Shabbat Sermon: May Your Light Make You More Whole with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

I want to raise a large question with you today, which is this:  Is knowing more better?  Is knowing more facts about yourself, your history, your biology, your family history, better?  In our reading this morning, the High Priest, the Kohein Gadol, keeps in a pouch above his heart an ancient device intended to discern God’s will on hard questions.  It was called the Urim v’Tumim.  Let’s say there were a vexing question the Israelites could not answer on their own.  The Urim v’Tumim was an instrument of decision that only the High Priest could use that would enable him to ascertain God’s answer to this hard question.  He kept this instrument in a pouch above his heart.