Finding Our Inner Nobility

This week’s Torah portion is Tetzaveh, which means, Command. It contains the instructions for the Eternal light, the Ner Tamid, to be continually kindled in the menorah at night. God describes the design for the Priests’ Vestments, for glory and splendor. The specifications for an incense altar are given, as is the commandment not to offer any alien incense.

The costume of the High Priest contained red, blue, and purple wool, fine white linen, and real gold thread. On the priest’s woven breastplate were 12 precious stones, one for each of the 12 Tribes of Israel. The priest also wore a turban and a golden plate on his forehead which said, Holy to God. Moses was to inaugurate the priests during a seven day consecration ceremony. First they had to immerse themselves in water. Our custom of the Mikveh comes from this. We know that washing or bathing: water purification ceremonies, must be as old as humanity itself. It is almost certain that Baptism, the Christian ritual comes originally from this commandment in Tetzaveh. Of course, all the people who originally engaged in baptism were Jews, and any river is known to be a kosher mikveh. Then the priests would be dressed in their vestments. Only the High priest had the golden and jeweled garments. The other priests were dressed more simply. The priests confessed their sins and offered three sacrifices for each of seven days: a sin offering sacrifice, an elevation offering sacrifice, to draw closer to God, and a fulfillment or perfection sacrifice, the last one of which was eaten.

If we think of Aaron, Moses’ brother: he was a slave like anyone else. The Israelites were an assemblage of slaves: a sea of nobodies who had been beaten: beaten down, degraded, and forced to suffer. How was even one of them to be transformed into a glorious priest, a leader of the people? The holy garments can be understood as serving to convince Aaron, as well as convincing the other priests, and ultimately convincing the people of their own innate holiness. Rabbi Elimelech wrote, “When God said, Let there be light, a new light was brought into existence…from there the light was drawn down here below, but that light still remains rooted up above. This is the case with all things. Each thing was created by God so that its root remains above and so everything that happens here below is a result of our actions, which shake the roots above, so that those things can be drawn down here below.” This quotation is an attempt to explain the mechanism by which we are attached to our Root: attached to God. Since we are of God, of God’s light, and of God’s holiness, theoretically we can attain amazingly great things. The Psalmist said, “You are Gods, all of you, children of the most High (Ps 82:6).” Our reality is so different from this.

Our inner nobility is not what we often experience. As slaves in the wilderness, the priests were even farther away from nobility than we are. The S’fat Emet wrote, “Moses was called a man of God. All of Israel were supposed to attain that state.” The only thing that stood in the way of Aaron and the priests becoming holy were their own thoughts and opinions about themselves. How did they become holy? Water purification, dressing in a fine costume that elevated them and made them feel special; also following a set of instructions, given by God, and confessing their sins, which helped them to try to do better. Probably meditating on their actions was part of the 7 day inauguration ceremony, since they were prohibited from leaving the sacred area for that whole period of time. These are the same things that can help us to feel holy: being elevated through our dress; confessing sins, performing deeds of generosity and kindness, deepening our relationship to our own divinity through prayer and meditation.

Perhaps then, there is very little that stands between us and holiness: our lack of self esteem and lack of belief in ourselves being the most important one. Like Dorothy and her companions in Baum’s Wizard of Oz, who learned that they possessed all they needed to achieve what they desired, we too have within us all of the perfection of our higher selves. May we be drawn to express our inner holiness in every human interaction we have, through knowing that nobility, goodness, and a loving, giving nature is who we really are.