The very idea of a hereditary priesthood strikes us nowadays as belonging to a previous era, not unlike the hereditary monarchy. Nowadays we believe in meritocracy. And indeed Judaism itself has moved way from being a priest based religion to one that elevates scholarship and is open to those who choose to study. It is the rabbinate that now replaces…
Author: Jeremy Rosen
Supporting the Priests
This week’s reading from the Torah follows on from last week’s description of the Tabernacle. It is concerned with the clothes of the Priests, the Cohanim, whose full-time task it was to run the ceremonials of the Tabernacle on behalf of the community. They were compensated by being given a share in the sacrifices that everyone brought and in exchange…
Donations
The Torah offers two models of contributions to the community. The word Terumah is a general word, like charity. It has several usages, for Priestly privileges and for mundane donations. Here it means the voluntary contribution that people would make towards the construction of the Tabernacle. People gave, whatever they could and of things that they possessed, such as gold,…
The Shekel
The word Shekel literally means something that is weighed and its use pre-dates the Torah. Early coins were simply weights and measures and used initially in barter. But as we know from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice the word shekel became one of abuse. As if only Jews used coins and money. The first bankers were the Assyrians and Babylonians over…
Constructing a Tabernacle
Terumah starts a series of chapters that describe the construction of the Tabernacle in great detail. We know that both in Egypt and Mesopotamia temples and palaces were the core of any city and society. It was a matter of national pride to describe them in intricate detail. The more intricate the more authority and power they projected. These structures…
Cherubs
What are we to make of the two golden Cherubs the Torah commanded Moshe to have made to be placed on top of the Ark? The Torah says they faced each other from the edges of the Ark and their wings spread over the cover of the Ark. covered the Ark. Anyone familiar with archaeology will know that throughout the…