TETZAVEH (Exodus 27:20 - 30:10)

What remains hidden, unsaid, under these garbs,
these vestments that create a priesthood
befitting a sacrificial cult?

I want to see and hear a person.

What wisdom is divulged, imparted, by the stones
on the breast plate and the outrageous blood
drenching the altar?

I want to dance the names of God.

What is God's need, urge, in such a show of ritual,
this obsessive division between the pure and the base,
when the blemished lamb may be the kindest?

I want to become who I am.

Are these the rites in which nations drape, preen, themselves
in order to stand apart and lessen the humanity of others
by calling them strangers, foreigners to God?

I want to mingle.

This may have been a necessary, unavoidable, dawn
but do we still require priests or rabbis to light the path
to a world for which we are individually responsible?

I want a better place for you.
 

Per Brask