29 Adar I / March 1
By: Shelley Zak
Parsha Pekudai
“Eleh Pikudai HaMishkan . . . ”—“these are the listings/accounts of the Mishkan . . . “opens this week’s Parshah. Oddly, many of the details enumerated here are merely a repetition of those we already learned in Parshat TeTzaveh. We know that there is no redundancy in the Torah so what can we glean from the emphasis on these details? I would like to focus on just one aspect and how it teaches us about leadership, particularly in this time of transition for our community.
The clothes of the Cohen Gadol, the “Bigdai Cohanim”, are described beginning in verse 39:1. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch discusses the significance of clothing, focusing on the linguistic relationship between the roots “Bet-Gimmel-Daled”, “beged”—“clothing”, and the root from this parsha’s moniker “Pay-Koof-Daled”, which in addition to meaning “containing” or “listing” can also mean, in its verb form, “to invest with purpose or responsibility”. By connecting these two roots, R. Hirsch emphasizes that “the looks make the man”: clothing not only distinguishes the individual superficially (“oh, those colors emphasize her eyes”, “that tie displays a sense of humor and whimsy”) but actually invests the wearer with symbols of his or her character or his or her office. Given that, what can we learn from some of the items in the Cohen Gadol’s garments? First, in the earlier parsha in verse 28:3, R. Hirsch references commentary that the clothing of the Cohen Gadol must be made by the nation, presaging here that these garments are not just decorative, there is an inner meaning to them such that they must be made by and for the “kahal”, they cannot be outsourced. In verse 39:6, the Shoham Stones are mentioned. These are two stones upon which the names of the Tribes of Israel are written. (For those of you who love roots and wordplay, R. Hirsch relates “shoham” to “shem” and thus these stones to “name”—I can already hear the groans!) The significance of these stones is not their value but their outer appearance which provides a listing of all the people. These stones are then placed on the garment worn on the Cohen Gadol’s shoulders, the efod. The next set of stones are described by type of stone; these are the twelve different stones placed into the breastplate worn by the Cohen Gadol. Thus, the Cohen Gadol has a written list of the tribes of Israel on his shoulders and a tribe-by-tribe delineation on his chest. He is enveloped by the people whom he is representing through wearing garments that are made by them and owned by them. He literally holds B’nei Yisrael on his shoulders. What does this symbolism tell us about leadership? It emphasizes that a great leader leads not only by virtue of who he or she is as an individual but also through being an integral part of the community, with an understanding of the members in their distinctness and the community as a whole. We have been a congregation blessed with leadership that leads from among us, that is intimately involved in this community and is beloved as both a member and leader. May this model of leadership serve as an inspiration to those who will continue to guide Congregation Beth Jacob in the future.
Shabbat Shalom,
Shelley Zak
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