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Tehillim on the Parsha: Tetzaveh: Masculine & Feminine



“Take one young bull,” (Exodus 29:1) can be understood by the following verse, “Great are the deeds of God, accessible to all who want them.” (Psalms 111:2)  There are times when God will refer to something in the feminine form, and times when God will refer to the same thing in the masculine form. This is what it means when it says in this verse, “Great are the deeds of God, accessible to all who want them.” (Shemot Rabbah 38:3)

Actually, the Midrash is describing different offerings, some male, and others female, brought to bring atonement for the sin of the golden calf. The midrash is teaching us that both male and female animals were brought as offerings to achieve the same atonement. God does not want us to think in our typical physical terms, based only on the way we see and experience the world.,

Atonement, is beyond our physical experience. It goes far further into realms that we can not possibly fully comprehend or understand. Therefore, God takes it beyond the male and female, the masculine and the  feminine, to a world which is above such distinction.

Only when we learn to see the world above and beyond its physical terms and boundaries, will we begin to comprehend the magnificent process of atonement.

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