Color Choices?
The mikdash was distinctive for not having any visible wood. It also, with the possible exception of one gem on the Cohen’s breastplate, was entirely bereft of the color green.
Every ancient temple from other religions that we know of employed the color green. Within Islam, for example, green is extremely common: it is the only color (besides white) on the Saudi flag.
But the mikdash did not have green. Every other color seems to be used. But not green. Why not?
Might the answer be connected to the fact that the color green in Ancient Egypt represented vegetation, new life, and fertility? Are these inappropriate for the mikdash? Why?
A Legal Proxy?
There is a word used for the breastplate, the choshen, (with the 12 stones on it), and the gold band on the forehead, the tzitz. That word is chosam.
The stones corresponded to the names of the sons of Israel: twelve, corresponding to their names; engraved like seals (chosam), each with its name, for the twelve tribes.
And
You shall make a frontlet of pure gold and engrave on it the seal (chosam) inscription: “Holy for G-d.”
Why is it only used for these two elements?
Might it be connected to the first time the word is used in the Torah? It is used to refer to the seal of Judah:
And he said, “What pledge shall I give you?” She replied, “Your seal (chosam) and cord, and the staff which you carry.”
Isn’t this peculiar? What does Judah’s seal have to do with the holy garments of the high priest?
Perhaps the seal that Judah carries is his legal instrument, the formal proxy for his person?
If this is the case, then does the breastplate with the twelve stones represent the legal representation for the twelve tribes?
And would the gold band, the tzitz, also be a legal representation – but for G-d? After all, it is labeled “holy for G-d.”
If this is true, then does the high priest embody both the people and G-d in the formal garments that he wears?
Does this combination of the people and the divine speak to the larger purpose of the mikdash, the tabernacle? Bringing them together?
Priestly Garments and Tefillin?
Would this also be connected to tefillin? Don’t tefillin also combine body and soul, physicality and spirituality, head and heart?
“Bind them as a sign on your arm and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead.” (Deut. 6:8)
Might tefillin actually be comparable to the garments of the high priest? If so, does the connection to the high priest help us better understand tefillin? How?
Tzitz and Tzitzis?
The word for tzitzis is only found describing the blue fringes on the corners of our garments. But perhaps it is related to tzitz?
After all, is not the tzitz a reminder to the high priest to always keep a higher purpose in mind, to be holy for G-d?
And is this not also the purpose of tzitzis?
That shall be your fringe; look at it and recall all G-d’s commandments and observe them, so that you do not follow your heart and eyes in your lustful urge. Thus, you shall be reminded to observe all My commandments and to be holy to your God.
Might this explain why tzitzis are described as being in the “corner” of the garment? This word, kanphei, has a more usual meaning in the Torah: wings, just like the wings of birds and of the angels over the ark of the covenant. Don’t wings remind us that we are meant, at least spiritually, to always seek to grow upward, to fly and connect to the heavens?
Bread in Baskets?
A key part of being appointed or invested as a high priest was to bring bread in a basket, a sahl.
And this is the thing that thou shalt do to them to hallow them, to minister to me in the priest’s office: … and unleavened bread, and cakes unleavened mingled with oil, and wafers unleavened anointed with oil: of wheaten flour shalt thou make them. And thou shalt put them into one basket, and bring them in the basket, with the bullock and the two rams.
Why the bread in a basket?
Isn’t there an earlier example of bread in a basket?
[the baker] said to Yosef, I also in my dream, behold, I had three baskets of white bread on my head. And in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of baked food for Par῾o; and the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head.
Is there a connection? After all, the baker was also trying to be (re)instated to his position, was he not?! Is there something about bringing bread in a basket, perhaps the fruit of our labors, that curries the favor of one’s lord?
But we know the Cohanim succeeded – but the baker failed! Again: why?
Is there an answer found in the fact that the baker was presumably bringing leavened bread (which was the primary foodstuff of Egypt), while every single example of bringing bread in a basket speaks specifically of matzo?!
What is the difference between bringing chometz bread versus bringing matzo? Might it be that chometz uses nature (not the work of the baker), and so it is less the product of human labor than matzo is?
Is a gift that requires less labor somehow an inferior gift to the gift that does not rely on outside/natural help?
What symbolism do we see here? And are there better answers than the one suggested here?
There is another case of bringing bread in a basket:
And [the Nazir] shall offer the ram for a sacrifice of peace offering to the Lord, with the basket of unleavened bread …And the priest shall take the boiled shoulder of the ram, and one unleavened cake out of the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and shall put them upon the hands of the Nazir.
Is the nazir, like the baker, trying to earn reinstatement back into society? Is that what the bread/basket symbolizes here as well?