Dear TBZ community:
The new Disney flick, Encanto, is a big hit in my family, for my kids and for me too. This movie speaks to me in so many ways, not only because Mirabel Madrigal, the main character, reminds me of myself (before my hair was gray) - her colorful clothing, hair, glasses and her high energy, but also, and more deeply, because this movie deals with generational trauma and the roles that individuals play in their families and homes. (For further reading, Liora Zaltman has an interesting article in Kveller about these themes. Note: The article includes spoilers.)
I am especially interested in the question of the roles we play. What roles are expected from us? What roles do we expect from ourselves and how do we navigate those expectations, especially when things don’t go the way we imagined, wanted or expected? In Encanto, Mirabel is the only member of her family who does not have magic powers and that is an obvious disappointment for her abuela (grandmother) as well as for herself. She tries to hide her disappointment by supporting others in her family, by working hard, even too hard at times, in order to prove that she is uniquely special too.
In this week's parshat Tetzaveh, we continue with the detailed instructions of the building of the mishkan focusing on the clothing of Aaron the priest and on the roles of the priests and the High Priest.
Rabbi Art Green in a a Torah Commentary that he is currently writing (full text in Hebrew and English can be found here), writes about the instructions that God gives to Moses regarding Aaron’s role:
…. It is here that Moses realizes that the inherited leadership will belong to his brother, not to him. Moses’s own sons are to play no special role in the passing on of his prophecy.
There must have been some heartbreak in this realization. After all, the revelation at the bush had originally come to him, not his brother. He was the one told to lead his people out of Egypt. He was the one who entered the cloud over mountain alone. Aaron was there to assist, to be his “prophet,” in the sense of spokesman, to cover for the fact that Moses was “heavy of mouth and tongue.” Why, then, should the inheritance pass through Aaron’s children and not his own?
It requires so much humility from Moshe to be able to accept this.
Torah tells us:
וְהָאִישׁ מֹשֶׁה עָנָו מְאֹד מִכֹּל הָאָדָם אֲשֶׁר עַל־פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה
Now Moses himself was very humble, more so than any other human being on earth.
Numbers 12:3
And this is what seems to me to be Moshe’s "magic power", his humility. He has the capacity to accept his role, his place; his strength is to know and hear God’s voice even when the role is “passed” to his brother.
Rabbi Art Green continues and writes:
Moses here has to face the difference between prophecy and priesthood, between charismatic and institutionalized religion. Each of the moments he had in God’s presence, whether at the bush, in Egypt, or on the mountain, was unique, never to be repeated. To have his sons out there claiming to relive or embody them would have betrayed the unique charism of those moments, the special magic of divine revelation present when each of them took place. Aaron was the great translator of Moses’s charism into forms that could be carried on. It was those that could be passed on through the generations.
Now back to our character Mirabel in Encanto. This may seem like a wacky comparison, l’havdil, but Mirabel, like Moshe, does have a magic power. It is the power of humility - of anavah - in her acceptance of who she is and who she is meant to be.
The practice of Mussar encourages us to work on humility – anavah – one of the soul traits or middot. In the words of Rabbi David Jaffe:
Like all the soul traits, or middot, anavah/humility exists along a continuum or axis. On the one side is arrogance, and on the other is low self-esteem. Appropriate humility means knowing how much of myself to insert into any particular situation depending on the need of the moment. It is a very dynamic soul trait. To paraphrase the words of Alan Morinis, anavah is knowing the appropriate space to take up in any situation. We start with anavah/humility because it is the middah that most directly speaks to how we understand ourselves in relation to the world around us.
Changing The World from the Inside Out, page 113
Anavah is not about humility or hiding ourselves, or reducing who we are – it is not about low self-esteem – rather it is about that balance. Anavah is recognizing our strengths, understanding the roles we play and knowing when we have to step back and when we need to step up.
Rabbi Green ends his teaching writing:
But God’s voice, as hinted at in the text, understands Moses’s pain at this. So it cries out to him three times: “And you! And you! And you!” Yes, you too will be present in all that they do, throughout the generations. Each time they light the lamps, approach the altar, or put on the priestly garments, that ve-atah will be there within them.
For me, this is such a beautiful teaching, of God reminding us that we exist and can influence the world beyond the roles we play and the things we do.
I pray that each of us can hear God calling to us “and you, and you and you” and I pray that each of us can accept with humility the roles we play and the roles we don’t.
May this Shabbat bring renewal and blessings to all of you and your loved ones.
May we find strength, courage, and patience, and open our hearts with generosity.
May all those who are ill find healing.
May we have a joyful and restful Shabbat!
Shabbat Shalom,
