Urim V’Tumim: Not Just a Crystal Ball

Friday March 13, 2020 is the exact date that the pandemic began for me. That morning there was a bris at shul. I was honored with reciting the blessings before the baby naming. After the baby was named I was called upon to drink from the cup. I was so nervous to drink from the cup that I spilled wine on my tie. Friday afternoon, a few hours before Shabbat, we made the decision to close shul. Our shul campus did not open again (for outdoor minyanim) until Monday June 1, 2020. Will the end date of this pandemic be as clear as its start date was? When will the pandemic end? When will the pandemic shift to endemic status? Some suggest we are already there. Others, including the World Health Organization, say that we are still in the pandemic stage. And it is too soon to know when this stage will end. I have not been following the case counts, positivity rates, hospitalizations and deaths as closely as I did in 2020. My mind has shifted focus to think about the tremendous toll that this pandemic has taken on all of us, to different degrees and in different ways. Our world and our lives have been changed in fundamental ways, ways in which we do not yet fully comprehend. Even when the pandemic is over, the CoVID dust will take years (or longer) to settle in a way that we can talk about a “post CovID” normalcy with any degree of certainty.

Sometimes I wish I had a crystal ball that could give me the answer to questions like “When will CoVID be over?” In Parshat Tetzaveh we are introduced to the special vestments of the Kohen Gadol. One of those articles of clothing was the Choshen, the breastplate. The Torah notes an element contained within the Choshen was the Urim V’Tumim (28:30): “You shall place the Urim and the Tumim into the Choshen of Judgment so that they will be over Aaron's heart when he comes before the Lord, and Aaron will carry the judgment of the children of Israel over his heart before the Lord at all times.” The Talmud (Yoma 73) describes how the Urim V’Tumim functioned like a God-given crystal ball: “The Sages taught: How does one consult the Urim V’Tumim? The one asking stands with his face toward the one who is asked, i.e. the High Priest or the priest anointed for war. And the one who is asked, the High Priest, turns his face toward the Divine Presence.” When a question was asked, and the Kohen Gadol was worthy of receiving prophecy, then the answer to the question would reveal itself on the breastplate through a deciphering of letters that were engraved there. Rambam explains that the Urim V’Tumim refers to the letters standing out in a way that allowed the Kohen Gadol to decipher the letters (with Divine assistance) in a way that would answer the question. Rashi agrees with Ramban on the procedure, but he explains that the Urim V’Tumim refers to a piece of parchment that contained a name of God that was slipped into the breastplate. It was this parchment that demonstrated that the answer was coming from Hashem. According to both opinions, the answers came about through Divine assistance in tandem with human worthiness and intellect. Hashem would “light up” the letters on the Choshen, but the Kohen Gadol then needed to be enlightened enough to decipher the jumble to devise a coherent answer. The Kohen Gadol needed to be worthy and he needed Divine Assistance. I don’t know precisely when we will be able to declare CoVID over. But I do know that as we navigate from now until then, we will need to utilize our intellect, our optimism and our dependence on Hashem to reach that point and to build what comes afterwards.