of the twelve tribes? And the tefilin are called a symbol of glory (pe'er, Ezekiel 24:17), just as the regal robes are vestments of honor and glory (tife'eret - Exodus 28:2); and in wearing the tefilin, the Jew becomes adorned with the four portions of the Torah- expressing love of G-d, fealty to commandments, the sanctity of the people of Israel and the sanctity of the land of Israel- placed in the tefilin batim (house-like repositories), much like the King is adorned with the copy of the Torah which must always accompany him.

Moreover, the second traditional Jewish garb is the ritual fringes of the talit or talit katan ("Prayer Shawl"), featuring a thread of t'chelet (heavenly royal blue) which is a salient feature of the High Priest's tzitz and is significantly called by the Bible "tzitzit," or a junior tzitz. Every Jew must share in the mission to perfect the world, and must be inspired to do so by wearing the priestly, regal garments which teach commitment to G-d and commitment to nation.

Shabbat Shalom.

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