By Rabbi Bradley Artson, provided by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, for MyJewishLearning.com
Clothes Are The Message
The clothing of our religious leaders communicates our perceptions of our relationships to God and each other.
This week’s Torah reading describes at length the elaborate outfit of the Kohanim (Priests) in the Mishkan (Tabernacle). Not only were these elaborate and striking vestments used during the forty years of wandering in the wilderness, but they also became the paradigm for the priestly robes in Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem in a later period. They must have added a powerful sense of majesty and pageantry to the earliest worship of the one true God.
It is only natural that, as the culmination of the rites of the Mishkan, the Torah would focus on the human beings who are to serve in that place. But why the emphasis on clothing? After all, isn’t it true that what matters about people is what is in their hearts? Shouldn’t we find elaborate descriptions of Aaron’s personality, rather than lengthy and tedious elaborations of his robes? Why all this focus on externals?
Continue reading.
Follow us on
No comments:
Post a Comment