Parashat HaShavua - Shemini

Parshat Shemini: Revelation of a Different Kind

Parshat Shemini opens on the eighth day (shemini means eighth).  For seven days, Moshe, Aharon, Aharon’s sons and the people had been building the mishkan (Tabernacle) and preparing it for use.  On the eighth day, the entire community gathered for the consecration of the newly built structure.  Moshe said to the people, “This word that God has commanded, carry it out, and then the glory of God (kevod adonai) will reveal itself to you.” (Vayikra 9:6)  And indeed, after the first sacrifices were offered, Moshe and Aharon blessed the people, “and kevod adonai (the glory of God) revealed itself to all the people.”  (Vayikra 9:23)

Back on Har Sinai, revelation was a full sensory, all encompassing, awesome experience.  Here, there is no trembling mountain, no sound of the shofar growing louder, no thunder and lightning - just a group of people standing in the wilderness outside an elaborately constructed tent.  What might be revealed in such a circumstance?

Commentators offer various interpretations as to what form this “kevod adonai” took.  Referring to other places in the Torah in which this term is used, Nahmanides holds that the word “glory” refers to God’s miracles, such as the manna.  In the context of parshat Shemini, others, including Ibn Ezra, hold that the particular miracle that the people witnessed was the fire that came down to consume the offerings.  A third interpretation associates the term “glory” with “the glory of God that appeared in the cloud” that led the people through the wilderness, the cloud reflecting or consisting of a Godly light.  

In all three interpretations of this type of revelation, God is not only showing the people something, God is giving the people something.  God’s offerings in the form of the “glory” include sustenance, beauty, warmth, response.  Biblical scholar Nechama Leibowitz notes a key difference between this kind of revelation and the more common manifestations of God.  When God revealed Godself to the prophets or to Israel, she notes, it was in order to “convey a message or transmit commandments.”  This is absent, she continues, at the consecration of  the mishkan.  Instead, “The revelation of the Divine glory here denotes a reward for their efforts in erecting a Sanctuary for the Shekhina (Divine Presence).”  (New Studies in Vayikra, 116)  

As we build our own sanctuaries, within our homes, in our synagogues, and here at Heschel, is kevod adonai revealing itself to us?  Are we aware of the rewards that we are offered?  Do we receive them with recognition and gratitude? After all of the work we put into preparing for our Pesach seders, what form does the miracle we witness take?  At the end of the school year, when our children and students have progressed, again, to the next level, do we experience Divine light?

May our work in the building of sanctuaries be worthy of God’s rewards.  And may we be blessed with the ability to recognize kevod Adonai, in all of its forms. 

Rabbi Miriam Greenblatt
High School Learning Specialist