YOU SHALL MAKE A BREASTPIECE OF

JUDGMENT, WORKED INTO A DESIGN. YOU SHALL MAKE IT LIKE THE WORK OF THE

EPHOD… AND YOU SHALL FILL INTO IT STONE FILLINGS, FOUR ROWS OF STONES… AND THE STONES SHALL

BE FOR THE NAMES OF THE SONS OF ISRAEL TWELVE, CORRESPONDING TO THEIR NAMES… THUS SHALL AARON CARRY THE NAMES OF THE SONS OF ISRAEL IN THE

BREASTPIECE OF JUDGMENT OVER HIS HEART WHEN HE ENTERS THE HOLY, AS A

REMEMBRANCE BEFORE THE LORD AT ALL TIMES. YOU SHALL PLACE THE URIM AND THE

TUMMIM INTO THE BREASTPIECE OF JUDGMENT SO THAT THEY WILL BE OVER AARON'S HEART

WHEN HE COMES BEFORE THE LORD, AND AARON WILL CARRY THE JUDGMENT OF THE

CHILDREN OF ISRAEL OVER HIS HEART BEFORE THE LORD AT ALL TIMES.

(Shemot 28)

Rabbi Eyneini bar Sasson said: Why was

the chapter on sacrifices placed adjacent to the chapter on the priests'

garments? To teach you: Just as sacrifices atone, so do the garments of the

priests atone…

The breastpiece

of judgment.

(Zevahim

88b)

a breastpiece of

judgment which atones

for the perversion of justice (Zev. 88b). Another interpretation: [The breastpiece is

referred to as] judgment because it clarifies its words and its promise

comes true.

(Rashi Shemot 28:15)

You shall make a

breastpiece of judgment, worked into a design – Scripture mentions design only with

regard to the ephod and the breastpiece,

because it denotes that the atonement it grants is for a private sin in

which thought is equivalent to action. This exists only in the case of avoda zara – idolatry

– as explained above with reference to the ephod; the breastpiece atones for perversion of judgment,

for judgment is determined by the heart of the judge, for the judge has

only that which his eyes see, and it is in his power to call right left and

left right, depending upon the case and the person and the times and the place,

and if the judge says that this is the way he sees it. Who can contradict him

other than God alone, who investigates the hearts of men? Therefore the breastpiece was worn on Aaron's heart, for judgment

is assigned to the heart, and therefore it was a creation of design to

atone for the thoughts of the judge [In Hebrew "design" and "thought"

are related] as is written; a breastpiece of

design; make it in the style of the ephod, to teach that perversion of judgment

is the equivalent to idolatry, as the Sages said, "Appointment of a

dishonest judge is equivalent to planting an asheira

– a tree used in idolatry" (Sanhedrin

7).

(Kli

Yakar, Shemot 28)

From Urim ve'Tumim to Orot va'Tom [Lights

and Sincerity]

Dalia Marx

It becomes noteworthy that so few verses of Bereishit are devoted to the story of the creation of

humans when they are compared to the vast quantity of texts describing the

construction of the Tabernacle. God's commands to Moses, Moses' instructions to

the people, and the account of the actual construction, including descriptions

of the priestly clothing and the High-Priests vestments, make for a quite long

stretch of writing.

Tradition speaks of the High Priest's "eight

vestments." Why eight? Perhaps because in Jewish tradition the number

eight represents that which is beyond nature – it is the first to come after

the seven days of the week, after the seven days of Creation. And if seven

symbolizes nature, eight symbolizes the sacred which is beyond the natural

world. A baby boy enters into the covenant of our Father Abraham on the eighth

day of his life, marking, to borrow Lévi-Strauss's

terminology, the passage from nature to Jewish culture. The miracle of the vial

of oil (and the Hanukah holiday that commemorates it) lasted eight days. The

beginning of the reading of the Torah, that wonderful gift which pre-existed

Creation, takes place on the eighth day of Sukkot. Our

haftorah also alludes to the

number eight's special significance (Ezekiel

43:23). Eight is also the number of vestments worn by the High Priest;

they symbolize his status and role, and they symbolize the leap from the

natural world to the world of spirit.

Parashat Tetzave contains the command to prepare the High Priests'

clothing: the breastpiece, ephod, robe, tunic,

headdress, sash, trousers and frontlet. In the following discussion, we shall

concentrate our attention on the most puzzling and mysterious element of the

High Priest's attire, one which is not included in the list of eight vestments

but which remains, nonetheless, something he wore, i.e., the Urim and Tummim:

over Aaron's heart when he comes before the Lord (Shemot 28:30).

While the Torah relates detailed instructions

regarding the construction of everything else related to the Tabernacle,

nothing is said about how the Urim and Tummim were made. Furthermore, while all of the names of

objects in the Tabernacle (ark, table, menorah, etc.),

take an indirect article, the Urim and Tummim take a direct article. Indeed, a great mystery

awaits anyone who wants to discovery the nature of the Urim

and Tummim, how they looked, what they were made of,

and what was their exact function…

The doubling implied by the names Urim and Tummim [both of which

are plural nouns] has been understood in various ways. Some suggested that the Urim and Tummim served as a kind

of lie detector, signaling whether someone was arur

were they called Urim and Tummim?

Urim – because they illuminate [me'irin]

their words; Tummim – because they complete [tam

can also mean "complete"] their words." Rashi

explains the latter half of the dictum: "Their decree is not rescinded,"

i.e., their decrees are always fulfilled. The Jerusalem Talmud (Yoma 38b) agrees

with the explanation of the Urim, but regarding the Tummim, is states: Tummim – that

they straighten [metimin] the way for them,

that when Israel was innocent [temimim] they

to this explanation, the Urim and Tummim

were not an oracle per se; rather, they led a

person on the way he wanted to travel to begin with. [1] In the Vulgate (the Latin

translation of Scripture) the term is rendered Lux

et Veritas (light and

truth). These words appear in the coat of arms of Yale University.

According to Rashi's

comments on the verse cited above, the Urim and Tummim were "the inscription

of the explicit Name, which he [the High Priest] would place within the folds

of the breastpiece." Someone has compared the Urim and Tummim to a kind of

battery which breathed the Holy Spirit into the stones of the breastpiece. Without them, the breastpiece

would be nothing more than a fine item of jewelry. The priest would ask a

question and the stones of his breastpiece, each of

which was engraved with the name of a different tribe of Israel, would light up

one after the other in a certain order that would relay the response.[2]

Opposing a man called Rabbi Avraham[3] who had suggested that the Urim and Tummim were "made

by a craftsman from gold and silver" and who thought that "they were

akin to the forms which the astrologers make in order to know the thoughts of

the one who comes to ask of them," the RaMBaN

states: "Neither craftsmen nor the congregation of Israel had any part

whatsoever in their making or in their donation, for they were a secret

transmitted by the Almighty to Moses, and he wrote them in holiness, or they

were of heavenly origin" (ibid).

Ibn Ezra relates to the Urim

and Tummim only indirectly, and, as his custom, he

barely shares anything of his opinion, say that it is a "deep secret"

that should not be revealed in public.

The puzzling nature of the Urim and Tummim fascinated

mystics, thinkers and writers throughout the generations, and they were

interpreted in many different contexts. For example, the Urim

and Tummim play an important role in Paulo Coehlo's novel, The Alchemist. There were even those

who claimed to have used the Urim and Tummim to write things under the influence of the Holy

Spirit. Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of Mormonism, made that claim.

We have cited several avenues of

interpretation and explanation of the role of the Urim

and Tummim without the any pretension of

understanding their secret mechanism or how they were used. We shall not

investigate that which is hidden from us but rather suggest a few thoughts

regarding the function of the Urim and Tummim.

The use of instruments such as the Urim and Tummim comes to satisfy

the desire to receive clear answers directly from the Holy One blessed be He to

questions which trouble us in our confusing and unclear world. They come to

answer a constant human need by way of a mechanism that grants precise

knowledge of God's will. This can calm and comfort an undecided soul. However,

clear and absolute knowledge of the right and the good is not always possible,

and it certainly cannot be attained through some kind of mechanical action. The

comforting answer of the Urim and Tummim

has been revoked, just as the test of the sota

human beings that their doubts can continue to haunt them. Absolute answers

will not rid us of doubts; only the conscious decision to choose the good – despite

our doubts – can relieve us.

Use of the Urim and

Tummim ended sometime during the First Temple Period.[4] This means that it was a

temporary and local practice, which symbolized a particular kind of

relationship between the Israelites and their Father in Heaven. We may view it

as constituting one of five stages in the development of the relationship

between the nation and its God.

The first stage was characterized by a

direct and unmediated link between the nation's ancestors and the Holy One

blessed be He. They turned to God in their distress

without the help of intercessors or fixed rituals. In the second stage the

connection between God and His people mostly took place through the medium of

tangible signs such as the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire, the sounds

at Mount Sinai, and the Urim and Tummim,

which offered a way to communicate with God and understand His words. While

Moses achieved direct revelation of God, Joshua needed the judgment of the Urim in order to receive God's word (Bamidbar 27:21). In the third stage, prophets – those

visionaries of great spirit who brought divine

messages to humans, – transmitted God's word to His people. This was no longer

a matter of curt answers supplied by oracles, but rather of deep and pointed

ethical statements that remain relevant even today.

The Sages tell us the prophetic period was

followed by a new stage in the relationship between Above and below: "Our

Rabbis taught: Since Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi died, the Holy Spirit has

deserted Israel, but even so they made us of a bat kol