Vayakhel/Pekudei: The Copper Mirrors & Cycles

 Mirrors.

Such an intimate object.

Something we hold up quietly to our own face.

Something that lets us look at ourselves – really see ourselves – and remember who we are.

In this week’s parsha, Vayakhel, we read that the kiyor – the basin in the Mishkan where the kohanim would wash – was made from the copper mirrors the women used in Egypt.

Mitzrayim wasn’t exactly a place that helped you remember who you were.

It was a place that crushed identity. Spirit. Voice.

The men had begun to lose hope.

But the women would go out to their husbands in the fields, hold up their mirrors, and playfully say:

“See? I am more beautiful than you.”

And the husbands would reply, “No, I am more beautiful than you.”

On the surface, it sounds like some weird childish competition.

But perhaps there was something deeper happening here.

A mirror reflects what stands before it.

And perhaps the women were doing something much more powerful than simply checking their appearance.

Perhaps they were remembering themselves.

Looking into the mirror and seeing something that exile could not erase.

Courage.

Life.

Possibility.

And then – like the feminine power of the moon reflecting light – they extended that reflection outwards.

Helping their husbands remember themselves, too.

This is why our sages say that in the merit of righteous women we were redeemed from Egypt.

Because redemption begins in a very quiet place.

The moment we remember who we really are.

And these very mirrors needed to be in the Mishkan. As a constant reminder to what truly lives inside of us.

Bringing us to Pekudei, the final parsha of Sefer Shemos, where the Mishkan is finally complete.

Everything that began in slavery now culminates in a living sanctuary.

There is something about reaching the end of a cycle.

A kind of deep exhale.

We began Shemos in exile.

And we end it with a committed dwelling place for the Shechinah among us.

Once again we see a cyclical rhythm closely mirroring that in our own body.

Contraction. Distance. A kind of exile.

And then the slow return. Renewal. A deeper coming home to ourselves.

Each cycle closes something.

Completes something.

Builds the sanctuary a little more.

This week the copper mirrors seem more alive than ever inside Redemptress.

Women seeing themselves again.

Sometimes in ways they never have before.

One woman sees herself.

And another woman can see herself too.

And another.

Until something ancient begins to stir again.

The same quiet power that once carried redemption in Egypt.

Just as we arrive to Shabbos HaChodesh, about to enter the month of Nisan.

Where we first began counting by the cycles of the moon.

A quiet reminder written into the rhythm of creation itself –

That sometimes redemption begins the very same way it did in Egypt.

With a woman willing to look into the mirror…and remember who she is.

Wishing you a beautiful Shabbos HaChodesh ✨