Insight 5774-21: Community and Individual

For Terumah
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Study Question

1) Implicit in the Insight's message is the necessary divergence in the behaviour of individual's in a community; not everyone can be a doctor, a lawyer, a farmer. Applied to the structure of Torah, if a relationship with God is a communal objective, not everyone can be the kohein. There is also a need for divergence. Included in the message of this Insight, is the uniqueness of the view of spirituality.

This was my message in regard to women and tefillin. It was with this in mind that I downplayed the desire of these women to wear tefillin. Mitzvot are not generic sources of spirituality. It is this view of them as such that motivates those on the outside to desire to adopt this behaviour. It is similar to the non-kohein wishing to be a kohein. The challenge is, though, that over the centuries women had adopted certain behaviours from which they were exempt such as listening to the shofar and taking a lulav and etrog. Based upon my argument, why would this have developed? Is there a place to draw the line on what can be assimilated and what cannot? This subject demands further investigation.