“What is truth?” asked Pontius
Pilate,
of its use not conscious.
File it
away where you won’t find
it when
you need it, out of mind
again.
Truth does not come out
in the wash,
unless whitewashed by doubt,
sheer bosh.
Whenever truth is stained
by falsity,
deception
from it cannot be drained,
subjected to
inspection,
and rulers who’ve disdained
distress due to
objection
to lies, fail to regain
respect and
reelection
by subjects who complain,
delivered by
direction
of what relieves their pain:
political correction.
I recalled this poem on 3/29/25, reading the interpretation of Barukh HaLevi Epstein, in his commentary called Torah Temimah, of Exod. 40:31:
וְרָחֲצ֣וּ מִמֶּ֔נּוּ מֹשֶׁ֖ה וְאַהֲרֹ֣ן וּבָנָ֑יו אֶת־יְדֵיהֶ֖ם וְאֶת־רַגְלֵיהֶֽם׃
From it (the laver) Moses and Aaron and his sons would wash their hands and feet:
בְּבֹאָ֞ם אֶל־אֹ֣הֶל מוֹעֵ֗ד וּבְקׇרְבָתָ֛ם אֶל־הַמִּזְבֵּ֖חַ יִרְחָ֑צוּ כַּאֲשֶׁ֛ר צִוָּ֥ה יְהֹוָ֖ה אֶת־מֹשֶֽׁה׃ {ס}
They washed when they entered the Tent of Meeting and when they approached the altar—as יהוה had commanded Moses.
The Torah Temimah suggests that this verse tells us that Moses, Aaron, and Aaron’s two sons, Eliezer and Ithamar, washed their hand in the laver, and that they did this to atone for the sin that allegedly caused the death of Aaron’s oldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, whose death was due to their failure to wash their hands before helping to inaugurate the tabernacle.
Linda Hepner sent me this:
Reading your endnote and then the title, it occurs to me that the washing of hands implies a serious attempt to atone for murder, as you say reflected later in the Christian story by Pontius Pilate who by washing his own hands was attempting to atone for his responsibility for the death of Jesus. It leaves one to wonder if the surviving family of Moses and Aaron felt guilty for the two brothers who were killed. It does imply at least some sense of responsibility towards one’s fellow man. In ‘Macbeth’, Shakespeare uses this device in Lady Macbeth’s madness scene, even though it was not she who actually committed the deed.
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
