Clear Drawers, Jumbled Rubber Bands, Empty Bells, & Tetzaveh

You know when you find yourself sifting through a drawer and clearing it out when you “should” be doing something else?

You know: the one crammed with stuff you don’t want to throw away, but don’t know where else to put?

In my house, we call it the “everything” drawer, and it’s in our kitchen. (Maybe you have one, too.)

I found myself doing exactly that the other day—cleaning it out.

It felt so good to finally do that.

I found treasures, like the screw driver we’d been looking for.

(Which someone, like a spouse, say, had mindlessly thrown in there instead of, you know, where it belonged).

Of course, a lot of stuff needed to go in the garbage.

I couldn’t bring myself to throw away the many rubber bands I found pushed and crammed in the far recesses.

(I use them! Although maybe I don’t need all of them. At least now they’re in a container.)

The drawer is very much in order and clean now—cleared out of the stuff I will never use again.

Which brings me to the Parsha, Tetzaveh, which is a different kind of “order” that comes from God to Moses.

Last week, the order was about constructing the Tabernacle, or the Mishkan, the mobile home for God as the Israelites journey through the desert.

This week it’s the vestments for the priesthood.

The Parsha begins, though, with the instruction for the Israelites to bring “clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, for kindling lamps regularly.”

It quickly moves to Moses dressing his brother Aaron, who will become High Priest, in the special priestly vestments:

לְכָב֖וֹד וּלְתִפְאָֽרֶת

L’khaved ul’tiferet; for glory and beauty

There will be a breastplate with precious stones representing all the tribes.

And the robe will have golden bells and woven pomegranates, alternating, all around the hem.

The bells are empty, specifically to make noise as Aaron enters the sanctuary to officiate, and when he leaves.

Their jingles are to protect him from death:

וְנִשְׁמַ֣ע ק֠וֹל֠וֹ בְּבֹא֨וֹ אֶל־הַקֹּ֜דֶשׁ לִפְנֵ֧י יְהֹוָ֛ה וּבְצֵאת֖וֹ וְלֹ֥א יָמֽוּת׃

V’nishma kolo b’vo’o el hakodesh lifney adonai u’vtzeito v’lo yamut

And he will hear the voice (sound) coming in and leaving the Holy One’s presence so he won’t die. (Ex. 28:35)

Ramban (Nachmanides) suggests that the priest is “transfigured by his vestments,” penetrating “some humanly impenetrable area.” (Avivah Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture, p. 379).

Following this is a commentary that builds on Ramban’s reading; the bells, with their hollow center, symbolize a spiritual ecstasy the priest will reach in the presence of the Holy.

It is an awakening, an expanded consciousness to “the nothingness of the human person within the priestly robes.”

God’s presence, instead, fills the space of “nothingness.”

But the sound of the bells—the voice—is to keep the priest connected to his humanity, his very life, which is represented by the woven pomegranates.

The density of the fruit, with its many seeds, represents the substance and power of the priest as a human being.

The pomegranate is “an aural image—the sound of the robe is to be heard by the priest” to remind him not to get lost in the ecstasy of God’s presence.

So, on the one hand, the message is to become a clear vessel for the holy, like the clear oil used for the continuously lit lamp.

On the other, it is to remain grounded and connected to the Earth through our bodies.

In spiritual work, we constantly oscillate between the two: the bell and the pomegranate.

Most of us are aware of the idea of “expanded consciousness” as talked about in Buddhism: the desire to feel at one with all life, our interconnection, or intraconnection between all.

But to maintain expanded consciousness in every moment would mean we were dead—or that we would fly away—so the bell, the voice, is there to help us remain grounded.

How do we translate the holy into our lives as grounded humans?

Easier said than done, of course.

We all carry defenses and prejudices that separate us from others.

These days, for instance, I’m working on giving equally to all those who ask me for money on the street.

A friend visiting a few weeks ago noticed, and challenged me: “Why do you differentiate?”

I shrugged.

It was my prejudice.

What did I see that made one beggar different from another?

So I’ve taken to filling my pockets with coins before I leave the house, and giving to whomever asks.

One of those times recently, a woman approached me as I was leaving the supermarket.

“Excuse me; do you have a dollar—or five?”

“No,” I said, “but I have some change.”

She accepted.

As I placed the change in her filthy hand, she looked at her palm and exclaimed in pleasure at the amount: “Oh! Thank you.”

As we parted, she called out, “Thank you for hearing me out.”

It struck me that being heard—paying attention to her—was so important—and that she had expressed it.

To her it meant I’d seen her humanity.

On an interview on the podcast Identity/Crisis the other day, I was heartened to hear the story of a Jewish family who had taken in a Ukrainian refugee family—not because I have a special place in my heart for Ukrainian refugees above others, though.

It took until the end of the show, but the conversation finally went toward naming the problem of our immigration system—and the fact that it’s been an ongoing problem for refugees and all immigrants, but in particular for those of color.

I was especially happy to hear the woman state that she had taken time with her family to ask the question: if it had been a Syrian/Muslim family, would they have so readily opened their home?

While discernment is necessary for survival, when it morphs into prejudice, it’s very harmful.

I don’t seek spiritual ecstasy, but I do seek spiritual connection.

Like the bells and pomegranates, I want to find a balance between clearing myself out and making room for the holy, while remembering to ground myself in the Earth through my body.

This means keeping my ears open for those moments so I can see through my prejudices to the humanity of the other lying beneath the, perhaps dirty, surface.

We all have varying degrees of prejudice and racism to clear out.

Maybe that’s the jumble of rubber bands I couldn’t bring myself to throw away; I shouldn’t forget the mess that’s inside, but I need to periodically go through it and clean out what’s getting in the way of the treasures.

So maybe cleaning out the “everything” drawer was the very thing I needed to do in that moment—and maybe that’s actually part of the work rather than a distraction from some imagined “should.”

I also need the audio reminder of the woman asking for money—maybe that’s the “voice” of the bells.

And what seems like a jumble of seeds in a pomegranate might be that jumble of rubber bands that needed to be removed and examined to see what still serves and what doesn’t.

Except that getting those seeds out from the pomegranate takes a lot work, which is why I generally avoid buying them—yet it needs to be done.

Maybe I’ll use that screw driver to remove them the next time I get one.

(If I can find it.)

But seriously; for the sake of a humane world, may we all continue to do this work.

And say Amen.