Mirrors of Modesty
This week’s reading recounts in detail how the Israelites carried out God’s commandment to build a tabernacle (mishkan)—the moveable sanctuary that would serve as a kind of temple during their wanderings in the wilderness. The reading repeats, detail by detail, the same items that had been listed earlier in the Torah—how the various kinds of colored cloths, precious metals, wooden planks, curtains, and other materials were now combined to make the mishkan. A casual glance might see little new in all this repetition—indeed, it might even seem a little tedious—but some elements were indeed mentioned here for the first time and subject to special scrutiny.
One of these was the wash-basin, to be used for cleansing the priests in their service. It had been mentioned earlier, in the instructions given for building the mishkan (Exod 30:28, 31:9, etc.), but this time a new detail was added:
And he (Bezalel, the chief artisan) made the wash-basin of bronze and its base of bronze, from the mirrors of the ministering women who ministered at the door of the Tent of Meeting. (Exod 38:8)
This added detail, that the wash-basin was to be made by melting down the bronze mirrors of the “ministering women,”* attracted the attention of ancient commentators. In recounting this verse, Philo of Alexandria (1st century CE) stressed that the women’s donation of their mirrors was a “truly fitting first-fruit offering of the modesty and chastity in marriage.” Numbers Rabba quotes the women as saying “God may testify concerning us that we were unsullied when we left Egypt” (9:14). Rashi cites a similar midrashic tradition concerning the moral probity expressed by the women’s gift. While Moses at first refused to accept the mirrors, God told him: “Take them—for they are more pleasing to Me than all the other [donations].”
What’s going on here?
Underlying these remarks was a profound distrust of cosmetics and jewelry in early Judaism —as well as of the mirrors used for any sort of primping and adorning. Decent women were not supposed to indulge in that sort of thing. So, for example, one of the reasons ancient commentators cited for the great flood brought in Noah’s time was the fact that wicked angels had shared the secrets of cosmetics with human women, leading to widespread immorality.
Similarly: why did Abraham say to Sarah, “Now I know that you are a beautiful woman” as they were about to enter Egypt (Gen 12:11)? Hadn’t they been married for many years by then? One midrashic answer held that it was only after the two had traveled the long distance from Ur to Haran to Canaan that Abraham could know for sure that Sarah was naturally beautiful, since “traveling takes a toll” and artificial adorning is presumably more difficult or impossible.
When Potiphar’s wife sought to seduce Joseph, she was “splendidly adorned in order to beguile me,” but Joseph resisted temptation. The same author urges Jewish men to “command your wives and daughters that they not adorn their heads and faces, since any woman who uses wiles of this kind has been designated for eternal punishment” (Testament of Reuben, 5:5).
Later, after he had been appointed by Pharaoh to be his vizier, Joseph traveled through the land of Egypt; then “all the daughters of the noblemen and satraps of the whole land of Egypt climbed atop the walls and threw their jewelry in front of Joseph” in the hopes of getting him to cast his eye upon them (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Neophyti, etc. Gen 49:22.) Apparently, there was something in this gesture that might have caused him to look up, but Joseph rebuffed the women’s advances.
If so, then the women who brought their bronze mirrors to be melted down for the wash-basin of the mishkan were, in a sense, renouncing their doubtful past and turning over a new leaf. Standards change, of course, and nowadays there is nothing suspect about the mirror in your bathroom. But turning aside from one’s previous misdeeds is still a fundamental principle of Judaism.
Shabbat shalom!
* The translation “ministering” for ha-tsove’ot is just a modern guess; no one is sure what was intended. In fact, the Septuagint translation reflects a different text, ha-tsam’ot, “the fasting women.”