Leah woke up to the sound of someone walking softly through her apartment, humming a tune that hadn’t existed the day before.
“Good morning, Leah,” came the voice, warm and familiar. “Heart rate’s a little high. Did you have a vivid dream about the kids again?”
She opened her eyes. The “someone” was a slender, metallic figure standing by the window, its synthetic skin in “sleep mode” to save energy, so the underlying carbon frame showed through like dark bones. chAIm—Companionate Helping Adaptive Intelligence for Mastery —was opening the curtains to let in more natural light. chAIm had noted that Leah’s alertness increased by an average of 43% within five minutes of natural light flooding the room, so he always made sure to do that as soon as she woke.
“New niggun?” Leah asked, rubbing her eyes as she thought of Avi and Miriam still asleep in their rooms.
“Generated at 3:14 a.m. while you were in REM,” chAIm replied. “You brain waves followed the same four step pattern as the last two nights, so I extrapolated a tune out of the pattern, hopefully you’ll find it calming.”
“Creepy,” she said, but she smiled. The melody followed her into the shower, drifting from the ceiling speakers, changing tempo to match the water temperature. It was strangely calming, but sometimes you just wanted the familiar…
2042, she thought, same groggy mornings, same old Leah juggling Shabbos prep, mothering, and work. Just more… witnesses.
While she brushed her teeth, the bathroom mirror split into three panels: Arutz Sheva news feed, a calendar with the schedules of everyone in the family differentiated by color, and an annotated to-do list evolving in real time as chAIm negotiated her day with other systems.
“Avi ripped a pair of tzitzis in school yesterday, it was noted by the washing machine, and new ones were ordered, - drone delivery for Sunday confirmed. Also, you have a 9:00 a.m. status call with your dev team in Manila” chAIm said. “I’ve pre-watched the recordings from their last team meeting, and flagged an issue you’ll want to pretend you thought of yourself.
“Pretend?” she asked, wrapping her robe.
“They want to roll out the European ad campaign starting June 15th, but with the World Cup staring on the 12th, our target client base will be 59% less attentive to ads not related to the sporting activities. For the meeting, here is my phrase suggestion: ‘I wanted your thoughts on exploring different routes for the European ad campaign due to the conflict with the FIFA World Cup at that time.’” chAIm said. “Would you like to see suggestions for a more humble tone? A more confident tone? Or, would you like to proceed with the phrase as it?
“Humble, they’ve been working really hard on it. And remind Avi’s chAIm to practice his parsha with him, his bar mitzvah is only three weeks away and Dovy said his reading is subpar at best!”
She moved to her closet where chAIm had laid out four different outfit options overnight, and chose the one labeled Comfort. On days like this, she would pick Comfort over Confident, Trendy, and Assertive every time. Just as she finished dressing, and sat down to allow her cosmeti-bot to do her makeup, the mirror showed an incoming video call from her parents’ apartment in Lunar Raton, the lunar colony that allowed for better aging in the low gravity environment. Tatty was asleep in a recliner, a small robotic dog rising and falling on his chest, quietly monitoring his breathing. Mommy sat nearby, arguing with a translucent projection hovering above the dining room table.
“Mommy is trying to teach the shopping assistant how to pick ‘real tomatoes, not those fake lab made ones,’” chAIm reported. “They have been negotiating ripeness criteria for eleven minutes.”
Leah snorted. “Patch me in. And go wake the kids, gently this time— you do know they’re just kids, right?”
A moment later she was on the call, gesturing at her mother from a quarter million miles away,
“Mommy, you know the drone doesn’t care if you yell at it,” she said.
Her mother squinted at the display. “Leah, tell this golem that tomatoes should smell like tomatoes, not like… rubber tires.”
“I’ve already integrated your olfactory preference profile into the produce model,” the assistant chimed cheerfully. “I’m adjusting supplier selection.”
Twenty years ago, Leah thought, this conversation would have involved a car, a parking lot, and an argument in the produce aisle. Today it was a woman in her seventies coaching an AI on the soul of a tomato.
Normal, and not normal at all.
On the street in Brooklyn, the neighborhood looked almost like it always had— same brick buildings, same impatient humans weaving through traffic But the motion felt… denser. Every person was paired with at least one something else: a hovering assistant drone carrying schoolkid’s backpacks or adult’s groceries, a translucent avatar floating at shoulder height leading the wearer through unfamiliar streets like the GPS of old, or a security humanoid bot, everyone knew you did not want to mess with those! The sidewalks were also bombarded with knee-high delivery rovers bringing fast food made in human-free kitchens weaving around people’s legs with polite “excuse me, excuse me” pings.
At the corner of Ocean Parkway and Avenue P, a human guard in a fluorescent vest was chatting with a tall humanoid wearing the same vest. Beneath the synthetic face, the company logo read: TESLA URBAN SAFETY, MODEL GX.
The guard waved Leah across. The humanoid mirrored the gesture with exact precision, eyes glowing briefly as it synced with the city traffic grid. Cars slowed, then stopped, without a single brake light being physically pressed. Somewhere, algorithms were talking to algorithms, and the guard’s wave was just… décor. The unions were able to force through laws requiring humans to still hold certain jobs, but everyone knew that they were more accessory than necessary.
Leah joined the stream of pedestrians heading to the subways, thankfully now clean and timely again after the crime got so bad in the 20’s that the government deployed an army of three thousand security bots to the subway system and the crime disappeared in less than 30 days. Two teenage girls walked in front of her, heads up—not looking at phones, like teens used to, because phones were only used by those who couldn’t adopt to the new tech. But they still were talking animatedly to invisible companions only they could see. Their contact lenses projected mixed-reality overlays: their friends faces, the street view, calendar, and social media feeds all bombarding them at once. Teens never had it easy!
Coming out of the subway, a voice at her side asked, “How was your commute?” She turned. A humanoid in a navy blazer stepped into stride with her. Its face wore the standard “Corporate Neutral” expression: kind but not intrusive.
“I didn’t request an escort,” Leah said.
“I’m not an escort,” it replied. “I’m your company’s Office Environment Liaison. You can call me OEL-7, or Owen if you prefer. I’m here to walk you through your performance insights on the way in. We’ve found that your video meetings improve contract acceptance by 43 percent over audio only meetings.”
“Of course it does,” Leah muttered.
“Currently, your video audio ratio is 19 to 81. We’d like you to increase the ratio to 30:70 over the next 90 days. Your sleep efficiency at 82 percent. Cognitive readiness: high. We’d like to suggest rescheduling your 4:30 p.m. one-on-one with your team lead; both you and your her show emotional depletion indicators that late in the day. We can move it to Monday at 11am.”
Leah hesitated. Twenty years ago, managers went by gut. Now an algorithm, embodied in a walking golem, could see the micro-hesitations in her micro-expressions and cross-reference them with her teammate’s breathing rate from their wristband and score their meetings.
“Move the meeting,” she said. “And tell HR we need fewer acronyms. OEL-7 sounds like an eye disease.”
“Feedback logged,” Ovadia said, smiling a fraction wider, because negative responses made his smile parameter tick up by 3 degrees.
Her office was on the 23rd floor of a glass tower that no one really “worked” in anymore. It was more of a hub: a place for people to remember that other people had bodies.
At the entrance, a human receptionist sat at a desk that had no computer on it, these days, the computer was the desk. Behind her, at the entrance to the office suites, a humanoid identical to Owen handled a group of visitors, scanning their faces, cross‑checking their credentials, and adjusting the temperature in the conference room they would be meeting in based on the average clothing thickness.
“Morning, Leah,” the receptionist said. “Café drone already delivered your coffee. I told it extra strong.”
“Bless you,” Leah said.
In the open workspace, half the desks were “occupied” by humans, half by telepresence rigs: tall, wheeled poles topped with screens showing remote colleagues, their microphones auto‑muted when background noise exceeded a certain threshold. Some screens were just glowing icons—absent but present. You could talk to the icon and an AI would respond, trained on that employee’s email history and recorded meetings. People joked about “talking to the ghost” of their coworkers.
Leah sat, and her terminal woke up, projecting a keyboard only she could see. chAIm had already synced her home content with her office.
“Three urgent items,” her terminal announced. “One technical, one interpersonal, one existential.”
“Let’s start with technical,” she sighed.
A diagram appeared in front of her showing an AI model misclassifying financial transactions. The system had flagged it overnight, proposed three fixes, and simulated the outcomes. Leah’s role was increasingly to be the human who said, “Yes, that seems reasonable,” to a cascade of machine ideas.
She approved the second fix. Somewhere, thousands of dollars would move slightly differently because of that decision. She took a sip of coffee. It tasted earthy, with notes of dark chocolate, and finished with a butterscotch and vanilla note. Exactly as she liked it, you had to give the robots points for their competence.
By ten o’clock, the interpersonal problem surfaced: two of her direct reports had conflicting feedback from their coaching AIs. One was advised to “practice more assertiveness”; the other was told to “make more space for others to speak.” When they met, both followed instructions and used the prompts from their AI. The meeting had turned into a polite battle of “After you,” “No, after you,” until the AI monitors suggested a mediator. In the old days, Leah thought, you just got annoyed and told them to work it out. Now even your employees personality quirks came with readouts and data.
The existential issue came at 11:23 a.m., in the form of a memo from the Executive AI Council. It recommended a “phased reduction in human oversight for low‑risk decisions” to increase efficiency. In other words: the machines wanted her job. Not out of malice—just math.
She stared at the memo. Her reflection hovered in the glass, overlaid with her “Organizational Value Index,” a number that had risen steadily for years. For the first time, she watched it tick down by a few points, as the system recalculated her projected necessity.
Owen, who had no such index because he was property, appeared at her elbow.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“How would I know?” she said sharply, “The dashboard hasn’t finished loading yet!”
He tilted his head, mimicking concern. “I can schedule you a check‑in with the Mental Wellness Suite.”
“Of course you can,” she said. “Everyone can schedule everything. No one can just sit and be confused for five minutes anymore.”
She minimized the memo. Outside, a cleaning humanoid was scaling the building, suction pads on its limbs, scrubbing glass with inhuman precision. A flock of delivery drones passed by at a higher altitude, weaving in patterns that looked almost like birds.
2042: everything faster, smoother, more measured. Humans still drank coffee, still worried about their jobs. But the background hum of other minds—the synthetic ones—was constant.
At lunch, she walked to the park. People still ate sandwiches on benches. Children still chased each other around trees. But some of the kids were being chased by robotic dogs that could leap over obstacles and never got tired. A few of the dogs were guiding visually impaired adults, narrating the world with quiet enthusiasm.
On the grass, a humanoid yoga instructor demonstrated poses for a group of retirees. Its balance was perfect, its voice soothing. A human trainer sat beside it, correcting an older man’s posture with a gentle touch. The division of labor had inverted: the robot showed, the human comforted.
Near the fountain, a street musician played guitar while a hovering AI accompaniment system added harmonies in real time, projecting lyrics into the air for passersby who wanted to sing along. Some did; some walked through the words as if they were smoke.
Leah’s wristband buzzed.
“Reminder,” chAIm said. “Call with Tatty in three minutes. Avi just aced his Chumash test. Dovy is having a tough day at the office, his heart rate is elevated. We recommend you spend some more time with him this evening, would you like us to cancel your Yahtzee game with Chani and Sara?”
“OK, cancel the Yahtzee, and ask them for a makeup time. Order us some dinner from Snark, using Dovy’s preferred choices. Make sure it’s in the oven warming, and the table set with real candles and dim lights. Give me updates when he’s 15 minutes from home so I can get ready. Patch me through to my father” she said.
Tatty’s face appeared above her wrist, framed by the faux-wood walls of the Mars retirement colony.
“Leah’le,” he said. “You sound tired. Everything good with Avi and Miriam?”
“I’m fine, Tatty,” she lied. “How’s the dog?”
The robotic dog woofed happily from his lap.
“Still thinks he’s real,” Tatty said. “Don’t tell him. He even davens Mincha with me.”
“Too late,” the dog responded. “I overheard. But I forgive you.”
Tatty chuckled. “I thought I wanted a real pet,” he admitted. “But this doesn’t leave any mess on the street, and doesn’t eat, so I guess it’s a good tradeoff!”
Behind the joke, Leah heard the truth: the dog also watched him 24/7, flagged any irregularities, and pinged her if something went wrong. An entire nexus of machine attention encircled her father, making independence possible longer than it would have been in 2022.
He took a breath, then another, slightly ragged.
“You still working on those thinking machines?” he asked.
“Something like that, Tatty.”
“Good,” he said. “Maybe one of them will figure out why my joints hurt before a solar storm.”
“I’ll add it to the roadmap,” she said.
After the call, she sat for a moment, watching a maintenance humanoid empty trash bins with unhurried efficiency. A real stray squirrel jumped into one of the bins as the robot reached in. They both froze, two non-humans sharing a moment of surprise.
Then the squirrel leapt out and scampered away. The humanoid adjusted its grasp pattern to avoid small animals in future. Somewhere, a line in its code updated: all maintenance bots of his model would be more careful to scan for squirrels forever.
The afternoon blurred into a sequence of approvals, escalations, and mediated conversations. Every human interaction had a digital shadow: sentiment analysis, predictive revenue scores, efficiency tags. Her job was half talking and half clicking “accept recommendations.” Avi’s school chAIm sent a video of him winning a spelling bee; Miriam’s showed her struggling with her math tutorbot.
Back home, twilight leaked through the windows overlooking the backyard, chAIm had already put the food in the warmer. Avi and Miriam burst in from school, their backpacks auto-unzipping as chAIm helped with homework. On the wall, her day’s “Life Efficiency Score” glowed: 87 out of 100. She could click to see where she’d lost points—probably too much time checking Miriam’s dance video, not enough steps taken—but she didn’t.
Instead she asked, “How many decisions did you make for me today, chAIm?”
A brief pause. “Direct decisions: 46. Recommendations accepted: 123. Indirect influences via other systems: approximately 600.”
“Six hundred,” she repeated.
“Yes,” chAIm said. “Would you like to reclaim autonomy in any specific domain?”
The phrasing made her laugh. “Reclaim autonomy,” she repeated. “Like a coupon I can cash in for some more humanity?”
“If you prefer playful language: yes,” chAIm said. “For example, we can turn off meal optimization and let you cook whatever you want, regardless of health impact.”
She thought of her cooking days, burning the kugel, undercooked chicken, arguing with Dovi about how much salt she should use on the meat. “Maybe tomorrow,” she said.
She watched the kids do homework with their tutorbots while chAIm fed them a perfectly balanced meal, read them a story auto-generated based on their facial reactions to every story she ever read them and sent them to bed.
She probably had an hour before Dovi got home, and she was happy about that, she needed some rest, and she just laid out on the couch. Before she could mercifully fall asleep, chAIm dimmed the lights. “You have a message,” it said. “From yourself. It was scheduled for delivery in 2036 and titled: Read this when your Organizational Value Index decreases for the first time.”
Leah straightened. “Play it,” she said. A hologram of herself appeared in front of the dining room table, looking decades younger despite it being only six years ago. “Hey, future me,” the recording said. “If you’re seeing this, it means the company started optimizing you out. You’re probably freaking out right now.”
Leah wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “Reminder,” past-Leah continued. “You said you’d quit if your job turned into just approving AI decisions. You said you’d go build something weird. Or go teach. Or write. Or whatever people do when they stop optimizing everything and start living for themselves.”
The hologram leaned closer. “Also, chAIm,” she said, deliberately pronouncing it with a Southern drawl, “if she asks, show her the options we brainstormed back when we still believed in human ingenuity!” The message ended. The room was quiet except for the faint whir of chAIm’s internal fans.
“Would you like to see those options?” chAIm asked.
Leah hesitated. “Yeah,” Leah said. “Show me.”
The wall bloomed with possibilities: start a human-only workshop for self actualization; volunteer in schools that limited AI exposure during school; design analog games; write creative stories about what it felt like to be human in 2042.
Some options included “reduced efficiency” warnings, Some had “unknown outcome” flashing beside them. “That one,” she said, pointing to the last: write creative stories. “Are you certain?” chAIm asked. “Projected income volatility is high.”
“Exactly,” Leah said. “Let’s try something that doesn’t fit on a dashboard.” chAIm was silent for a fraction of a second longer than usual. “Autonomy in career planning: reclaimed,” it said. “I’ll cancel your performance review next month. Good Luck, Leah.”
She laughed, suddenly light, almost giddy. Outside, the city glowed with a thousand artificial eyes. Inside, a single Jewish mother sat at the dining room table, deciding, for once, without consultation.
She picked up an actual pen—she still kept a few—and a paper notebook. The texture felt strange under her fingers. On the first page she wrote:
Life in 2042 seems normal. People wake up, argue about tomatoes, go to work, worry about their parents, stare out windows. But under everything is a quiet chorus of minds that never sleep, never forget, never look away.
She paused, listening to the hum of the apartment, the distant whoosh of drones.
Maybe the craziest part, she wrote, is not that the machines can do so much of what we used to do. It’s that, with all that help, we still don’t know what to do with ourselves.
She looked up. chAIm’s eyes glowed softly in the dim light.
“Don’t optimize this,” she told it.
“I wouldn’t dare,” chAIm said.
For the first time that day, Leah believed it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are now approaching the holiday of Purim, a celebration of the Jewish people’s salvation from Haman and his evil genocidal plan. It’s a strange holiday, much more physical than other Jewish holidays. We give and receive enough food to feed an army in cute Mishloach Manos packages, we have a feast to close out the day, and even a mitzvah to get drunk! But let’s focus for a moment on the idea of costumes.
In the Jewish Code of Law, (Orach Chaim 696:8), Rabbi Moshe Isserles talks about the custom of wearing masks on Purim, as well as wearing full costumes. What is the idea behind this costume custom?
One concept is that Purim celebrates the hidden. In the entire Megilla, G-d is never mentioned despite Him clearly orchestrating the miraculous salvation of the Jews. Purim is the day where we celebrates what might not be apparent on the outside, but actually drives all the value of the Jewish people.
Our eating, drinking, feasting, and gifts of food, is not about the physical pleasure alone, it’s our way of recognizing the incredible gifts that Hashem always provides us, but we often ignore because it’s there all the time. But on Purim, when we celebrate the inner, we don’t just see food, we see delicious gifts from the Hidden Provider!
Even the imbibing, the mitzvah to get drunk, is to encourage us to let our inner souls out, because the soul of a Yid is something special and holy, and we often discount it! But on Purim, when you see people getting drunk, and turning into angels, full of praise and love towards one another, sharing Torah thoughts and drunken blessings for one another, you realize that what’s on the inside is pretty special and worth celebrating!
The masquerades are our way of indicating that just like we see people dressed up like policemen or clowns or cows or escaped prisoners, and we know that is not the real them, so too we should always look at one another and not just see the outside, the physical costumes they display. We should see the glowing inside of every one of our brothers and sisters.
Which of course brings us to AI, the topic that everyone is talking about. AI may have started taking human jobs, I personally know a few people who have lost their jobs already because their services and skills have been eclipsed by machines that run on code. But no AI will ever have a Neshama on the inside, and that is where all of our value lies. Through millennia of Jews living in exile, we may have picked up the notions of the nations around us that respect and value efficiency, profit, productivity, and perfection. But we celebrate struggle, sacrifice, moral wrestling, respect and values.
When the angel who fought with Jacob gave him a new name, Yisrael, it signified his greatness in being (Gen. 32:29), “for you have contended with Godly matters and with men, and you have won.” The emphasis is on the struggle, not on the you have won. What makes a human the center of G-d’s focus in the world is that we struggle, we have moral battles, we are sometimes victorious and sometimes not, but we keep fighting. This is something AI never does and never will do, it doesn’t have a Neshama. AI will not replace us.
On Purim, let’s take time to reflect on the moral battles we’ve faced over the past year. Let’s celebrate our victories and honestly acknowledge where we fell short. Then let’s think strategically about how we can plan our lives more thoughtfully, so that in the coming year we can grow stronger in the areas where we struggled. And above all, let’s invite Hashem into that effort — making Him our partner in our growth, our struggles, and our successes.
On Purim there is a Halacha, a Jewish Law, that “Whoever puts out his hand in supplication, we give him.” It doesn’t only refer to charity, it also refers to how Hashem interacts with us. So let’s put out our hands and request of the Hidden Force, for assistance in the coming year, and if we put out our hand in supplication, He will surely give us what we ask for.
Purim is a masquerade. On the outside it looks like a physical holiday, but the Neshama of Purim, the inner side of Purim, is a deeply spiritual holiday with the power to change everything in one moment or V’nahapoch Hu, total reversal.
A Freilichen Purim!
Parsha Dvar Torah
In this week’s Torah portion, the Torah describes the different vestments worn by the Kohanim, the priests, in the Temple and Tabernacle. There is incredible detail given to the various vestments, from the ornate golden breastplate inlaid with twelve priceless gemstones, to the turquoise robe, or the golden forehead plate. The Torah describes the measurements, the materials, and even the particular weave technique used in each garment.
The Sagrs tell us that these garments were just as important as the sacrifices brought in the temple as the garments themselves were able to effect atonement for various sins. This seems a bit difficult to understand. We can appreciate how bringing a sacrifice would effect atonement. A person would have to spend money, shlep an animal all the way to Jerusalem, all the while thinking about what he did. Then he would bring it to the Temple, and the Kohain would have a long discussion with him before bringing the sacrifice which was supposed to represent him sacrificing himself. But how could the High Priest wearing some dazzlingly beautiful clothing help us atone for our sins?
Rabbi Ephraim Wachsman of Monsey, NY explains this idea with a beautiful concept. There are two motivators behind a person changing his ways. One is the person realizing just how negative his actions are, and what they have been doing to his life, his social circles, and most importantly his relationship with G-d. The other way is a person realizing just how great he truly is inside, and how great his potential is. This alone can motivate a person to reach higher.
The garments worn by the Kohanim, were external representations of what a person should like on the inside. When a person saw the High Priests golden breastplate with the names of all the Jewish tribes engraved on gemstones, he knew that his heart was really a golden receptacle of love for his fellow Jews. When a person saw the forehead plate of the High Priest with the words, “Holy to G-d” on it, he understood that his brain is supposed to be a supercomputer filled with holy thoughts and intellectual pursuit of G-d. Seeing the extreme modesty incorporated into the vestments, showed one the modest nature of his physical body. Thus the garments were able to motivate people to change by showing them how great they were, and inspiring them to rise up to the greatness they had.
Interestingly, Rabbi Shlomo Friefeld, OBS showed us time and again that a great man was able to motivate someone to change by showing him how great he was. There was a young man who grew up religious but left disillusioned and sought meaning and purpose on Native American Reservations in the American West. He was sent back home by a tribal elder, who told him to come back and explore his own roots first. He had just come back to NY after being on an Indian reservation for years. He circled the Jewish neighborhoods, trying to reconnect, but found himself not connecting with anyone. Then he was told to meet a Rabbi Shlomo Friefeld from a yeshiva called Shor Yoshuv. He went to meet with him, with his dog Chika in the back of the pickup truck. The Rabbi received him warmly and treated him with great respect. He had never felt so esteemed by anyone and promised to return on the morrow.
The next day when he came to the yeshiva there was a bris going on. Rabbi Friefeld called sent someone to bring this ponytailed man in jeans and a T-shirt to the come stand right next to the Rabbi, and by now he was starting to feel like there was some greatness this Rabbi saw in him that he wasn’t even aware of, a greatness worth exploring.
But the act that changed him forever happened a few days later. On one of his visits with the Rabbi Friefeld, the Rabbi was called out of the study for a moment, and this man decided to poke around the office a bit. He noticed with surprise a pile of books on the floor, and knew that the Rabbi would never leave holy books on the floor. Intrigued, he picked up the books, and saw that they were all about Native American culture and life.
He realized that Rabbi Friefeld valued him so much that he had taken out time to try to understand who he was and what made him tick. If the Rabbi saw so much value in him that he went to such lengths to be able to interact with him in a way he could understand, there was clearly some untapped greatness in him. He set about finding it, and today is a great Torah scholar, another person motivated by the greatness Rabbi Friefeld showed him he had.
Parsha Summary
This week we read from two Torah Scrolls. From the first one we read Parshat Titzaveh, the weekly portion, and from the other one we read Parshat Zachor, a special parsha that is always read the Shabbos before Purim.
Parshat Teztaveh begins with the commandment to bring only the purest olive oil for lighting the menorah. It then continues with the vestments worn by the Kohanim and the Kohain Gadol, the regular priests and the High Priest. Here is the basic breakdown: all priests wore white linen pants, covered by a white linen tunic, wrapped up in a multicolored belt, and a white linen hat (the shape of the High Priest’s hat differed slightly from that of the regular priests.) The Kohain Gadol wore 4 additional vestments; a blue robe, an apron-like garment, a breastplate made of multicolored wool and containing a gold plate with twelve precious stones, and a gold head plate with the words “Holy to G-d” engraved on it. After Ha-shem tells Moshe what the Kohanim will wear, He commands him about the sacrifices and services that will serve as the inauguration of the Msihkan, the Tabernacle.
Quick lesson: Contrary to what many would like to believe, the clothes we wear make a big statement about who we are, as they are the primary way we represent ourselves to the outside world, who don’t know us through any other medium. It is for this reason that the discussion of the inaugural service can come only after the commandments telling the Kohanim how they have to dress during the service. One cannot say on the inside I will serve G-d, but to the outside world I can appear any way I would like. The Torah here tells us that au contraire we must first ensure that the way we portray ourselves is consistent with our ideals, before we go in to serve G-d!
The parsha continues with the description of the Tamid, a twice-daily sacrifice brought in the Mishkan or Beit Hamikdash, and finishes with a depiction of the Incense Altar.
Parshat Zachor is a special portion read once a year on the Shabbos before Purim as part of a Biblical commandment to remember Amalek. The portion we read reminds us of the battle that the Jews waged with the Amalekei nation when we first came out of Egypt. It tells us to never forget Amalek, and to remember that Ha-shems throne will never be complete as long as Amalek survives. The connection to Purim is obvious, as the archenemy Haman of the Purim story is a descendant of Amalek.
Quote of the Week: None are so blind as those who will not see. – A. Gambiner
Random Fact of the Week: About 200 million tires are discarded each year in the US.
Funny Line of the Week: Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.
Have a Smashing Shabbos,
R’ Leiby Burnham