The Potency of Spring: Calyx and Petal
It's official: spring is here! Yesterday was the vernal equinox -- technically the first day of "astronomical spring" -- which means that as of today, the balance is tipping towards light. But, even without measuring the number of hours and minutes of daylight vs. darkness, all you need to do is step outside to know that it's spring! The weather is incredibly variable (this is, after all, Seattle!), but all of a sudden, blossoms and blooms are everywhere.
This spring is feeling to me like an echo of the spring I so vividly recall from five years ago, when the world had just suddenly shut down because of Covid. Home from both school and work, my family was challenged to find ways to keep ourselves entertained and not go stir crazy. Right around this time of year in 2020, I remember taking my kids for long neighborhood walks and pausing to notice flowers. We challenged ourselves to find "every color of the rainbow" in nature, and were nearly always successful at that task. Much more importantly, being connected to the cycles of nature -- and observing the process of growth and blooming continue even as we humans were consumed with a virus and the havoc it was wreaking in our society -- lowered my blood pressure every time I got outside. Perhaps it's no wonder, then, that at this new moment of considerable stress and strain, as we witness in horror our own country's slide from democracy towards autocracy, I am once again feeling drawn towards the cycles of nature as a source of solace and meaning.
With buds and blossoms already on the brain, I couldn't help but notice the following passage as I read this week's Torah portion, Parashat Vayakhel, which details how Bezalel, master craftsman of the Tabernacle, made the Menorah:
He made the Menorah (lampstand) of pure gold. He made the lampstand—its base and its shaft—of hammered work; its cups, calyxes, and petals were of one piece with it. Six branches issued from its sides: three branches from one side of the lampstand, and three branches from the other side of the lampstand. There were three cups shaped like almond-blossoms, each with calyx and petals, on one branch; and there were three cups shaped like almond-blossoms, each with calyx and petals, on the next branch; so for all six branches issuing from the lampstand. On the lampstand itself there were four cups shaped like almond-blossoms, each with calyx and petals: a calyx, of one piece with it, under a pair of branches; and a calyx, of one piece with it, under the second pair of branches; and a calyx, of one piece with it, under the last pair of branches; so for all six branches issuing from it. Their calyxes and their stems were of one piece with it, the whole of it a single hammered piece of pure gold. He made its seven lamps, its tongs, and its fire pans of pure gold. He made it and all its furnishings out of a talent of pure gold. (Exodus 37:17-24)
The menorah in the mishkan -- and the later versions created for use in the First and Second Temples -- had seven branches in total (not nine, like the Chanukah versions we use today). Supposedly this menorah was so large that a priest would have to stand on a bench in order to light it. In addition to its size, another striking feature was its nature imagery. As you can see in the passage above, each of the six branches around the center branch contained multiple "blossoms," and the lamp cups were themselves shaped like blossoms. The Hebrew words for each of these blossoms are "kaftor v'ferech" - literally "calyx and petal" or "knob and flower." (In case you're wondering too, I did have to look up the word "calyx" and learned that it's "the usually green or leafy outside part of a flower consisting of sepals.) The Hebrew word translated as "shaped like almond-blossoms," "meshukadim," is a little unclear; it also could mean "almond-shaped" or "embossed." All of this makes it slightly tricky to picture exactly what this original menorah looked like, and artist renditions vary a great deal. Regardless, what is crystal clear is that there is intended symbolism in this strikingly large, solid gold, ritual object!
Dating back to ancient times, our Jewish interpretive tradition has always understood the work of the construction of the mishkan or Tabernacle as an echo of the creation story, which implies that its symbols and rituals have cosmic significance, and contemporary scholars of religion agree. It's not a stretch, then, to try to make meaning from the structure of the menorah. The seven lamps seem to correspond to the creation story's seven days, symbolizing wholeness or completion; this theme is also underscored by the Torah's insistence on a single hammered piece of gold. In addition, it's notable that both the beginning of the creation story ("Yehi or," "Let there be light") and the menorah's own function are fundamentally about bringing light -- perhaps standing in for divine wisdom -- into the world.
In an article entitled "The Nature of the Cosmos," scholar Rachel Adler writes:
Clearly the Menorah embodies some kind of metaphor. But metaphor has rules, just like tennis or Scrabble. One rule is that there has to be some link between the tenor (the topic under discussion) and the vehicle (the concrete object to which it is being compared). What, then, is tall, has a kaneh (stem), with kanim (branches) extending from it, and p’rachim (flowers) intermixed with bud-like swellings (kaftorim)? The Menorah is a representation of a flowering almond tree!
The almond tree is distinctive not only in that it blossoms early, but also in that it then rapidly buds leaves, develops new branches, and forms its sustaining fruit-all before the flowers’ calyx drops off (Nogah Hareuveni, Nature in Our Biblical Heritage, 1980, p. 130). Its Hebrew name, shaked, means “the early waker,” and it may symbolize God’s watchfulness or the speed with which God responds (see Jeremiah 1:2).
It is also the legitimating emblem of the Aaronite priesthood. At the end of Korah‘s rebellion in Numbers 17, Moses deposits the staffs of all the Israelite chieftains in the Tent of Meeting, “and there the staff of Aaron…had sprouted: it had brought forth sprouts, produced blossoms and borne almonds” (Numbers 17:23).
If Adler's claim is correct, then the ancient Israelites who entered into the mishkan and stood before an impressively large, solid gold menorah were being prompted to think of an almond tree and also to recall that God was ever-present. Today, absent a Tabernacle or Temple, but with the glory of spring trees all around us, we can try to enter into this analogy in reverse order.
This Shabbat, I want to recommend that each of us try to take a nature walk -- and think of it as a spiritual practice! This is the perfect weekend to pause and pay attention to actual flowering trees at the height of spring blossom season here in Seattle. Go slow, and notice the color of the buds, and the way they are arranged along branches of bushes and trees. Try to observe the calyx and the petals of individual blooms. Primed by this week's Torah portion, you might also think about the menorah and the mishkan of ancient times, and recall that throughout human history, people have found ways to remind ourselves of God's presence, watchfulness, and responsiveness.
Just as being outside did for us in the early days of the Covid pandemic, getting outside to notice buds and blooms this week has the potential to bring some measure of comfort during yet another moment of acute challenge. The trees whisper to us the potent messages of creation and cosmic time: "This moment is but a blip." "Your ancestors have endured worse and you are still here." "The rhythms of nature are still in motion." "Ultimately, everything will be okay."
On this Shabbat of Parashat Vayakhel, may you find comfort in the potency of spring!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum
