March 3, 2017

“And who knows whether it was just for such a time as this that you attained the royal position!” (Esther 4:14)

This week, as we read the detailed instructions for the construction of the Mishkan, it’s difficult not to be struck by the opulence of the construction—so much gold, tapestries, and skins, not only of goats and rams but of rare animals. It is indeed curious that Hashem, who chose for His people a nation of slaves, who chose to reveal His Torah in the desert, far from the luxuries and manmade achievements of civilization, would mandate such an opulent construction.

There are a number of ways to understand this. My teacher, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg argues that the Mishkan represents a kind of return to Eden, a place free from death or sin, a return to the kind of direct experience of God. For such a building gold was an appropriate material, one that does not rust. Other materials used, such as Acacia wood, are also known for their durability and resistance to rot or decay.

Another understanding derives from the view of some commentators that the building of the Mishkan was commanded only after the sin of the Golden Calf. Under this view, all the gold used in the Mishkan represents a repurposing of the material that had been the object of idolatry, to worship God instead. In this view, the gold used in the Mishkan is a concession to human frailty. The truth is that God doesn’t need or want it, but commanded such opulence so that we flawed human beings would be impressed and awed by the beauty of His dwelling place. The gold of the Mishkan has more to do with us than with God.

This reminds me of one of my favorite chassidic stories. A chassid was speaking to Rebbe Yisroel of Ruzhin, who used to live in great opulence, dressing in fine clothes, wearing gold shoes, and riding in a golden carriage pulled by four white horses. This chassid was telling the Ruzhiner about his own rebbe’s great humility. He was so humble that when the chassidim would come to greet him as he was riding into town in the back of a donkey cart, he always assumed they were coming to greet the other person riding in the cart with him. When the chassidim unhitched the cart and lifted it up on their shoulders to carry him into the city, this rebbe assumed it was the other person in the cart they were honoring. Once, when the person he was riding with got down from the cart, this humble rebbe realized that he was the one being thus honored. He was so overwhelmed that he became physically ill in the donkey cart. When the chassid finished telling his story, he looked to the regal Ruzhiner to see how he would react. The Ruzhiner’s response was to shrug, and say, “Nebukh! Too bad! That means he took it seriously.” In other words, the Ruzhiner was saying, someone truly humble ought to be able to accept honor gracefully, because they know that the honor is not really about them. The Ruzhiner might have lived like a king, but for him, this was only to do with his follower’s need to see their rebbe being honored in that way, nothing to do with his personal merits.

For the Ruzhiner, it would have been a spiritually fatal error to mistake the dignity of his royal lifestyle for something pertaining to him personally. For us too, mistaking the honor and dignity we may enjoy in our lives for something essential to who we are is spiritually dangerous. Therefore, on Purim we have the chance let go of artificial dignity and remind ourselves that the ways we present ourselves to the world have more to do with others than they do with who we really are. By letting go of artificial dignity, we connect to the deeper truth of our connection with Hakadosh Barukh Hu.

This month of Adar and Purim, may we each merit let go of artificial dignity and kavod, and connect with the deep joy of being our true selves.

Rabbi Garth Silberstein