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The daughters of Israel possessed mirrors into which they would look when adorning themselves. Even those they did not withhold from bringing as a contribution for the Mishkan. However, Moses found them repulsive since their purpose is to incite the evil inclination. God said to him: Accept [them], for these are dearer to me than everything else because through them the women raised huge multitudes in Egypt. When their husbands were exhausted from their crushing labor they (the women) would go and bring them food and drink and feed them. They would then take the mirrors and each one would look at herself and her husband in the mirror, and entice him with words, saying, "See! I am more beautiful than you," thereby awakening their husbands' desire and they would cohabit with them. They conceived and gave birth there. As is stated: "Under the apple-tree did I arouse you." (Song of Songs 8:5) ...
Rashi on Ex. 38:8
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Finally, we conclude the book of Exodus with this week's parashah of Pekudei This is one of the shortest parashiyot, and is usually combined with last week's parashah VaYakhel, but as this year we have added a 'leap month' of Adar, we need every parashah to fill out the extra weeks. Pekudei describes the final 'accounting' of the materials that were used to construct the Mishkan, and a description of all of the Israelites' labours and efforts. The Mishkan is erected and the book of Exodus ends with God's approval and God's glory residing among the Israelites.
The Mishkan was a labour of love, and a communal effort. It was not the labour of the men exclusively. Earlier we read that women who were talented in weaving created the fabrics and coverings (Ex. 35:25). Over and over again, the Torah goes out of its way to include women: "And so the Israelites, each man and woman... brought it as a freewill offering to Adonai" (Ex. 35:29). Rabbi Nancy Weiner in The Women's Torah Commentary (ed. Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, Jewish Lights) points out that the repeated mention of women's contributions and participation in the construction of the Mishkan is quite remarkable, and out of character for the Torah in general. The Torah is stressing that women participated with their own skills and contributed from their own possessions. The fact that both men and women participated in Israel's most significant collective religious experience is relevant still today.
The Torah's mention of women's participation is unique, but there is something else that is unusual. The Mishkan was built out of a variety of materials listed here (like we saw a few weeks ago in Parashat Terumah) that were donated by the Israelites. While we might wonder where the Israelites (remember they were slaves) had access to the vast quantities of gold, precious gems or even acacia wood in the middle of the desert required to build the Mishkan, the Torah doesn't say (although the midrash offers some suggestions!). Three different metals were used in the construction: gold, silver and bronze. The Hebrew word for bronze is 'nechoshet' which in Hebrew refers to both copper ore (Deut. 8:9 where it is mined from the earth) and as bronze for implements (Gen. 4:22). I don't understand translations that use 'copper' in the text, and then in a footnote add: 'better would be bronze'. Why don't they just use the word bronze in the first place?! Many translations use the older English term 'brass', because bronze only entered the English language in the 1800s from the Italian bronzo. Today, the word brass refers to an alloy of copper and zinc, while bronze is actually an alloy of copper and tin and was easier to cast and stronger than copper alone.
The bronze offering was used to make a variety items: hardware sockets as well as the bronze altar. The rabbis notice that in this week's list of items made of bronze, there is one other item that is to be made of bronze that is not included. In the earlier instructions (Ex. 30:18) a bronze basin and its stand is mentioned. Why is it not included here? According to Abravanel, the reason is because it was not made from the bronze of the general free offering, but was fabricated out of a special donation from the women. In an unusual departure for the biblical text, the bronze for the basin is the only item that the Torah specifically indicates where the metal came from. The Torah specifies that the basin was made from the bronze mirrors of the women (Ex. 38:8). Before mirrors were made of glass with silver backing, hand-held mirrors were made of highly polished metal disks usually with wooden or ivory handles. Mirrors throughout the Near East were manufactured in Egypt. Even back in ancient Egypt, it seems that mirrors were a valued household item. Metal was extremely costly; it was therefore not unusual to melt down metal and re-use it (as we saw, with disastrous results in the Golden Calf)!
But what surprised many commentators was the fact that mirrors (a symbol of vanity?) would be specifically used for the basin to purify Aaron. According to the modern commentator Hirsch, mirrors were an object that drew attention to the human body, and therefore were used to elevate and refine the animal movements and instincts of humans. This idea suggests that in order to purify themselves, that is to say, in order to be able to function as priests with humility, they need to remind themselves to 'look in the mirror' (Toldot Yaacov Yosef).
Ibn Ezra takes the opposite position. He sees the donation of the mirrors as a rejection of physicality and vanity and a symbol of self-sacrifice:
It is customary for every woman to make up her face every morning and look in a bronze or glass mirror in order to adjust her hair style and ornaments as mentioned in Isaiah 3. The Israelite women behaved exactly like the Ishmaelite women today. But there were pious women in Israel who overcame this worldly temptation and freely gave away their mirrors because they found no more need to beautify themselves but came instead daily to the door of the tent of meeting to pray and hear religious discourses for their edification.
In other words, while for Hirsch, the mirror represents the physical world, for Ibn Ezra, it was the spiritual readiness represented by the women's unselfish gift. For Ibn Ezra, it's the thought that counts.
A third approach, adopted by Rashi, sees the mirror as a symbol of sexuality and sensuality. It was for this reason, according to the midrash that Rashi quotes, that Moses initially refused their gift. For Moses, the mirrors represented instruments of human desire. In an atypically lengthy commentary Rashi writes that the women went out into the fields and used the mirrors as sex toys to arouse their work-weary husbands.
The daughters of Israel possessed mirrors into which they would look when adorning themselves. Even those they did not withhold from bringing as a contribution for the Mishkan. However, Moses found them repulsive since their purpose is to incite the evil inclination. God said to him: Accept [them], for these are dearer to me than everything else because through them the women raised huge multitudes in Egypt. When their husbands were exhausted from their crushing labor they (the women) would go and bring them food and drink and feed them. They would then take the mirrors and each one would look at herself and her husband in the mirror, and entice him with words, saying, "See! I am more beautiful than you," thereby awakening their husbands' desire and they would cohabit with them. They conceived and gave birth there. As is stated: "Under the apple-tree did I arouse you." (Song of Songs 8:5) ...
According to the midrash, Moses seems to have not perceived the holiness in the gift of the mirrors. 'Repulsive' is strong language to describe the 'evil inclination' of (our sexual drive and) our human nature. But God understood the women, with their mirrors, were responsible for the survival of the Jewish people under Egyptian oppression. Hence, for God, according to the Midrash, the mirrors were more precious than all the other donations as they symbolized their commitment to the continuity of the Jewish people. The mirrors were not trivial or sexual. Rashi, following the midrash, sees holiness in the very physicality and even sexuality represented by the mirrors. Ibn Ezra, on the other hand, sees holiness only in the donation of the mirrors, which he sees as rejecting, or at a minimum, transcending human and physical needs. Some religious approaches even go so far as to negate the passions of the flesh in order to reach ultimate levels of holiness. Ascetic traditions (while there have been some) have never been popular in mainstream Judaism. But as humans with both physical and spiritual needs we often feel caught in the middle: when we indulge our bodies, we feel like we've disappointed our souls; when we satisfy our soul, we disappoint our bodies.
Lessons for Today
For several weeks, the Torah has described in minute detail the physical components that went into the construction of what was ultimately the spiritual centre of the Jewish people. And while we valiantly try to come up with deeper meaning and creative insights such as: God is in the details, or building sacred time and sacred space, we struggle to not zone out as the Torah goes on and on about blue and crimson yarns, tanned ram skins and copper mirrors. The Torah's attention to the physical materials is hard to connect to our sense of spirituality because we tend to divide the world into the physical and the spiritual. But for the Torah, this division is artificial. Shel Silverstein in 'A Light in the Attic' wrote a wonderful poem called the Zebra Question about a child who asks a zebra a question. It begins: "Are you black with white stripes? Or are you white with black stripes? And the zebra asked me, Are you good with bad habits? Or are you bad with good habits?"
Silverstein's poem echoes this tension of mirrors and basins. The mirrors in this week's parashah make me wonder: Are we physical beings with spiritual experiences, or spiritual beings with physical experiences? Is the universe a physical entity with a spiritual part, or a spiritual entity with a physical part? Rocks, dirt, plants, animals, people, all matter—they’re physical mirror images of spiritual entities.
Mirrors are a symbol of the physical, since they only reflect our 'outsides.' But the idea that the basin for purification was made from mirrors, something used to look at oneself, is a powerful image. Before we can be cleansed, we need to take a good, hard look at oneself. As the different interpretations point out, even mirrors can be used for a variety of purposes, and can represent vanity, sexual pleasure or self reflection. We like to think that spirituality would be easier if we didn't have bodily needs, physical temptations, outside distractions. Melting down the mirrors to make the basin for purification illustrates that there is no separating our physical reality from the spiritual. When I look into the mirror, do I see the best person I can be?
Shabbat Shalom
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