Dressing to Impress Tetzaveh, with its elaborate description of the “sacred vestments” which the Priests and the High Priest wore “for glory and for splendor,” seems to run counter to some fundamental values of Judaism. The vestments were made to be seen. They were intended to impress the eye. But Judaism is a religion of […]
Brothers: A Drama in Five Acts It is interesting to note the absence of Moses from the parsha of Tetzaveh. For once Moses, the hero, the leader, the liberator, the lawgiver, is off-stage in the only instance where the name of Moses is not mentioned at all in any parsha since the first parsha of […]
Crushed for the Light There are lives that are lessons. The late Henry Knobil’s was one. He was born in Vienna in 1932. His father had come there in the 1920’s to escape the rising tide of antisemitism in Poland, but like Jacob fleeing from Esau to Laban, he found that he had fled one […]
Who Is Honored? Tetzaveh is the only sedra from the beginning of Exodus to the end of Deuteronomy, that does not contain the word “Moses.” For once Moses, the hero, the leader, the liberator, the lawgiver, is offstage. Instead our focus is on his elder brother Aaron who, elsewhere, is often in the background. Indeed […]
Inspiration & Perspiration Beethoven rose each morning at dawn and made himself coffee. He was fastidious about this, each cup had to be made with exactly sixty beans, which he counted out each time. He would then sit at his desk and compose until 2:00 pm or 3:00 pm in the afternoon. Subsequently he would […]
The Ethic of Holiness With Tetzaveh something new enters Judaism, Torat cohanim, the world and mindset of the priest. Rapidly it became a central dimension of Judaism. It dominates the next book of the Torah, Vayikra. Until now, though, priests in the Torah have had a marginal presence. For the first time in our parsha we […]
The Counterpoint of Leadership One of the most important Jewish contributions to our understanding of leadership is its early insistence of what, in the eighteenth century, Montesquieu called “the separation of powers.” Neither authority nor power was to be located in a single individual or office. Instead, leadership was divided between different kinds of roles. […]
Prophet and Priest The sedra of Tetsaveh, as commentators have noted, has one unusual feature. It is the only sedra from the beginning of Shemot to the end of Devarim that does not contain the name of Moses. Several interpretations have been offered. The Vilna Gaon suggests that it is related to the fact that […]
The Aesthetic in Judaism Why is the Torah so specific and emphatic, in this week’s parsha, about the clothes to be worn by the Cohen and the Cohen Gadol? “These are the vestments that they shall make: a breastplate, an ephod, a robe, a knitted tunic, a turban, and a sash. Make them as sacred vestments […]
Leadership Means Making Space Tetzaveh is, as is well known, the parsha in which for once Moses take second place, indeed is not mentioned by name at all, while the focus is on his brother Aaron and on the role he came to occupy and personify, that of High Priest, the Cohen Gadol. There are […]
