Audio Summaries of the daily Chumash portions In loving memory of Ousher Zelig ben Myer HaLevi Z”LTo sponsor an episode please visit: https://itistaught.com/support-this-project/To get the daily chumash summaries in your email click here https://substack.com/profile/182692001-sarede-rachel-switzer?utm_source=profile-page.Subscribe on SpotifySubscribe on Apple PodcastsPlease consider leaving a review on the platform of your choice! For comments and inquiries, email itistaught@gmail.comThe Lamp. The Priestly Inauguration. The Priestly Garments.The LampG-d tells Moshe to command the Israelites to set up a lamp inside of the Ohel Moed (tent of meeting), which was outside of the dividing curtain that was in front of the Aron.This lamp should be lit by the Cohanim (Aaron and his sons) with clear olive oil every night.What is meant by "clear olive oil" in this context?According to Menachos 86a, olive tree are harvested 3x per year:1st harvest - for the olives which ripen earliest at the top of the tree. 2nd - for the olives in the middle branches which ripen later, and 3rd - for the olives which are in the lowest branches and don't receive sufficient sunlight to ripen completely until after they are harvested. For this olive oil to have been considered "clear", this meant that it should never have had sediments in it.At each harvest the olives go through 3 stages of oil extraction: being crushed with a mortar, pressed with a beam and ground with mill stones. Only the olive oil made from olives which only passed through the first stage of being crushed with a mortar but not the other two are considered "clear" enough to be used to kindle these lamps.After extracting this "pure" oil for the lamps, the rest of the olives should be ground with mill stones, and this resulting oil was to be used for meal offerings.The Cohen was to light these lamps by holding the flame to the wick until the wick would ignite on its own.The amount of oil that was used in this lamp was "1/2 of a log" (6-10.6 fluid ounces). This was enough for the lamp to burn through the longest nights of the year, during the winter month of Teves. Although this would mean that in warmer months the lamp would burn somewhat into the morning, that was fine.The Inauguration of the CohanimAfter the Mishkan has been set up, Moshe is to gather Aaron and his sons (Nadav, Avihu, Elazar and Itamar) and inaugurate them as Cohanim (priests).Moshe is to speak to "wise hearted" men who are filled with the "spirit of wisdom" and have them make special clothes for Aaron as a way to officially inaugurate him into the (high) priestly service.These wise hearted men are to receive donations of gold and turquoise wool and out of these consecrated offerings, together with purple and scarlet wool and twisted linen, the priestly garments should be woven. All of these five materials were twisted into one thread as such: The gold wool was made by flattening out the gold and cutting it into cords and then spinning these into threads. Then one thread of this gold was twisted into 6 threads of each of the other materials. Then all 4 of these gold laced threads were threaded into one thicker thread, which was now 28 strands thick.The Priestly GarmentsThe Garments of the High Priest should be as follows:An Ephod: Rashi cannot find a source that describes what the Ephod is, however his "heart" tells him that it was a type of apron which was tied to the Cohen from behind, at the height of the chest, below the elbows.The Ephod's length reached to the Cohen's ankles. The Ephod had a belt with two shoulder straps attached from behind. The belt and shoulder straps were made out of the same material as the Ephod. The shoulder straps were folded in front of him reaching slightly below his shoulders.Each shoulder strap had a stone set into it called a "shoham" stone which were set in golden enclosures . These shoham stones were to have the names of the twelve tribes engraved into them, written in order of their birth, with 6 on one stone and 6 on the other. The names of these tribes will serve as a memory of their righteousness for G-d.The Ephod was attached to the Choshen (see below) by the Choshen's gold chains being attached to the shoham stones' golden settings.A Choshen: A breastplate. There were rings in its upper two corners and two gold chains right at the edges of the Choshen. These chains went through the rings and then attached to the Ephod (see above) so that the Choshen was displayed on the front of the Cohen Gadol's chest. There were two more rings at the bottom of the Choshen. These rings attached to two rings which were on the belt part of the Ephod (which was attached to the Ephod's shoulder strap) with a blue cord. This kept everything in place.A Me'il: An outer robe worn on top of the High Priests clothes. The ephod was worn as a belt on top of the me'il.A Kutoness: A checkered tunic, checkered with boxes in which to set gems. This was the inner tunic, worn right on ...
