R. Aviva Richman on Parashat Tetzaveh: The Pulse of Prayer

Terumah and Tetzaveh offer a visual landscape of the mishkan, its structure, its furnishings and the dress of those who served in it. One thing that is lacking from this picture is a soundscape. The Torah doesn’t indicate that any words were recited in the mishkan, in prayer or in song. In fact, if we picture the mishkan based on this week’s parashah, the only sound was from the jingling bells on the bottom of the robe worn by the Kohen Gadol. The resonant sound of these bells evokes the steady rhythm of the high priest in worship, but also carries painful overtones of what is most haunting and unresolved as we try to approach the Divine.