This week we read from the hidden parsha (weekly Torah portion), which is appropriate considering it is the parsha that is read either just before or right on (when we are not in a leap year) the most hidden of Jewish holidays: Purim. What is hidden and hiding? If you all are really nice, and truly believe in faeries, maybe I’ll tell you. 😉

But, before I do, I want to let you know that the parsha we read is called Ttzaveh which means, “You will command.” It is a continuation of the previous parsha where haShem (god) was telling Moshe (Moses) what needs to happen to create a place for Divinity within the nation that sprang from Yaakov (Jacob) and his wives. So let us pick up in the middle of god’s words…

“And you will command the children of Yisrael to take to you pressed olive oil for light…”

No, I won’t tell you everything that god said. If you want that, I recommend you read the parsha yourself.

I will summarize for you though.

God asks for olive oil for keeping an eternal light going, and he says that this will be the responsibility of Aharon and his sons forever. Then god springs the news that Aharon and his sons are going to be the cohanim, or priests, to haShem, and that special clothes need to be made for them, “For honor and for splendor.” The garments for Aharon are: a breastplate, an ayphod (sorry, I didn’t find a translation), a jacket, a tunic, a turban, and a sash.

The Torah then tells us the materials of the ayphod, and how it will look. Then it provides instructions for making the breastplate, along with how it connects to the ayphod.

For those of you who have heard of the urim and tumim, we read that they get inserted into the breastplate, to be on Aharon’s heart when he comes before god. The next garment we read about is the jacket with its bells and pomegranates sewn all around the hem, so that its sound will be heard when Aharon comes to the holy before god, and when he leaves, and he will not die.

Now we get to the head-plate. Was that not mentioned earlier? How silly, it seems that god forgot to mention it before. Well, anyway, there is this head-plate of pure gold that has: “Holy to haShem,” engraved on it, and it attaches to the turban, so it will be on Aaron’s forehead. Next up is the tunic, then the turban, and then the belt.

Aharon’s sons also get tunics and belts and a head-dress for honor and splendor.

Now that we know about the clothes, god tells Moshe to dress Aharon and his sons, and anoint, initiate, and make them kadosh (holy, separate) so that they can priest to god.

Oh, and don’t forget the hip-to-thigh coverings for them to cover their nakedness. They have to be worn by Aharon and his sons when they work in the mishcan, or they will die.

Now that all of the clothing business is finally out of the way, god tells Moshe how to initiate Aharon and his sons into the priesthood. Details of this are found in the parsha, so I won’t go into them here.

What I will say is that the initiation ritual is to take seven days and at the end, not only are Aharon and his sons holy, but so is the sacrificial altar.

Now that we know how to make the altar holy, god tells Moshe about the daily sacrifices.

God then explains that it is the glory of god that really is what makes things kodesh/holy. This includes the tent of meeting and the altar and Aharon and his sons.

God then says that it will reside within the children of Yisrael and be their god/power.

Nnow that we are way past the details of the mishcan (which we covered last week), god decides to add one more thing: an incense altar which god tells Moshe how to make and where it will go inside the mishcan and that Aharon will burn the incense everyday at the time he is preparing the lights of the menorah.

The parsha ends with a warning against using strange incense on the altar, or putting sacrifices on this altar and that Aharon will atone on its horns once a year, for it is most holy to haShem.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to why it appears that haShem keeps adding new things to the mishcan or to Aharon’s clothing? The only thought I have is what we call in the software industry, “Feature creep.” I look forward to any ideas you might have – they might become the gist of a future torah thought. Feel free to leave a comment below.

Many years ago, during a shabbat, the question I was wrestling with was: What is the connection between Purim and the parsha? As I said, in normal years it is the parsha that is read just before, or on Purim. Why? What is their connection?

Seeing as most of the parsha is about the clothes of the cohanim (priests), I started with that.

What are clothes?

Clothes are a covering.

How does this tie into Purim?

I can think of two ways.

The first is that the story of Purim is all about haShem without mentioning him once; god is covered up. What I mean is that if you look at all the events separately, they seem random.

However; when you put them all together, you see that the events connect so precisely that they bring the tribes of Yaakov(Jacob) together. It is so precise that it had to be planned and orchestrated, and the only one who could have pulled it off is haShem.

And yet, haShem’s name is never mentioned.

In other words, the ways of the world are the clothes that cover up god’s presence in the world and allow him to pull off miracles without being obvious about it.

The second place we see clothing in Purim is in the celebration of the holiday. We dress up. In fact, in Jerusalem, people dress up between shabbat and Purim. It is really fun to see.

Now, outside of the fun in dressing up, when we put on costumes, we feel much freer to act in ways we would not normally act.

Why?

Because we are hidden. Nobody knows that it is us doing the act.

There is another custom to Purim: getting so drunk that you cannot tell the difference between the hero Mordechai, and the villain Haman.

There are a few reasons for this.

One is to realize that both heros and villains come from the same place – god, and they both really have the same purpose – to help us become better people.

There is another thing that drinking does however. It lowers a person’s inhibitions. If it is done in a sacred way, it can allow the essence of a person to come out.

If we add in what we said about wearing a costume, we can see that these two customs give us a chance to allow our godliness to really come out and shine on the world. It is a way of emulating, or allowing god to reveal herself in the world under the cover of what is ordinary for the day.

This makes a nice Purim drosh (explanation), but what does it have to do with the parsha?

Let me try to answer that.

The parsha talks mostly of the clothes of the high priest. However, it also makes hints to Yom Kippur. The connnection here is that the clothes are needed to be worn by the high priest on Yom Kippur.

Then, at the very end of the parsha, right after it talks about the incense altar, the Torah says that Aharon will Kiper/atone on its horns once a year with the blood of the sin-offering of haKipurim/atonement.

The Torah here is speaking specifically of the day of atonement, Yom Kippur. Now, Yom Kippur is also knows as Yom haKipurim, which can be translated as, “The day like Purim.”

The parsha refers to Moshe (who do you think god is talking to?) and yet, Moshe’s name is never mentioned – just like haShem’s name is not in the story of Purim, yet haShem certainly is a major part of the story.

These, however, are not the only connections. As I said earlier, this parsha is mostly about the clothes of the cohen gadol/high priest. How does this costume connect with the costumes we wear on Purim, and with haShem clothing himself in the ways of the world?

Somehow, they must allow the cohen gadol to act in a way that he normally wouldn’t or couldn’t.

I was stuck on this thought during that shabbat many years ago. And then, haShem blessed me with an answer.

I was looking at it backwards.

On Yom Kippur, the cohen gadol goes into the holy of holies, the place where the infinite exists within the finite. He then comes out and pronounces god’s name. This is the only time during the whole year that the four letter name of god is pronounced.

I was thinking it must be that the clothes hide him enough so he can say this name.

However, that is not what is happening. When the cohen gadol goes into the holy of holies, haShem herself goes into the cohen gadol! When he comes out, it is not the cohen gadol speaking god’s name, it is god himself saying it! The clothes, and the cohen gadol himself, are actually hiding god as she says her name, just like the events of Purim hid god as he made the miracle of Purim happen.

And this is why we read this parsha just before Purim; it is because the clothes and the events we read in the scroll of Esther are really doing the same thing!

I wish everyone a good Purim; may we all allow our godliness to shine forth and reveal that haShem is here all around us, in both the good and the bad. And I invite all of you to say, “HaShem, I see you,” just like we would when we see anybody in a game of hide-n-seek!

If you want to read what I wrote about this parsha last year, click here.

About the Author

Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.