>> Torah portion

The Spets
For Space

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Parshat Tezaveh/Shabbat Zachor:
Exodus 27:20-30:10, Deuteronomy
25:17-19; Ezekiel 43:10-43:27.

ur Torah portion opens with
a brief interlude between last
week's detailed description
of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and this
week's extensive description of the vest-
ments of the high priest This interlude
involves an instruction to use purified
olive oil to light the eternal flame.
This terse specification prompts the
midrash to ask the fairly obvious ques-
tion: Why olive oil?
All other liquids," the
midrash explains, "mix
together easily — only olive
oil remains separate. So, too,
Israel has maintained its
distinctiveness among the
nations of the world"
Appropriately, it is olive oil,
the exemplar of Jewish dis-
tinctiveness, that ensures the
eternal flame is indeed eter-
nal. Distinctiveness, it seems,
is an important survival tool.
That this connection between
distinctiveness and survival is situated
between the detailed descriptions of
the Tabernacle and uniform of the high
priest — two of the most distinct images
from the Jewish past — suggests that
distinctiveness lies, in no small part, in
the details.

'Like A Spacecraft'

Indeed, the importance of this connec-
tion was eloquently captured by Rabbi
Adin Steinsaltz. Marvelling at the intri-
cately detailed description of the vest-
ments of the high priest and the equally
detailed description of the Tabernacle in
last week's parshah, Steinsaltz compared
these intricate details (rather surpris-
ingly) to the specs of a spacecraft.
Like the tabernacle and the vestments
of the high priest, Steinsaltz suggested,
a spaceship is constructed from a mul-
titude of parts and components, each
of which must be fashioned precisely in
order for the ship to operate properly
and safely.
Just as a problem even with a minor
component of a spacecraft could ren-
der the ship incapable from making its
journey from Earth into space — into
the heavens, as it were — a flaw in any
aspect of the Mishkan or the uniform
of the high priest would undermine the
kedushah (holiness) of these sacred insti-

tutions, thereby weakening or severing
the link that the Tabernacle and the high
priest forged between the temporal world
inhabited by humanity and the infinite
realm of the Divine.

A Link To Purim
Here, the importance of details reflects
perhaps a broader conception of the
Jewish people. This conception is
expressed vividly in parshat
Zachor, the special maftir pas-
sage from Deuteronomy that is
appended to this week's Torah
reading in anticipation of and
preparation for the holiday
of Purim — where the evil
Haman was executed for his
plot to murder all the Jews in
the Persian empire.
This selection, in recapping
the Divine commandment
to destroy the evil tribe of
Amalek, adds an explana-
tion for this harsh injunction.
Amalek did not attack the Israelites head-
on as they wandered in the desert. Amalek
assailed kol ha-neheshalim aharecha, those
who were enfeebled and lagging behind,
thus exposing one of the vulnerabilities of
a fledgling people struggling for survival.
Just as the ostensibly minor details of
the Mishkan and the apparel of the high
priest may seem peripheral in compari-
son to the Ark of the Covenant and the
Menorah, so, too, this peripheral part of
the Israelite camp, spatially and spiritu-
ally far removed from Moses and Aaron,
might seem of lesser importance.
In this regard, the eternal threat of
Amalek is a sober reminder that the
survival of the Jewish people depends
not only on the vitality of its leaders,
leading scholars and central institutions;
but also on the fate of Jews who are on
the periphery of Jewish life.
The Torah's attention to and preoc-
cupation with the details of the Mishkan
presents us with the challenge of paying
attention to and engaging Jews on the
periphery no less than Jews at the heart
of Jewish life.

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Professor Howard N. Lupovitch holds the

Waks Family Chair in Jewish Studies at the

University of Western Ontario in London and

reads Torah at Congregation Beth Ahm in

West Bloomfield.

Jill

February 21 • 2013

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