36 | FEBRUARY 22 • 2024
J
N
W
hy is the Torah
so specific and
emphatic, in
this week’s parshah, about
the clothes to be worn by
the Cohen and the Cohen
Gadol?
“These are
the vestments
that they
shall make: a
breastplate, an
ephod, a robe,
a knitted tunic,
a turban, and
a sash. Make them as sacred
vestments for Aaron and his
sons so that they will be able
to be priests to Me.” Ex. 28:4
In general, Judaism is
skeptical about appearances.
Saul, Israel’s first king,
looked the part. He was
“head and shoulders”
taller than anyone else (1
Samuel 9: 2). Yet though
he was physically tall, he
was morally small. He
followed the people rather
than leading them. When
God told Samuel that He
had rejected Saul, and that
Samuel should anoint a son
of Yishai as king, Samuel
went to Yishai and saw that
one of his sons, Eliav, looked
the part. He thought he was
the one God had chosen.
God, however, tells him that
he is mistaken: “But the
Lord said to Samuel, “Do not
consider his appearance or
his height, for I have rejected
him. The Lord does not look
at the things people look at.
People look at the outward
appearance, but the Lord
looks at the heart.” 1 Sam.
16:7
Appearances deceive. In
fact, as I have mentioned
before in these studies,
the Hebrew word for
garment, begged, comes
from the same Hebrew word
as “to betray” — as in the
confession Ashamnu bagadnu,
“We are guilty, we have
betrayed.” Jacob uses Esau’s
clothes to deceive. Joseph’s
brothers do likewise with his
bloodstained cloak. There
are six such examples in the
book of Genesis alone. Why
then did God command
that the cohanim were to
wear distinctive garments as
part of their service in the
tabernacle and later in the
Temple?
The answer lies in the
two-word phrase that
appears twice in our
parshah, defining what the
priestly vestments were to
represent: le-kavod ule-tifaret,
“for dignity [or ‘honor’] and
beauty.” These are unusual
words in the Torah, at least
in a human context. The
word tiferet, “beauty” or
“glory,” appears only three
times in the Torah, twice in
our parshah (Ex. 28:2, 40)
and once, poetically and
with a somewhat different
sense, in Deuteronomy 26:19.
The word kavod, “dignity
or honor,” appears 16 times,
but in 14 (27) of these
cases the reference is to the
glory of God. The twice
they appear in our parshah
are the only occasions in
which kavod is applied to
a human being. So, what is
happening here?
The answer is that they
represent the aesthetic
dimension. This does not
always figure prominently
in Judaism. It is something
we naturally connect with
cultures a world apart from
the Torah. The great empires
— Mesopotamia, Egypt,
Assyria, Babylon, Greece and
Rome — built monumental
palaces and temples. The
royal courts were marked by
magnificent robes, cloaks,
crowns and regalia, each
rank with its own uniform
and finery.
Judaism by contrast often
seems almost puritanical
in its avoidance of pomp
and display. Worshipping
the invisible God, Judaism
tended to devalue the visual
in favor of the oral and
aural: words heard rather
than appearances seen.
Yet the service of the
tabernacle and Temple were
different. Here appearances
— dignity, beauty
— did make a difference.
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH
The Aesthetic
in Judaism