Are we best described by the glowing recounting of our best day or the unvarnished criticism of our poorest moments?
Conventional wisdom would have it that we are the collective sum of both descriptions. However, Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, in his main work, Sefas Emes, takes a clear and unconventional stance on this question. He presents his ideas in the interpretation of the first words of Parashat Pekudei: “These are the accountings of the … Tabernacle of Testimony.”
According to Rabbi Alter, “testimony” does not refer to the tablets God gave Moses, but rather, it is a testimony to the healing that took place after the sin of the Golden Calf.
Rabbi Alter understood all sin to be accidental, to be happenstance and uncharacteristic of the true essence of a person. As such, the building of the Tabernacle allowed the Jewish people to return to their essence, their true nature as those who obey the command of God.
He reminds us that the Israelites promised God, “We will do and we will obey.” Through the sin of the Golden Calf, they acted improperly and injured the manifestation of their essence. But their essence, associated with the latter half of their vow, remained forever intact, and the Tabernacle represents the correction of their actions.
A metaphor for this is how the body heals itself after an injury. Our natural state is for a healthy body. When we break a bone or cut our skin, our body has the capacity to return itself to its original essence. We are not described permanently by the injury, but by the underlying genetics and physiology.
Rabbi Alter leaves us a powerful gift, a reminder that we are essentially our best selves and the rest is accidental noise. The more we have confidence in that best version of ourselves, the more it is likely to emerge.
