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Orchard of Delights
Indeed, this explains what the verse means when it states that the
cohanim are to wear their garments for “glory and splendor.” These
garments concealed the physical and revealed God’s glory destined
to shine through the souls of those representing both God and His
people. Just as every detail of the Tabernacle’s construction and of
the sacred vessels used in it embody profound secrets of creation,
so too each and every detail of the cohanim’s holy garments sheds
light on deep concepts relating to the emotions, intellect, and soul
of man.
£The Temple Service The Temple Service The Temple Service
££
and the Responsibility of Prayer and the Responsibility of Prayer and the Responsibility of Prayer
During the First Temple period, the cohanim and levi’im performed
the Temple service on behalf of the entire Jewish people. The Men
of the Great Assembly only began to design prayers, blessings, and
rituals for private individuals and smaller communities after the
destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian exile. With
the building of the Second Temple, these were originally meant
to augment the Temple services, but after the Second Temple’s
destruction they replaced them entirely. In response to the Second
Temple’s destruction, the Sages transformed the Temple service
and its conceptual basis into the underpinnings of the synagogue
service we know today (see “The Tabernacle, the Temple, and the
Synagogue” in Terumah for a more comprehensive explanation of
how this was accomplished).
As a result of this shift in spiritual focus from the Temple to the
synagogue and the individual, every community, in general, and each
individual, in particular, became responsible for performing the very
same service, albeit in different, but spiritually similar forms. Each
person was now similar to a cohen, performing the entire service,
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Mishpatim
£Reactions to an Awesome Vision£Reactions to an Awesome VisionReactions to an Awesome Vision
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At the end of the portion of Mishpatim, the Torah again recounts
the events leading up to the Giving of the Torah. Moses ascended
and descended Mount Sinai several times in order to speak to God,
relay His messages to the people, and then relay their reactions
back to God. During one of the ascents, Aaron, his sons, Nadav and
Avihu, and the seventy elders accompanied Moses and were granted
an awesome vision: “They saw the God of Israel and under his feet
was the likeness of sapphire brick and it was like the essence of the
heaven in purity. Against the leaders of the children of Israel, He did
not send His hand; they gazed at God and they ate and they drank”
(Exodus 24:10-12).
While the verse seems to unambiguously state that the leaders
“ate and drank,” quite possibly while they were gazing at God, the
incongruity and timing of such behavior caused the commentators to
disagree over the nature of this “eating and drinking” and over when
it occurred (during or after the vision). Furthermore, even though a
straightforward reading of the verse seems to denigrate the leaders’
actions, as the verse finds it necessary to relate that God “did not
send His hand” to punish them, the commentators stake out various
positions over whether or not their behavior was meritorious and
even over how God responded to it.
Rashi, relying on Midrash Tanchuma, states that everyone except
for Moses acted inappropriately by eating and drinking while
receiving the vision of God. While God “did not send His hand” to
punish them, as He did not want to mar the upcoming revelation at
Sinai, each of the participants received his punishment later: Nadav
and Avihu on the day the Tabernacle was dedicated and the elders
during one of the rebellions in the desert.
Onkelos and Ramban, in contrast, both view the leaders’ actions
favorably. Onkelos states that their joy at seeing such an elevated
vision of God was so tangible that it was as if, they were eating and
drinking. Ramban agreeing with Onkelos that the verse should be
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