Engraved on our hearts
In this week’s Torah portion we read about the instructions for making special garments for Aaron, brother of Moses: the first High Priest. We read about blue, purple, and crimson thread; about exquisitely decorated vestments; and about Aaron being declared “Holy to God.” What leapt out at me this year are the two precious stones engraved with the names of all the tribes of Israel. (Ex. 28:9-12) Aaron carried the names of the whole community on his shoulders, or at least, the names of the twelve tribes that together represented the whole community. Because to serve the community means to serve the whole community.
Today we welcome a beautiful little girl into our community. And I can’t wait to find out who she’ll grow up to be. Maybe she’ll want to put on costumes and star in our Purim play. Maybe she’ll sing the Four Questions at the community seder. Maybe she’ll make friends in our Hebrew school. And yet she isn’t just joining this little rural shul, this smalltown community. Because we’re part of something much bigger. We’re connected with Jews around the world, on every continent. And we’re connected with our spiritual ancestors stretching back thousands of years, and hopefully stretching forward at least as long.
To serve the community means to serve the whole community — and to join the community means to join the whole community. I point this out over and over to those who join the Jewish people as adults: they’re not just joining this shul, they’re joining the entire Jewish people! They’re joining Jews of every denomination, Jews of every race and skin color, Jews of every sexual orientation and gender expression. Rationalists and mystics, theists and atheists. Jews who express their Jewishness in so many different ways: through prayer, or poetry, or study, or feeding the hungry, or working for justice, or so much more.
There hasn’t been a High Priest in thousands of years. But as I sat with this Torah portion this week, here’s what came to me: what if all of us together could make the choice to engrave the names of the whole community — not on our shoulders, but on our hearts? Those names now include the name of the newest member of our community, to whom we are now responsible. It takes a village to raise a kid, and our shul is now part of her village. May we engrave her name, and each others’ names, on our hearts. And in that way, may all of us together be “holy to God,” as Aaron was, so very long ago. Shabbat shalom.
This is the d’varling that Rabbi Rachel offered at Shabbat morning services (cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.)
