#terumah

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@RabbiBenji

[nonstandardrepertoire]

Parashat Tərumah: כַּפֹּֽרֶת | kapóret

Both the lid and the curtain separate and contain. But there is a key difference: On occasion — once a year on Yom Kipur, in fact — the High Priest can pass thru the curtain; at no point is anyone ever to remove the lid from the Covenant Ark. One is slightly permeable, the other is permanently sealed. What does this teach us about atonement?

A slightly unusual one this week in that I’m not going to be citing a specific verse, but rather a word that shows up in multiple verses in this parashah: כַּפֹּֽרֶת | kapóret, a word that refers to the lid of the Covenant Ark. As far as we can tell, kapóret isn’t a generic term for a lid that goes on a box, instead, it’s a technical term for this covering and this covering alone. Etymologically, kapóret comes transparently from the root כפר | KPR, which generally refers to atonement or the clearing away of sin. It’s the exact same root that gives us Yom Kipur.

I am always a little hesitant to put much weight on etymology when it comes to explaining technical terms. Jargon has a way of tying terms to meanings by the most tangential relations, and those terms tend to stick even when they make very little sense. In music, the field I know best, a piano is not a quiet instrument (despite what its name might suggest), an Italian augmented sixth chord has no discernible historical connection to Italy, and altos (literally “high ones”) aren’t the highest vocal part in a standard vocal ensemble. It’s sometimes possible to explain these names historically (tho, again, some of them really are flummoxingly inexplicable), but there’s no way to reverse-engineer those explanations from the words themselves.

Still, the etymological connection here is suggestive. The most direct explanation may be that the kapóret is where the High Priest would sprinkle the atonement blood on Yom Kipur — not so much a lid as an atonementizer. But I think there’s a teaching for us here as well.

In particular, I’m struck by the similarity of kapóret to another technical term in this parashah: פָּרֹֽכֶת | parókhet, the curtain that separates the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Mishkan. The words are almost identical, the same four consonants in only a slightly different order, all but the same vowels. What are we to learn from the juxtaposition of these words?

Both the lid and the curtain separate and contain. But there is a key difference: On occasion — once a year on Yom Kipur, in fact — the High Priest can pass thru the curtain; at no point is anyone ever to remove the lid from the Covenant Ark. One is slightly permeable, the other is permanently sealed.

What does this teach us about atonement?

There is a state of affairs that, at first blush, looks an awful lot like atonement. When one person wrongs another, it is common for the two of them to never speak of it, to never address the harm directly, to carry on as tho the harm had never been done, not because the harm has been healed but instead because letting it fester in the background is easier than the fraught work of apology. Perhaps you have even experienced this yourself.

As I said, at first blush, this might look like atonement. But unaddressed, these things tend to accumulate, repeated little incidents amplifying each other towards a ruinous breaking point. The parókhet might seem like a kapóret, but it is not quite: The miasma of sin can still seep thru it and contaminate the holiest space. Harm suppressed is not atonement.

The work of atonement requires piercing that veil. It requires the risky, terrifying work of going inwards, digging up feelings of hurt and sitting with them, figuring out what went wrong, what can be done to make it right, and what can be done to prevent future failings on the same lines. And then, crucially, the matter must be laid to rest. It cannot be atonement if the same incident is going to be relitigated again and again. That’s a curtain, not a lid — once the Tablets go into the Ark, the kapóret goes on, and it doesn’t come off again. If it were permeable, it would be a parókhet, and that’s no good.

This work, tho difficult, is uttmostly Holy. The very Divine Presence of G-d manifests in the Holy of Holies in the heart of the holy meeting tent directly on top of the kapóret. Atonement, when we can reach it, is the foundation that allows G-d’s presence to enter the world.

[This has been an installment of one-word Torah. You can read the full series here.]

[geostatonary]

Tonight in Torah study: Terumah - 2/13/24

Not too much to say tonight; lower attendance and as you can see above, this portion is entirely concerned with the construction of the Tabe

tonight in torah study, we discuss the finer points of constructing and furnishing a tent

[phylactration]

The keruvim had bodies like birds, and faces like children. From where is the association with children derived? “Keruvim” is derived from “Ke-ravya” (childlike), as in Babylonian Aramaic one called a child “ravya,” (R. Abbahu’s philology, Sukkah 5b).

The sages teach that when the Jewish people did not live well, the keruvim turned away from each other. But when the people lived well, the keruvim gazed at each other like two lovers. The Ba’al Haturim says: like chavruta locked in eternal makhloket. The image of partners endlessly quarreling over words of Torah bears a wholly positive connotation which does not at all contradict the image of two lovers.

[torahgalus]

Terumah

we face each other we face each other we face each other wings almost, barely, touching, heads bowed wings reaching, earnestly, above and we will not look at you; we refuse to be worshipped. sometimes we will be looking just above you,  beyond you, towards a bare and brilliant hill-- mostly, we will face each other. wings stretching  heads bowed, almost, as if in mourning, we strive for the holy but are bound to this earth, this ark, each other.  perhaps we will look down and find it was holy, always, too--perhaps our gaze will skip over yours for the briefest moment as we turn from the hill, and we  will see your naked yearning and turn away from it. we will face each other, the space of a finger, a kiss, between us.  we cannot help you.  we are not God, that you should worship us.  only gold desperately alive, shading the Torah with every chiseled feather.

[rebbestorah]

The People’s Mishkan

וְנָתַתָּ אֶל הָאָרֹן אֵת הָעֵדֻת אֲשֶׁר אֶתֵּן אֵלֶיךָ (שמות כה, טז) AND YOU SHALL PLACE INTO THE ARK THE TESTIMONY, WHICH I WILL GIVE YOU. (SHEMOS 25:16) 

The Talmud (Berachos 8b) teaches that the Aron contained both the broken remnants of the first set of Luchos, as well as the complete and unbroken second Luchos.

The first Luchos were given to Moshe immediately after the Revelation at Sinai, before Bnei Yisrael sinned and worshipped the Golden Calf. At that point, they were spiritually perfect, (see Talmud, Shabbos 146a: “At the Giving of the Torah, their filth departed”), thus the remnants of the first Luchos represent the tzaddik—the Jew in his most perfect and elevated state.

The second set of Luchos were given to Moshe on Yom Kippur after G-d pardoned Bnei Yisrael for the sin of the Golden Calf. These Luchos represent the baal teshuva—a person who may have strayed from the Torah’s ways in the past but has since repented.

Both the tzaddik and baal teshuvah were thus represented in the Aron, by the first and second Luchos, respectively. There is, however, a third possible state in which a Jew may find himself: having transgressed the Torah but not yet made amends. The first Luchos, the Luchos of flawlessness, no longer represent him. The second Luchos, the Luchos of repentance, do not yet represent him either. But this Jew, too, is represented in the Aron—by the broken state of the first Luchos.

By representing all three categories of Jews in the Aron, the Torah highlights that the commandment to build a Mishkan—and likewise, the eternal lesson we learn from this mitzvah—applies to every Jew equally. Regardless of your current spiritual state, whether perfect or far from it, you must endeavor to elevate your material life to serve exclusively as a home for G-d.

—Likutei Sichos, vol. 6, pp. 156-157

[parshapoem]

Terumah

In the wilderness is a sanctuary. Past the twisted linen lies its court. through the goat-hair curtain, defence against the desert dust, through blue, purple, crimson and gold is the holy.

Inside the holy, a veil with cherubs, and through it holy of holies. Here is an ark. Inside the ark is me.

[torahgalus]

Terumah

and this is how much I love you, she says-- enough to retract myself from the Heavens, to take my expansiveness and make it presence, to take my dwelling and make it singular-- here, between the two keruvim, I alight on the ark and I will speak to you beneath the shelter of their wings, their faces almost touching but not quite, my presence almost finite but never just, your face alight and my voice shaking the flaps of this goat-hair tent.  this is how much I love you--enough to shrink myself, momentarily. to slip between the hairsbreadth dividing these angels’ lips.  to gird myself in goats’ hair and whisper, through the shadows of seven soft flickering lights.

build me a home and paint it  blue. I will come to you.