A Jewish Woman's Power - Parshat Pikudei - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

[Music] Although we usually speak of God using the masculine pronoun he, the wordina, meaning the divine presence is a feminine noun she. The Ramban in his introduction to the book of Schmot Exodus explains that the avot, the patriarchs and the matriarchs were the meava. The meraba is a spiritual concept indicating a mystical chariot and through the mera God's presence rested in this world. With the exile in Egypt the meava the spiritual chariot ascended so to speak and left this world but with the giving of the Torah at Sai that meava returned. The Sinai experience was perpetuated in the desert by the Mishkan, the tabernacle, which was like a portable Mount Si. As the Ramban says, quoting the book of Eio of Job, when God's mystery was above my tent in effect, then the tabernacle, the Mishkan was no more than a recreation of Senai and Senai itself was a recreation of the meava and the meava were the patriarchs and the matriarchs. The medish, the oral Torah says, "As long as Sarah was alive, there was a candle lit from Shabbat Eve to Shabbat Eve, her dough, the dough for her bread, was blessed, and a cloud was attached to her tent." In the Mishkan, the tabernacle, three of the main vessels corresponded to Sar's ability to bring down the divine presence into this world. The manora recreated the light of Sarah's Shabbad candles. Just as Sarah's candles burned all week, so too the Namar Avi, the western candle of the manora, burned continuously in the Mishkan. The leimanim, the showbread in the tabernacle, was blessed in the same way as Sarah's dough. It did not become stale. And the cloud of the ctor, the spice offering that the Ramban describes as causing the Shina to dwell on the Jewish people parallels the cloud that was attached to Sara's tent. God has no gender, but his interface with this world parallels both the masculine and the feminine. The ability to bring the divine presence, the Shina into this world is due to the holiness of the Jewish woman in her home. [Music]