The children’s game of hide-and-seek can teach us many lessons. Amongst them is that we are not looking for anything that is not there, or even lost, as much as trying to reveal something that is already in our presence, but we just need to uncover it from its hiding place.
Having this attitude in our lives in general can be very helpful. We have so many blessings in our lives, and all we have to do is find and reveal the blessings for ourselves and for those in our lives.
This is evidenced in this week’s Torah portion of Tetzaveh. This portion discusses the garments worn by the Kohanim, the priests, and the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest. The High Priest owned eight garments while the regular priests owned four. These garments were exactly the same for hundreds of years (i.e., same details). However, there was one change that occurred during the Second Temple period: The breastplate, the “crown jewel” of the garments, no longer showed a very important feature called the urim v’thummim.
Let me explain: The breastplate was made of gold and twelve precious stones, each one containing the name of one of the twelve tribes. The breastplate also had a pocket that contained G-d’s name on a piece of parchment, written by Moses. This was the urim v’thummim. The breastplate was not just beautiful, it also played a very important role for the Jewish leaders. When the leaders would ask a question of importance of the High Priest, the letters on the stones would light up and the High Priest would then decipher the answer. This miracle occurred because G-d’s name was inserted into the pocket. However, during the Second Temple period, G-d’s name was no longer accessible to them, since it had been hidden before the First Temple was destroyed. Therefore, the stones would no longer light up on demand.
Did the Jews during this period of history feel that they had a lesser-quality breastplate? Perhaps. But on a spiritual level it was not of lesser quality, because then the garments would be incomplete. The difference was that during the First Temple period, G-d was present in a revealed way, while during the Second Temple period, G-d was not revealed although still very present.
In our lives today, we can ask, Where is G-d? Is He even part of our lives? Does He hear our prayers, etc.?
The answer is yes, G-d is here, we just need to search a little harder until G-d is felt in a revealed way.