Sefer Shemot Parshat Terumah:
On Internal and External Character

In Parshat Terumah, meaning “Gifts,” God provides the Israelites with instructions for building the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, God’s traveling dwelling place—as well as instructions for constructing all of its vessels, including the Aron, the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the Tablets of the Ten Commandments. 1 

Exodus 25 tells us that the Ark was to be covered with pure gold on the inside and outside.

Overlay it with pure gold—overlay it inside and out—and make upon it a gold molding round about. 2

The rabbis of the Talmud derive a mystical dimension from this passage, saying that just as the Ark of the Covenant was covered in gold inside and out, so too must our outer actions reflect our inner character. We must be living examples of tocho k’varo—our inside must be like our outside. Tractate Yoma teaches: 

Rava said: This alludes to the idea that any Torah scholar whose inside is not like their outside, i.e., whose outward expression of righteousness is insincere, is not to be considered a Torah scholar. 3

This page of Talmud goes on to make the statement even more serious, saying, “Not only is such a person not to be considered a Torah scholar, but they are called loathsome… Although they drink the Torah like water, since they sin, their Torah is considered iniquitous, and this makes them loathsome and foul.” 4

Elsewhere in the Talmud, we see a more optimistic use of this teaching. In Tractate Berakhot, it is taught that Rabban Gamliel had a policy of allowing only worthy-seeming students to enter the beit midrash, the study hall. But when Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya took his place, he allowed in anyone who wished to enter. His reasoning was that the students’ very desire to study indicates that their outward and inward motivations are already aligned. Berakhot 28a reads: 

As Rabban Gamliel would proclaim and say, any student whose inside, their thoughts and feelings, are not like their outside, i.e., their conduct and their character traits are lacking, will not enter the study hall.

In this incident, we see that the students willing enter the beit midrash are ones we should treat by default as tocho k’varo, the ones we want to accept. 

Rabbi Sari Laufer, however, reads this story differently. She writes:

It seems that the idea of tocho k’varo is not a question of inclusivity or exclusivity; it is not about restricting access to learning and tradition, but rather asking us to examine ourselves — to ensure that we come to our study of Torah, or our commitment to Jewish life, with true intentions.” 5

Regardless of the specific meaning of this talmudic statement, it remains morally and spiritually imperative that a person be the same on the outside as on the inside. Rather than focusing on making ourselves look better, we should practice being transparent, using this idea as a reminder to beautify our internal character and our external appearance at the same time.

It’s what’s on the inside (our soul, mind, character traits) that matters, and we should be careful that our presentation of self matches the reality of self. Rabbi Jesse Paikin, another contemporary teacher, wrote of the tocho k’varo concept, “It is aspirational, to be sure. More often than not, we are out of alignment. We look in the mirror, and each of us sees a face that is familiar, yet strange.” 6

Yet, by digging deep to return to the spark of divinity within us, we can change our character, which will in turn improve our actions. And this challenge goes in both directions: what we take to heart internally transfers externally, and the way we portray ourselves through our actions consequently matches the goodness of our motives. 

Through the repetition of Jewish practices, we can transform both our inner and outer selves together, with the mitzvot influencing both our appearance of piety and the purity of our thoughts. 

The plain English way of understanding the tocho k’varo teaching is that we should not be hypocritical. Someone who donates money to worthy causes, but who at the same time is dishonest in business, does not demonstrate a unified self. Similarly, someone who is especially careful to keep outward-facing mitzvot, but who does not show the same devotion in their treatment of their neighbors, the poor, and all others made of the image of God, is not someone whose inside matches their outside. 

Martin Buber writes: 

[W]hat is meant by [“]unification of the soul[”] would be thoroughly misunderstood if ‘soul’ were taken to mean anything but: the whole man, body and spirit together. The soul is not really united, unless all bodily energies, all the limbs of the body, are united. The Baal-Shem interpreted the biblical passage: “Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might” to the effect that the deeds one does should be done with every limb, i.e., even the whole of man’s physical being should participate in it; no part of him should remain outside. A man who thus becomes a unit of body and spirit—he is the man whose work is all of a piece. 7,8

We can additionally apply this teaching to our education of the next generation of Jewish social-justice activists. Here at Valley Beit Midrash, in our fellowships, we train emerging leaders with an interrelated mix of Torah learning and social action, which resulted in a course that brought both the internal and external life together to inform how we are to take on tasks such as protecting the stranger, advocating for worker rights, pursuing racial justice, and more. Our learning must inform our action and our action must inform our learning. The learning is about our outer world and our inner world. Our action, too, is about transforming our outer world and our inner world. 

The learning of Torah cannot strictly be an intellectual enterprise. It also has to change the way we act as mentsches in the world. External strength and beauty are not the ends to a person. 

With all education, the approach, of course, needs to have a focus on improving the learners’ external behavior. At the same time, we must also instill a cognitive, affective, and spiritual transformation, so as to improve the whole individual, not just easily visible outcomes. 

In addition to our focus on the helper, our concept here also applies to the vulnerable individual who is being assisted: we want to think about the person holistically, about both their internal and external needs. People need access to mental health resources in addition to needing food and clothes, education, and spirituality, in addition to shelter. 

Like the Aron, we should be gold on the inside and out (in our consistency) and we should treat others as gold on the inside and out, valuing their inner lives and outer physical needs. 

It’s when those inside and outside improvements affect each other that we truly see growth of the whole person. 


Sources

  1. The original plan was for the Aron to contain the first set of Luchot (Tablets) that Moshe received on Mount Sinai. Once Moshe smashed the Luchot in the aftermath of the sin of the Golden Calf, and was commanded by God to carve a new set, the new Luchot took their place in the Aron. It is fascinating to note that, according to the Midrash, the broken fragments of the first set were also kept in the Ark, reminding us of the need to always be on our guard lest we stray once again. 
  2.  Exodus 25:11
  3. Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 29b
  4. ibid.
  5. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/yoma-72/ 
  6. Rabbi Jesse Paikin, “Tokho k’Voro: Matching our Insides and Outsides • Yom Kippur 5777”
  7. Ecclesiastes 9:10
  8. Martin Buber, The Way of Man: According to the Teachings of Hasidism, New York, 1996, p. 25