Archive for 5. Deuteronomy

Nitzavim- Vayelech: Write for Yourselves

September 23, 2011 at 1:51 pm · Filed under 5. Deuteronomy, Nitzavim/Vayelech

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger


Torah Portion: Nitzavim-Vayelech 


“And now, write for yourselves this song, and teach it to the Children of Israel. Place it into their mouths, in order that this song will be for Me as a witness for the children of Israel. . . “ 

Good afternoon! 

In both baseball and Torah portions, we’re in the final weeks of the season, heading into the home stretch. This week, in the double portion Nitzavim-Vayelech, we encounter the very last mitzvah of the Torah, derived from the verse above, that each person should write for themselves, or have written for them, a Torah scroll. We won’t go into the details of this mitzvah now, but you can click here and here for further study. For today, let’s just note that the context of the verse itself seems to be God telling Moshe that he should write down the words that God is teaching him, as it were, so that Moshe can in turn give it to the people and they can be held accountable. 

Going farther than the specific context of Deuteronomy, the ancient rabbis noted the “write for yourselves” is in the plural, and interpreted this to mean that each of us is to write the Torah for ourselves. One medieval commentary, the Sefer HaChinnuch, thinks that the point of this mitzvah is the ease of Torah study if we each has our own scroll (presumably, this comes from the days before printed books.) On the other hand, a Talmudic sage, Rabbah, says that even if your parents left you a Torah scroll, you still have to write one for yourself- that is, it’s not just about having one, it’s about making it yourself. 

This latter interpretation strikes me as teaching something important: it’s not enough to simply inherit your parent’s Torah- and I mean that both literally and metaphorically. It’s not enough to simply practice an inherited Judaism; “writing for ourselves” suggests making Judaism our own, making it live through the specific prism of our own lives, not just preserving an inheritance but also taking ownership of our religious experience. To be clear: this doesn’t mean we automatically reject the previous generations’ Judaism, it means that we build on it, embracing the confidence that each generation is responsible for doing Torah in this world according to its abilities and needs. 

That, to me, is a timeless message: we may inherit ancient texts, but we bring them to life in this day, not for the sake of the scroll of the Torah but for the creative soul of the Torah. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

RNJL 

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Ki Tavo: Learn Humility

September 16, 2011 at 11:41 am · Filed under 5. Deuteronomy, Ki Tavo

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Ki Tavo 

The Lord will strike you with the Egyptian inflammation, with hemorrhoids, boil-scars, and itch, from which you shall never recover. . . .  The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and dismay.   (Devarim/ Deuteronomy

28:27:-28)

I’m back!

Friends, I apologize for the long break in providing a weekly commentary. I meant to only take a few weeks off in late July and early August, but one thing turned into another, and I never caught up from time off and unexpected situations at the synagogue.

Enough kvetching, let’s look at this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, which begins with a famous commandment to bring our first-fruits to the ancient Temple, in gratitude for our blessings, but ends with a terrible series of curses put upon the people if they do not follow God and Torah. One commentary I read earlier this week suggests that this section of curses is related inversely to the commandment found earlier to love God (cf. Devarim 6.) That is, if we don’t love God, we should at least fear God- and according this theory, the horrors of the curses, including disaster, starvation, disease and even cannibalism, are meant to shock us into realization of the consequences of choosing the wrong path.

It’s possible that this was the plain meaning of these verses in historical context, but exploring of the Bible reveals that the link between suffering and sin is not always so clear. The book of Job makes this most plain, but reading the historical works of the Bible, like Judges, Samuel, and Kings, one realizes that the Biblical authors were perfectly well aware that lots of suffering happens because humans are imperfect beings living in a dangerous world. People start fights and wars, get sick and die, are filled with passion and rage, and it isn’t always the plan of God that these things happen.

In our age, we are even more oriented towards an understanding that bad things can happen for entirely natural reasons; the unfolding of nature and natural laws doesn’t necessarily reflect the particulars of Divine Will. People suffer, whether they have sinned or not, and the best we can do is be prepared for life’s unpredictable unfolding.

That, to me, is the meaning of these terrible curses- disaster, drought and death- that appear in Ki Tavo.  We are never really prepared for suffering, yet it it should be obvious that at any minute, our lives could be utterly disrupted by conditions beyond our control. The Northeast was battered by a hurricane just a few weeks ago; and entire towns were flooded and damaged- who ever thinks that their home might be swept away?

In anticipation of the Days of Awe, the Torah throws something humbling at us: the awareness that our comforts and security are temporary at best. There is no external circumstance which is utterly reliable: our bodies fail, our buildings fall down, our fields are flooded or burned depending on the weather. What we can choose is our communal response to suffering: if we have choose the path of commitment to God and each other, perhaps the experience can be mitigated, just enough. We go forth into the world humbled by the knowledge that we are not God, but called upon to do holy work nevertheless. That’s why the Torah throws such a shocker at us: it asks us to imagine our worst nightmares, precisely so that we call forth a deeper humanity, a greater depth of compassion and spirituality, to be our foundation in times of trouble and our glory in times of peace.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

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V’zot Habracha: Breaking Tablets

September 29, 2010 at 4:56 pm · Filed under 5. Deuteronomy, Holidays, Simchat Torah, V'zot Habracha

Copyright 2010 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Simchat Torah/ Vzot Habracha

Greetings on this beautiful Hoshana Rabbah ! We’re about to go into the home stretch of the fall holidays, concluding with Simchat Torah, the festival of concluding the yearly Torah reading and immediately starting the new one. In just a few days, we’ll conclude the book of D’varim/ Deuteronomy with these verses:

“Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses — whom the Lord singled out, face to face, for the various signs and portents that the Lord sent him to display in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his courtiers and his whole country, and for all the great might and awesome power that Moshe displayed before all Israel.” (D’varim 34:10-12)

It’s fitting that the book of D’varim concludes with the death of Moshe, the story of his burial, and final words of praise: these three verses are like a concise summary of the narrative from the beginning of Exodus through the end of the Torah, covering 40 years of sojourn. Our friend Rashi explains each piece of the last verse: the “great might” is receiving the tablets of the Torah by hand (the phrase “great might” is literally “strong hand.”) “Awesome power” is miracles in the wilderness, and “before all Israel” is. . . . . the breaking of the tablets of the law at Sinai, when Moshe came down the mountain to find the Israelites dancing before the golden calf. (Cf. D’varim 9:17 for the prooftext.)

Now, this is interesting. Of all the praises for all the great works of Moshe, the Torah concludes- according to Rashi, basing himself on an earlier midrash- with a reference to his angry breaking of the tablets at Israel’s not-finest hour?

I think Rashi wants us to remember Moshe not for his meteorological marvels but for the moral miracle of willingness to confront idolatry in all its forms- even, or perhaps especially, among his own people. Commentators suggest that these broken tablets were also carried by the Israelites from Sinai, perhaps as a reminder that the medium of Torah is not stone, parchment, or paper- but people. Moshe’s signature act of leadership, in this reading, is not his conflict with Pharaoh but his prophetic pursuit of truth even among his friends and community.

Here is Moshe in a moment of great risk: he sees his own people losing their way and breaks the very symbol of their sacred covenant if it will shock them back to consciousness. That is, indeed, a mighty miracle, but not one that comes from God- it’s one that comes from a brave heart and passionate spirit. Most of us will not encounter a burning bush, nor call forth manna from the heavens: but all of us have the opportunity to break tablets, speak bravely, and act from prophetic ethics. That, to me, is why we should always remember that Moshe’s greatest miracle was not from above, but from within: because such miracles are possible today, and perhaps needed more than ever.

Hag sameach and Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

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Ha’azinu/ Rosh Hashanah: Painter of Creation

September 8, 2010 at 12:25 am · Filed under 5. Deuteronomy, Ha'azinu, Rosh Hashanah

Copyright 2010 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Ha’azinu

The Rock! — His deeds are perfect,
Yea, all His ways are just;
A faithful God, never false,
True and upright is He. (Deuteronomy/D’varim 32:4, JPS translation)

There is no holy one like the Lord,
Truly, there is none beside You;
There is no rock like our God. (1 Samuel 2:2)

Dear Friends:

This Shabbat, after two days of Rosh Hashanah, we’ll be reading the Torah portion Ha’azinu, the penultimate parsha, in which Moshe recounts in poetic form how God brought the people from Egypt, yet they will betray the covenant in some future time. A recurring image of the poem is God as tzur, or “rock,” as above. In context, it probably connotes strength, immovability, and/or a sheltering presence.

Later on in the portion, Moshe rebukes the people for forgetting the “Rock that begot you . . the God who brought you forth.” (32:18) This image suggests Rock as First Cause, the Source of All, implying timeless strength in contrast to human fickleness. Maimonides has a lot more to say about this sense of the image, but in the meantime, one can compare this use of “Rock” to Psalm 95:1 and 92:16, both of which, perhaps not coincidentally, are part of the Kabbalat Shabbat service on Friday nights.

However, there is some dispute among the sages that tzur means “rock” in these verses; some see tzur as related to tza’yar, the one who forms or makes. That would also make sense for these verses; God formed the world and implanted justice within it, as per the opening of Ha’azinu, above.

In modern Hebrew, tza’yar is a painter, or artist, obviously related to the meaning of maker or one who forms. Yet thinking of God as artist implies something very different than simply “maker;” such a metaphor urges us to be open to the beauty and wonder of the cosmos as a whole, even if our particular piece of it contains pain or injustice. Compare the two verses above: the first, from Ha’azinu, is often recited at funerals, while the second comes from the haftarah for the second day of Rosh Hashanah. That’s the story of Hannah, who prays for a son and exults when she gives birth and eventually dedicates the boy to sacred service.

In other words, both at sad times and happy ones, we find the image of tzur, God as artist, making a universe which can be fearsome and which can be bountiful but is never less than beautiful. There is a timeless quality to the cycle of birth and life, death and renewal, which is awe-inspiring, wondrous and incomparable beyond our momentary experiences; this, to me, is the complex meaning of tzur. Over the Days of Awe, we attempt to grapple with issues of justice and mercy, judgment and forgiveness, the meaning of our lives and the inevitability of our deaths, and yet God is not only tzur, Rock, but tza’ar, Artist, the Source of extraordinary wonder among which we are blessed to live.

Experiencing that awesome beauty can help us see our lives as part of a greater tapestry, spread across time and cosmos. It’s humbling and uplifting and challenging at the same time, as is any spiritual experience.

Wishing you and yours a New Year of blessing, peace, beauty and wisdom,

RNJL

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Nitzavim-Vayelech: Gather the People

September 3, 2010 at 2:23 pm · Filed under 5. Deuteronomy, Vayelech

Copyright 2010 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Nitzavim-Vayelech

Hello again!

I really thought I’d be able to write a commentary last week but traveling kept me from the books- and of course, when you get back from a week away you spend a week catching up, so here we are, a bit off course from our theme of prayer but we’ll be back to that next week.

This week we read a double portion, Nitzavim-Vayelech, in which Moshe gives the people the final mitzvot of the Torah, including the interesting mitzvah of hekel, or gathering the entire people every seven years to hear words of Torah:

“Every seventh year, the year set for remission, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place that He will choose, you shall read this Teaching aloud in the presence of all Israel. Gather the people — men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities — that they may hear and so learn to revere the Lord your God and to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching. (D’varim/ Deuteronomy 31:10-12)

Most commentators understand “this teaching” to refer to D’varim [Deuteronomy] itself. The public reading was done by the king, in Jerusalem, in the beginning year of the seven-year Shmittah [Sabbatical year] cycle. The scholar known as the Kli Yakar asks why the Torah commands all the people to be gathered during Sukkot, and why it had to be in the year right after the Shmittah, in which many kinds of labor and finances ceased (at least in theory.)

The Kli Yakar sees the timing of the gathering as part of the message: we’ve just concluded Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for individuals, yet there are some sins which are not individual but communal, on the level of the society or nation. Thus, while Yom Kippur is the day when we do individual “returning” or repentance, there has to be a time when we resolve together to correct problems in society, such exploitation of the poor or weak. (His example, not mine.) This message of social t’shuvah or repentance is connected with the mitzvah of lulav and etrog, which symbolize the connection and integration of different parts of society into a greater and more just whole.

Not only that, but the reason that the national gathering happened right after the Shmittah year, when debts were forgiven and the land rested, was to remind the nation not to fall back into its habits of abusing or neglecting the poor. As I understand the teaching, after a radical interruption of “business as usual,” there was an opportunity to remind the people as to the moral meaning of the preceding year, in the hopes that the ethic of the Shmittah year would continue throughout the next cycle.

Some sins are personal, but some are structural, and we have to imagine how our society might look differently after a communal return to core values.

“Gather the people. . . . “

Personal spiritual introspection is necessary. . . .but there are some things we have to fix together.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

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Ki Tetzei: Basic Respect

August 19, 2010 at 12:49 pm · Filed under 5. Deuteronomy, Ki Tetzei

Copyright Neal Joseph Loevinger 2010

Torah Portion: Ki Tetzei

Greetings from beautiful Lake Como, PA, where I’m attending the Quad-Region USY [United Synagogue Youth] Encampment at Camp Ramah Poconos !

This morning at Encampment services I offered a brief introduction to the weekly Torah reading, and what follows is an edited and  expanded version of the connection I made between the three mitzvot [commandments] in the verses we read. Try to pretend you’re in a camp social hall when reading it. . . .

The weekday morning Torah reading is D’varim/ Deuteronomy 21:10-21, and while there are many, many mitzvot in the Torah portion Ki Tetze, the weekday reading has three: a law regarding women captured in wartime, a law about inheritance rights in a difficult marriage, and the law of the “stubborn and rebellious son.”

The first law says that if a soldier in Biblical times took a woman captive in battle, he was not allowed to do whatever he wanted, but had to wait before taking her as a wife. The ancient rabbis assumed that if he had to wait, he’d probably change his mind and send her home, but even if he didn’t, he had to treat her like a human being and not like property. What this teaches is that even in wartime, when everything is chaos and most normal rules don’t apply, men still had to treat women with respect, like real human beings, not just objects- so how much more so does that apply in everyday life!

The second law says that if a man has two wives, one whom he loves and one whom he doesn’t, he still has to give a fair inheritance to the sons of the wife he doesn’t like. That is, whatever problem there might be between the husband and wife, the parent can’t put that on the child, who gets the inheritance that’s due to him, even the bigger inheritance of the firstborn. What this teaches is that even if you really have a problem with somebody, your problem with one person doesn’t apply to anybody else- not that person’s friends, family or acquaintances. People are individuals, and deserve to be treated that way.

The final law of this morning’s reading is really hard: it’s the “stubborn and rebellious son.” The Torah says that if a young man is really horrible, a drunkard and a thief and a glutton and totally disrespectful, his parents can take him out to be stoned to death! Most of the rabbis say that actually never actually happened- what kind of parents would do that? So maybe this section of the Torah using an impossible example to teach that that some kinds of behaviors are so serious, they can make people so angry and feel so disrespected it might be a matter of life and death.

What these three mitzvot have in common is treating others with respect, even in difficult situations. We’re not soldiers at war, and I hope nobody hates somebody in their family, but the idea is this: if in those extreme situations, people had to be treated as individuals, with basic human dignity- it applies even more so in normal interactions with friends and family. To put it another way, sometimes the Torah gives an extreme example so we’ll see how it applies even more in normal situations, like how we treat each other today and every day, at camp. at school or at home.

Shabbat Shalom,
RNJL

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Shoftim: Shake off the Dust

August 13, 2010 at 12:13 pm · Filed under 5. Deuteronomy, Shoftim

Copyright 2010 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Shoftim

Hello again!

It’s been too long since we’ve been learning together. This week we’re reading the Torah portion Shoftim and the fourth of seven haftarot of consolation , which are read between Tisha B’Av and Rosh Hashanah.

All of these haftarot [readings from the prophets] are taken from the second half of the book of Isaiah, which has the general theme of redemption, restoration, and rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple. These texts are poetic, with metaphors upon metaphors; the prophet addresses the city of Jerusalem as if she were a person, yet it’s understood that Jerusalem herself is symbolic of the people Israel, ready to return from exile:

“ Awake, awake, O Zion!
Clothe yourself in splendor;
Put on your robes of majesty,
Jerusalem, holy city . . .

Arise, shake off the dust,
Sit [on your throne], Jerusalem!
Loose the bonds from your neck,
O captive one, Fair Zion!” (Is. 52:1-2)

In context, this and other verses (cf. 51:17) which commands Jerusalem to “arise,” “rouse” or “awake,” are probably exhortations to the people to find courage and encouragement in the imminent return from exile. That is, exile to Babylon is like the dust that needs to be shaken off or the sleep which dulls one’s senses- awakening, rousing, and shaking off the dust are metaphors for the people’s return and restoration. (See Rabbi Riskin’s take on this here.)

Some readers will recognize these verses in the Shabbat evening him Lecha Dodi, which we’ve discussed previously. I’d like to interpret these verses a little differently than I did last year, based on a text from the Ba’al Shem Tov, whose teachings I’ve been learning with a friend. The Besht, as the Ba’al Shem Tov is know, draws a distinction between two spiritual states: katnut and gadlut, which literally mean “smallness” and “bigness” but which refer to a spiritual experience of constriction, fear, or distraction, compared to an experience of expanded awareness, connection and love.

Yet these ways of experiencing aren’t real or objective. Even when we’re in katnut, or smallness, if we can just think of the “upper worlds,” we’ll be there, “for a person is where his thought is.” [Tzava'at HaRivash 69] That is, you might think you’re “covered in dust,” or in a constricted spiritual place, but that’s just your thinking talking to you, as it were. The Besht teaches that you can think of the “upper worlds”- that is, expand your spiritual horizons- because you’re already there. If you weren’t already there- how could you think of it?

Returning to our text, and to its placement on Shabbat evening, I see the image of “shaking off the dust” as remembering that it’s possible to be in a different state than the hurried, distracted and ego-centric rushing around that many of us are doing throughout the day. Just thinking: “I can be more centered, more God-aware, more generous, more connected to the Source of love,” moves us there, because if that wasn’t the root of our being, how could we even think of it?

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

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Shoftim: Rising from the Dust

August 13, 2010 at 11:37 am · Filed under 5. Deuteronomy, Shoftim

Copyright Neal Joseph Loevinger 2009

(This was posted on rabbineal-list Aug 21, 2009)

Hello one and all!

We’re continuing with our discussion of the seven haftarot of
consolation (see previous messages), and we’re up to number 4 with the
haftarah for this week’s Torah portion, Shoftim. All of these readings
are taken from the book of Isaiah; in these chapters the prophet
addresses a personified Jerusalem, telling the city to awake and
arise:

Awake, awake, O Zion!
Clothe yourself in splendor;
Put on your robes of majesty,
Jerusalem, holy city . . . . .

Arise, shake off the dust,
Sit [on your throne], Jerusalem!
Loose the bonds from your neck . . . (Yeshayahu/Isaiah 52:1-2)

Astute readers of the Hebrew and even the English may note that
phrases from these verses are quoted in “Lecha Dodi,” the hymn for
bringing in Shabbat. In context, the idea that Zion, or Jerusalem,
arises or shakes off the dust is clearly a metaphor for the Jewish
people regaining hope and dignity as their redemption approaches.

The phrase “arise, shake of the dust” [hitna'ari, m'afar kumi], is
interesting not only for the image of a people “arising” from a
degraded state but also because the word for “shake off” has a root
similar to that of “youth,” or “na’ar.” Thus Hirsch says that “when
Israel attains her goal she arises in youthful beauty,” which itself
is a metaphor not for physical beauty but the moral beauty of youthful
passion and idealism.

Along these lines, a homiletic interpretation of “hitna’ari” could be
“make yourself youthful again,” and perhaps the prophet himself
intended this doubled meaning, given the homonyms. If so, “shaking of
the dust” could be understood as shedding our cynicism and fear, and
renewing our ability to hope and thus work towards a better and
brighter world. Please note: I am not saying that young people are
never cynical, nor that older people lack hope; rather, I’m
interpreting these verses as poetic images, in which the process of
redemption is compared to regaining the passion and hope and idealism
commonly associated with youth.

In this reading, what we “shake off” is not dust on the outside, but
attitudes from the inside. An inner transformation is the beginning of
redemption; or, to put it another way, we can’t bring about what we
don’t dare to dream.

with best wishes for a good month of Elul and a peaceful rest of the summer,

RNJL

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Va’etchanan: Nothing Else

July 23, 2010 at 1:53 am · Filed under 5. Deuteronomy, Va'etchanan

Copyright 2010 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Va’etchanan/ Shabbat Nachamu

In Va’etchanan, Moshe reviews how he was denied entry into the Land, and warns the people to stay loyal to the covenant once they enter the Land. He tells them that God is One (the Shma) and reviews the Ten Commandments.

Good morning!

Va’etchanan has so many links to the prayer service I could hardly choose- but then again, many commentaries have been written on the Shma , so let’s look for something with less ink (fewer electrons?) spilled over it.

How about Aleinu, then? Aleinu, as you may recall, is one of the penultimate prayers of a typical service- morning, afternoon, or evening- and has two paragraphs. The first paragraph (here is the text) speaks of Israel’s uniqueness as a people, and the second paragraph speaks of the hope that someday all idolatry will be swept away and the world will be united in a common spiritual consciousness.

Yet it’s interesting that the first paragraph of Aleinu ends with a quote from the Torah- from this week’s portion, of course- that also speaks to a universal spirituality, a radical monotheism which in its Biblical context served as a rebuke to any thought of worshiping other gods:

“Know therefore this day and keep in mind that the Lord alone is God in heaven above and on earth below; there is no other.” (D’varim/ Deuteronomy 4:39)

The final word of this verse- ein od- literally mean “no other” or “nothing else”, or “nothing but this”, and again, when you look at the verse in its Biblical context, it’s clear that Moshe is warning the people not to make the theological mistake of assigning the different parts of nature- heaven and earth- to different gods or lesser powers than the One who is the Source of all realms. Yet more recent commentators from the mystical streams of Jewish thought have interpreted ein od- “no other”- more radically: there is nothing else but God. Heaven, earth, animals, plants, seas, stars, people. . .it’s all God, all connected, all ultimately One. The goal of religious practice is to learn to perceive this unity in a world of infinite diversity and complexity, and to let those experiences transform us into more compassionate, connected, less ego-bound beings.

You might object that the first paragraph of Aleinu is not at all about the unity of the cosmos- it’s about how the Jewish people have a unique mission and obligations. To which I would reply: of course Judaism is a unique spiritual path, and it’s uniquely suited for Jews because of our shared history and spiritual inheritance, but the deepest experiences of Judaism also open one up to the awareness of connection and surrender to . . . well. . . there’s no other way to put it except: ein od. We delve deep into a particular tradition in order to see the interconnection of all things, just as we delve deep into a language in order to understand poetry and song.

We can’t write a love poem, which is a universal thing, without using a particular language. Similarly, Aleinu teaches us that if we want to understand, through deep experience, that God is One, there is no other, then we have to delve deep into our specific practices of mitzvah, study, and community, which pry us from solipsism and open up the heart to connection and love. Our verse says: know and take to heart, that is, know in your intellect but let your heart be changed when you feel deeply that what we call God is right here, filling the cosmos, there is no other.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

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Nitzavim: Garments of Righteousness

September 11, 2009 at 1:49 am · Filed under 5. Deuteronomy, Nitzavim

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Nitzavim

Friends, we have reached the end of our seven-week cycle of “haftarot
of consolation,” and indeed, we have gone from sitting on the floor,
in sackcloth and ashes (metaphorically if not physically) on Tisha
B’Av, a mere seven weeks ago, to the exultation of imminent redemption
as portrayed by the opening verse of our haftarah:

“I greatly rejoice in the Lord,
My whole being exults in my God.
For He has clothed me with garments of triumph,
Wrapped me in a robe of victory,
Like a bridegroom adorned with a turban,
Like a bride bedecked with her finery.” (Yeshayahu/Isaiah 61:10)

Notice how the image of garments is fourfold, in just one verse:

1) garments of triumph [bigdei yesha, literally "garments of salvation"],

2) robe of victory [me'il tzedakah, literally "robe of righteousness,"
but more on this in a moment]

3) a bridegroom adorned with a turban [ ke'khatan y'khahen p'er,
literally "like a groom, like a priest, glorious"- the Hebrew is tough
to translate]

4) a bride bedecked with her finery [ kha'kalah ta'adeh khale'ah-
again the Hebrew is hard but you get the idea.]

Hirsch picks up a the connection between “me’il tzedakah” and the most
famous “me’il,” the robe of the High Priest, and translates this
phrase as “in the priestly mantle of devotion to duty He has
enwrapped me.” That, in turn, is supported by the next line, wherein
the bridegroom is glorious, like a priest [y'khahen is like kohen,
priest]. The prophet seems to be suggesting that redemption is going
to convey the glory of the priesthood on all Israel, and the joy will
be like that of bride and groom.

These images of outer finery and glory are not only in contrast to the
torn garments of the mourner that we (metaphorically) wore at Tisha
B’Av, but also suggest an inner transformation. We have gone from
exiles to priests; that is, distant from the Divine Presence,
symbolized by distance from Jerusalem and the Temple, to being in
communion with the Sacred, symbolized by the act of priesthood, which
in Biblical terms is what connects Israel to God. A further analogy is
suggested between the priest- who connects the people to God, bringing
them to spiritual intimacy- and the bride and groom, another image of
bridging distance and creating relationship.

Perhaps a further implication of the “me’il tzedakah” is the
transformation of the priestly “me’il,” or robe, symbolizing the
ritual duties of the priest, to a moral state, of tzedek, righteous or
just behavior. That is, the journey from exile to communion is one in
which our very being comes to display the moral or spiritual qualities
associated with redemption, or the healing of disconnection and
alienation. The new garments are the way we are seen and experienced
in the world, that is, coming to manifest in our actions the
redemptive qualities for which we pray.

So we’ve come full circle: on Tisha B’Av we mourn that which we lost,
and seven weeks later, we celebrate that which we might become. This,
in turn, brings us to Rosh Hashanah, when we contemplate the context
of our lives and renew our deepest commitments. On Tisha B’Av, we
grieve the past; on Rosh Hashanah, we are called to the future, when
we can, like the exile putting on the priestly robes, become something
nobler, more compassionate, more befitting our true selves.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

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