Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is Parsha Tetzaveh, Exodus 27:20-30:10.
As the Israelites approach the Holy Land after receiving the law, the parshiot become preoccupied with the details of day-to-day religious life. Last week God gave specific instructions concerning the construction of the tabernacle, while this week there were similar instructions about how to craft the priestly garb that Aaron and his sons would wear while performing their duties as the Cohanim.
Of the twelve tribes of Israel, many were given specific stations in the emerging kingdom. The tribe of Cohane was selected to fulfill the roles of priests. In the ancient times when there was still a Temple in Jerusalem, the Cohanim were the ones who administered every sacrifice, as well as other religious rites. When the Second Temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire, sacrifice ceased to be a practical part of Jewish faith and so the position of the Cohane disappeared. That, in addition to a lack of agricultural products and other wealth for sacrifice, is why Jews have not practiced sacrificial rites in over 2000 years.
In this parsha, the exact ritual for sacrifice is also described. Like everything else in the portion, much of it is heavy with deeper meaning. But first, the vestments of the priests.
Just like the tabernacle, the holy garments of Aaron and his sons are luxurious beyond compare. This once again points to a shifting values system in the culture. The priests of this new religion are being dressed as kings, there is no doubt about that. They are being gilded and wrapped in royal colors like purple, blue and red. Purple was especially rare at that time and it was a trademark of the Phoenician people, the most advanced civilization on the Levant and the originators of several modern alphabets. The connotations of regal stature in this parsha lead to several laws later in the Torah meant specifically to limit and hold accountable the priests of Israel.
But there is more to the design of the holy vestments than their richness. Both upon the shoulders and the breastplate of the chief priest, Aaron, are the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. In a deeply symbolic sense, Aaron and thereby all the head priests of the future have the people inscribed above their hearts and born on their shoulders.
The description of the sacrificial rites is graphic and detailed. It delineates where the holy parts of an animal stop and where the unholy begins. Certain fats, organs and all waste are considered unholy and are supposed to be burned beyond any given camp. Other portions are to be burned on the alter, while others are to be eaten by the priests. Along with the meats the priests are supposed to consume, there are other foods described as well. Among them are bread, olive oil and wine. There is also a separate rite that involves the burning of local incense, along with a rule that states no foreign incense are to be burned.
This is another area where we're supposed to take pause. What is the religious significance of bread and incense? In a way, there is nothing particularly holy about these things, but that's not really the point. Before the description of the sacrificial rites, God says that the priests will tend to the religious needs of the people every single day. If the priests are busy doing their ritual tasks, where are these earthly elements of the rituals supposed to come from? Obviously, they are products of the people the priests serve. That is what this whole parsha is really about.
By requiring such complex vestments and resource-intensive rituals, the Torah is essentially forcing the Israelites to be productive. They are being told to keep livestock, to grow grain and make oil, to keep vineyards and develop spices. While these days getting a certain color of fabric is as easy as going to a store, in the ancient world it meant tending to sheep and developing whole textile industries, as well as harvesting dyes from flowers. The purple dye itself came from certain sea creatures, so this would require a sustained maritime effort as well. In this one parsha we see the call to create an entire nation's livelihood, and not a meager one at that. These are not supposed to be simple subsistence farmers. Rather, many of these people would be employed in the development of luxury products, the surest pathway to a wealthy and powerful nation. For centuries in the ancient and medieval world, spices and dyes were the difference between empires and their subjects.
This is how we must approach these seemingly minutiae-obsessed portions of the Torah. Cultural context is everything.