One of the most inspirational bits of advice I've heard for reading the last parshiyot of Shemot is to dig deep to find the personal symbolism of each and every aspect of the ohel and the mishkan. It is my not-so-original idea - or at least an idea echoed by centuries of kabbalists and sages - that one day, we will see what each atom, each cell, each human body, each planet, each solar system, and the entire universe looks like and every aspect of it, from the most infinitely small aspect of real matter to the entire existence of matter as a whole, will look like an exact replica of the mishkan. Let us remember that without every single element correct and in its precise location, the mishkan is not the mishkan - it cannot get any smaller than that without ceasing to be the mishkan. Therefore, the smallest bit of matter must still contain every single aspect, without fail, of the entire mishkan as commanded by H', designed perhaps in concert with Moshe, and built by B'nei Yisrael.
But I digress. In a verse which I had previously reviewed but really jumped out to me today, we read about how the robe of the ephod was entirely sewn of sky-blue wool, with a "head opening of the Robe . . . folded over within it, of a coat of mail, a border for its opening all around [so that] it may not be torn." While I've look at some - but not all - pictorial depictions of the Kohen Gadol's vestments, I still have not seen a good, much less any, representation of what this "chainmail collar" looks like. Because the Torah does not say otherwise, I imagine it to be a specially stitched, tight spiral of the same sky-blue thread used to make the rest of the robe of the ephod, only knitted tighter so that the thread essentially becomes unbreakable.
Upon a brief meditation, perhaps this combination is the perfect, real-world illustration of the polar opposites of gevurah and chesed. The majority of the robe - like, perhaps, the universe or even the Essence of H', is a vast sea of kindness, softness, mercy, love, and endless spiritual pleasure. But all that chesed is held together -- and, in fact, only made sustainable -- by a chainmail coat of gevurah -- gevurah made of the same fabric as the chesed but composed differently, so that it prevents it from "tearing" (and therefore eliminating real existence).
To me, the robe also represents the pinnacle of the human spirit - not all chesed/fabric like Avraham, not all gevurah/chainmail collar like Yitzhak, but a total synthesis of the two - tiferet/beauty, like Yaakov Avinu. I think the exterior of the spirit should be tough as nails and impenetrable to negative influences, while being composed of entirely plush, and more expansive, love, kindness, and understanding. But one without the other is unsustainable, in both the kabbalistic framework and in the human spirit.
May be all seek to be like the robe of the ephod, solid as chainmail and built to last while also infinitely and endlessly loving and kind.
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