I am very excited for the opportunity to share words of Torah with you. Each week, in this spot, I look to share an idea I've found that speaks to me and that I think will resonate with you as well. This week, I share with you an excerpt from an article by Rabbi Stephen Baars entitled "Don't Worry America" that talks about what true spirituality is.
[...] The Tabernacle, the forerunner to the permanent Temple, was a magnificent construction of many donated items, none of which does the Torah tell us what they were used for previously. Except one... The washstand through which the Priests purified themselves before they engaged in the holy service. The only item in the entire Tabernacle where the Torah tells us what it was made from was this washstand. The Torah explains it was made from the womens' mirrors that they themselves donated.
[...] Moses [...] felt these mirrors did not belong in the Home of God. Why not? Because these mirrors were used by the women in Egypt to make themselves attractive to their husbands, who were exhausted from the slavery. Moses felt such items did not belong in the Tabernacle even though they were instrumental in bringing the next generation of Jews. God however disagreed. Moses sought to exclude them and God intervened and tells him, "These are dearer to Me than all the other contributions..." (Rashi, Exodus 38:8).
And not only were they used, but they were used to "Purify." Why? Mirrors were considered quite a luxury, reserved only for the wealthy. Before modern China was invented, a mirror was no cheap item. Slaves, by definition, don't spend what little money they have on mirrors. One of the last things a slave has to worry about is what they look like. Think about how important these women viewed their connection to their spouses. For them to own a mirror, imagine how many other "necessities" they had to give up. They didn't do this for vanity. They did it for spirituality.
To be spiritual, you must first appreciate there is life outside yourself just as real as you. These mirrors represented their real spiritual awareness which despite the bitter, harsh and brutal slavery, was never lost. "To love God, one must first love man. If anyone tells you that he loves God but does not love his fellow man, he is lying." (Divrei Chassidim) These women understood that even though we may be slaves, we are still wives. We are not objects. We, and our husbands, are people.
What is crucial to understand is that real spirituality doesn't fade even when the physical realm seems daunting. Real spirituality is not a luxury, sort of like a pastime or hobby of the rich and famous. That is not spirituality, it's phony self indulgence. [...]
Hoping and praying for a Shabbat Shalom in every sense of the term,
Rabbi Davies
Rabbi@SOICherryHill.org
