One Book We Judge By Its Cover

“Tell all the skilled workers to whom I have given wisdom in such matters that they are to make garments for Aaron, for his consecration, so he may serve me as priest.” (Exodus 28:3)

In Exodus, we read forty verses that offer intricate details regarding the clothes that Aaron and his sons must wear to serve as priests.

And these clothes are not just for show. We find out that Aaron’s headdress will allow him to take away any sin from the Israelite people and that the breastplate over his heart holds the ‘mishpat Bnei Yisrael’ – the instrument that Rashi says decides for the Israelites what to do or what not to do.

The priests’ dress purposefully set them apart from the community. It was their job to give sacrifices and be the connection between the people and God.

But what of Moses – the community builder and teacher of Torah, who is there for all the Israelites’ celebrations and anxieties? What did he wear? We do not know. Nor do we know what the rest of the Israelite people wore. Perhaps, we can assume that Moses wore the same clothes as the community.

If Moses were to have worn the same garish clothing of the priests, he might not have been able to have had the ‘on the ground’ impact with the Israelites that he needed to.

In an age without the Temple, it is not priests but rabbis, cantors and lay leaders who lead our communities, and like Moses, they do not wear the priestly clothes detailed in these chapters of Exodus.

Instead, with the absence of the Temple and sacrifice, our Torah becomes the central connection to God and ritual practice. Therefore, it is the Torah that wears the clothes of the priest. It has been a long time since we’ve been able to be together, take the Torah from the ark and parade it around the community but thanks to technology, we got a glimpse of the text during our High Holy Day services.

Over these months of separation, we have also learned that it’s the words of the text and the community who live them and come together to bring them to life that gives us that connection to God, spirituality and ritual practice.

Rabbi Anna Posner

Somehow, we have found ourselves in December, nearing the end of what for many has been the longest year ever. This evening the festival of Chanukah begins, Judaism’s contribution to the lights that many traditions bring through their festivals in winter.

Whilst Chanukah is a minor festival it’s often said that the commercialised nature of Christmas heightened Chanukah’s importance by comparison. While I’m sure this holds some truth, I wonder if part of the appeal is the light from the candles and the joy of the traditions that bring lightness to such a dark season. This week, thousands of people around the UK started to receive their Corona Virus vaccine; it feels miraculous to see the images and know that my grandparents will be getting theirs tomorrow. Suddenly the end to all of this is feeling possible, real, and not too far.

Chanukah celebrates the return to and dedication of a destructed temple, destroyed through civil war. Whenever the world is free of the hold coronavirus has on us, we will be allowed to return to something that looks like normal life. Many have spoken of ‘the new normal’, yet we have learned many lessons from this pandemic and seen inequalities highlighted. We have a chance to rededicate our society and community and be a part of making a world that we would be proud to live in and pass to future generations.

As the days count down to 21st December, the darkest day of the year, we light a candle counteracting the everfalling darkness. With each candle, we bring our own small light into the darkness and, as a difficult year draws to a close, we see a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Happy Chanukah.

Rabbi Anna Posner

Sometimes a radical shift in circumstances presents an opportunity. In Numbers 20:1 we read that Miriam dies. Immediately after in Numbers 20:2 we are told that the Israelites were without water. Rashi comments that from this we learn that the Israelites had the well through Miriam’s merit and therefore her death caused the Israelites to no longer have water. Without Miriam’s well the Israelites need to find water by different means and so follows one of the Torah’s most well-known stories, Moses trying to get water from the rock. Here, in the same parasha, parashat Chukkat, Moses hits the rock rather than talking to it as God had said for him to do and so is punished. Moses is told that he will not be able to enter Israel, the promised land, with the rest of the Israelites that he has been leading for all those decades.

Shortly after the incident with the Rock, in the same parasha, Aaron dies. All in one parasha we see the death of Miriam, the death of Aaron and Moses being excluded from entering Israel. This sequence of events leaves the Israelite people without their leaders who have carried them through from their freedom from slavery to their development as a people and nation.

Just two parashiot before this we read of how no-one over the age of 20 will not be able to enter Israel. The Israelites must wander the desert for forty years and the new generation, who have not known slavery, will be the ones to enter Israel. How can a people be totally free and independent if they are so reliant on their leaders? Now the Israelites lose their core leadership in one fell swoop and they must learn to trust new leadership and gain their own independence.

The sequence of events in parashat Chukkat teaches us that sometimes we need radical change or to be pushed away from what we have always known and relied on to be able to find that independence and be truly free.

Rabbi Anna Posner