Tag Archives: Two Tablets

The Mishkan & the Cosmos

This week’s parasha, Terumah, begins the Torah’s long and detailed descriptions of the Mishkan, or Tabernacle. More than just a “mobile sanctuary”, the Mishkan was constructed as a microcosm of the entire universe. The Midrash points out how each of the Mishkan’s components corresponded to an act of Creation (Midrash Aggadah on Exodus 38):

First in Genesis was “Heaven and Earth”, and this was symbolized by the Two Tablets in the Ark of the Covenant contained within the Mishkan’s “Holy of Holies”. Of the Ten Commandments, the first half deal with mitzvot between man and God, while the second half are between man and fellow. (The fifth, honouring parents, is thought to be a bit of both.) So, we can see how one Tablet would correspond to “Heaven” and the other Tablet to “Earth”!

Next on the list is the Rakia, often poorly translated as “Firmament”. This was created on the Second Day to separate “between the waters” above and below, ie. between the Heavens and the Earth. The Midrash states that in the Mishkan it corresponded to the parokhet, the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Tabernacle. Interestingly, in describing the “Seven Heavens”, the Talmud (Chagigah 12b) teaches that the first and lowest of the Heavens—right beneath the Rakia—is called Vilon, literally meaning “curtain” in Latin (velum).

Illustration of the First Jerusalem Temple, with “Molten Sea” on the right.

On the Third Day, God “gathered the waters” to form the oceans, and this paralleled the Mishkan’s kior, the copper laver where the kohanim washed. Later, King Solomon built a much larger “Molten Sea” in front of Jerusalem’s Temple, supported by a dozen statues of oxen (the connection between this Molten Sea and mathematical pi was discussed previously here). Also on the Third Day, God formed the lands and made them flourish with grasses and plants. Similarly, the Mishkan had the Shulchan with ever-fresh loaves of bread.

On Day Four, God created the luminaries, of which there are seven visible to the naked eye: sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The Seven Luminaries play a big role in ancient texts, both Jewish and non-Jewish. In fact, in many cultures and languages, the seven days of the week are named after them. In English: Saturday, Sunday and Monday are named after Saturn, sun, and moon. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are named after the Norse gods Tiw, Woden (or Odin), Thor, and Frigg (or Frei), corresponding to Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus. The connection is easier to see in the French names for these days: mardi, mercredi, jeudi, and vendredi. The Midrash explains that in the Mishkan, the Seven Luminaries were represented by, of course, the luminous Menorah with its seven branches.

On the Fifth Day, God created winged animals, and corresponding to these are the Kruvim, the winged Cherubs on the Ark of the Covenant. The Midrash doesn’t say anything about fish, which were also created on the Fifth Day. Intriguingly, the Mishkan (and later Temple) had a variety of offerings including fruits, grains, and breads, birds and land animals—but no fish! However, the special blue tekhelet dye that was used in the Mishkan fabrics and priestly garments does come from sea snails, so perhaps we can add that to the list in the Midrash.

The main creation of Day Six was Adam. The Midrash says that God brought Adam into the Garden of Eden on that same day, leading the first human into that special holy place. Similarly, in the Mishkan we had Aharon serve as kohen gadol, representing Adam, and entering the Holy of Holies, the Mishkan’s special “Garden of Eden”. The Midrash adds that Aharon was greater than Adam, since Adam sinned in the Garden, but Aharon atoned for sin in the Holy of Holies. This further helps us understand the true role of the kohen: to restore some of the world’s lost holy light.

After Adam consumed of the Forbidden Fruit, God called out ayekah (איכה), “where are you?” (Genesis 3:9) As explored in the past, this word can be broken down into ayeh koh (איה כ״ה), “where is the 25?” The 25 alludes to the 25th word of the Torah which is ohr, “light”. So, God was really asking “Where is the light of Creation?” for Adam and Eve caused that light to be lost. All of Israel is called to be a light unto the nations, and restore that light to the world. Within Israel, the kohanim in particular had to take the lead. And they would bless the people of Israel to help them accomplish this task, as the Torah states: koh tevarkhu et bnei Israel (Numbers 6:23). In fact, the kohen himself is a koh-en, a bringer of that hidden light. The Midrash actually goes on to say that, really, all of Israel are likened to kohanim, and will all become kohanim in the future, as it is written, “You shall all be called ‘priests of God’ [kohanei Hashem], and ‘servants of God’ shall be said of you; you shall enjoy the wealth of nations and revel in their honour.” (Isaiah 61:6)

And Hashem promises many more rewards: in the merit of the parokhet that the Israelites made corresponding to the Rakia, God promises to make us all glow like the Heavens, as it says, “And the wise ones shall glow like the glow [zohar] of the Rakia…” (Daniel 12:3) In the merit of the Shulchan, God promises to bless the land and its fruits (Leviticus 26:4). In the merit of the Menorah, God promises to bring upon us the light of the Shekhinah, and magnify the light of the luminaries, as it says in Isaiah 30:26 that “the light of the moon shall become like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall become sevenfold…” Finally, in the merit of the Cherubs that correspond to the flying creatures, God will end the exile and fly us all back to Israel “like doves to their cotes” (Isaiah 60:8). This would have been very hard to imagine for most of history, until recent decades, as we can now literally fly to the Holy Land!

Thankfully, we have already seen these promises begin to be fulfilled right before our eyes. We are nearing the finish line, and we will soon see the return of Hashem’s Sanctuary, together with all of its holy vessels and the Ark of the Covenant, in an everlasting edifice, at its rightful place in the Holy Land.

Seventeen Tamuz and the Ten Plagues

Next Tuesday is the seventeenth of Tamuz, commemorating a handful of tragedies in Jewish history starting with the shattering of the Tablets following the sin of the Golden Calf. A careful examination of Torah chronology reveals that there may be one more major event that took place at this time, and it involves the Ten Plagues in Egypt. While the Torah describes in great detail how the Ten Plagues came about, it says very little about their timing. All we know is that the final plague upon the firstborn was on the fifteenth of Nisan. Can we work backwards from this point and create an exact timeline of when the Ten Plagues occurred? Continue reading →

Practical Jewish Meditation

An illustrated section from Gustav Doré’s “Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law”

In this week’s parasha, Ki Tisa, we read how Moses goes up Mount Sinai on three separate occasions. His first ascent concludes with receiving the Two Tablets, only to come down and see the horror of the Golden Calf. Following this, the Torah tells us that “Moses returned to God”, back up the mountain, to address the Calf fiasco and its aftermath (Exodus 32:31). Moses then came back down to pitch a “Tent of Meeting” (33:7) where he could more regularly communicate with God without having to ascend the Mountain, and for when the Israelites would leave Sinai to head to Israel. Moses asked to see God’s Presence directly, and God replied that no mortal can see God and live, though He would show Moses His “back”. To do this, God asked Moses to come up Sinai one last time (34:2), where a new set of tablets would be created to replace the shattered ones.

When Moses descended from Sinai for the last time to present the new Tablets, the Torah tells us that “He was there with God for forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water…” (34:28) Moses had gone up Sinai three times, each for forty days, making 120 days total. Indeed, if one counts the days of the Jewish calendar between Shavuot and Yom Kippur, one would find 120 days, since Shavuot is the date of the initial Sinai Revelation while Yom Kippur is when God forgave the Israelites for the Golden Calf and Moses returned with the new Tablets. At the end of Moses’ three sessions of intense meditation with God, his face glowed and the people could no longer look at him directly (34:29-30). Moses would henceforth wear a mask.

The Torah motif of going up a mountain to spend time in prayer and divine meditation spread all over the world, and we find very similar descriptions in other faiths that emerged after Judaism. Buddha, for instance, spent 40 days (or 49 days) up on a mountain meditating under a bodhi tree to attain enlightenment, and also abstained from food and water during that time. Jesus is said to have spent forty days in the wilderness without food and water, and Mohammad purportedly received his first revelation while meditating and fasting for days on Mount Hira at the age of 40. Despite the fact that Moses was undoubtedly the first, meditation today is associated more with Eastern faiths, and strangely not with Judaism.

The truth is that meditation has always been central to Judaism since ancient times. In fact, it is highly likely that it was Jewish exiles who introduced meditative practices around the world after their expulsion from Israel in the 6th century BCE at the hands of the Babylonians. It is intriguing to point out that many world religions began in the century following Israel’s exile, including Buddhism and Confucianism, as well as the Pythagorean and Orphic religions in Greece. Even ancient Zoroastrianism and Hinduism were heavily influenced by spreading Torah ideas in the middle of the first millennium BCE.

Today, science has uncovered the vast benefits of regular meditation—everything from reducing stress and improving sleep, to boosting the immune system and accelerating healing, even positively impacting the expression of our genes! So, what does the Torah tradition have to teach us about meditation, and what are some specific Jewish meditative techniques we can put into practice daily to enhance our lives? Continue reading →