Pomegranates and Bells

In our Torah study we’re deep in the book of Exodus which has 3 major themes. The first theme is our slavery and then liberation from Egypt, the narrow place. It makes up the Passover story. The Second theme is the revelation at Sinai, and the third, which we see in the readings over these few weeks, is the creation of a home, a mishkan or tabernacle, which is a dwelling place for the divine presence that lives within and among us. In each of these themes, the Torah emphasizes our communal journey, in teaching for example, that we all leave Egypt together. But it’s important to also know that these are the themes of our own individual lives, each lived differently, and they are a background for wrestling with our own existential questions: who am I, why am I here, what is my life meant to teach me.

Let’s take a look at this. Each of us is always leaving Egypt, in our minds it’s meant to be both a geographic place, a real place, and a spiritual place, a place of narrowness and constriction. It’s a different Egypt for each of us as we re-member and re-live the slaveries we endure. Some are based on who we are within our family stories, or the pressure to be who we can’t be, or the horror of racial and religious prejudice. We feel this slavery within the roles we’ve been forced to play, and the slavery that continues to haunt us from roles we’ve run away from. And we continue to hope for liberation.

Let’s look at Sinai. It’s a moment of revelation. And what’s revealed at Sinai? Midrash teaches that as we continue to discover and reveal our own inner selves, the inner self of the Divine becomes more open and known to us; sometimes gradually and in ways that are difficult to see, and sometimes in a blinding moment of thunder and lightning.

And in our third theme, the creation of the tabernacle, we see in front of us the robe that the Kohen Gadol, the high priest wears as she enters the holy of holies. Woven all around on its hem are pomegranates and golden bells. The pomegranates are made of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, the colors of the sunrise and sunset, and the bells make the sound of our own voice. And we each yearn to be brought into the Holy of Holies. It’s a place of spiritual ecstasy, where we can experience the unmediated Divine self.

But we ask, how can we enter into that place of holiness, where is the open door? And then we become aware that each of us is woven into the hem of that robe, and then we are lifted up and brought into the Holy of Holies. And each of us is a pomegranate. We are teeming with life, big and juicy, with many seeds, aspects of our being, that give birth to fullness and blessing. And each of us is a golden bell singing the melody of our lives in the presence of the open heart of the divine.

I want to bless us that we may live lives of ongoing liberation, revelation and the holiness of pomegranates and golden bells. May the doors to these always be open.