Perhaps one of the most beautiful midrashim describes the fashioning of the brass laver of the Tabernacle. According to this rabbinic understanding, the brass laver was shaped from the mirrors of the Israelite women. These mirrors had been used by the women to excite their husbands when they were slaves in Egypt. The Israelites slaves became disinterested in their intimate relationship with their partners. So, the clever women of Israel magnified their physical beauty through the use of the mirrors. They enticed their husbands back to the bedroom.

Moses was reluctant to re-cast these mirrors as the sacred laver of the Tabernacle. However, G-d reassured Moses that this action was certainly holy. The mirrors were refashioned into the brass laver.

This midrash shares a great spiritual truth of our faith. The ordinary aspects of human life may be transformed into the holy. The physical love of the Israelite women for their husbands was worthy of being preserved in the Tabernacle. For it was this love that allowed the Israelies to survive through the creation of a new generation.

In a similar vein, Jewish lore credits Miriam with the conception of her younger brother Moses. When the Pharaoh decrees that every male child shall be thrown into the Nile, Yocheved and Amram separate from one another. Miriam is critical of their choice. The Pharaoh has only decreed against the males of Israel. Perhaps Yocheved might conceive a daughter. Yocheved and Amram return to each other. The result of their intimacy is the conception of Moses. Again, Jewish tradition teaches that the physical and the spiritual are intertwined in life.

This past Monday, the Lubavitch rabbi of Indiana University and I discussed Judaism and sexuality with the Hillel students on campus. The rabbi noted that the Kinsey Institute of Indiana University has noted that Orthodox Jews respond highest to feeling fulfilled in their physical intimacy with their partners. Perhaps this finding is a result of the connection between the physical and the spiritual in traditional Jewish life. The physical is uplifted into a realm of holiness.

The great truth of Judaism is to embrace the ordinary and transform it into the extra-ordinary. The act of eating is made holy through the recitation of berachot, the blessings. The passage of time is made sacred through the special days of the festivals and the Shabbat. There is even a well-known prayer of thanksgiving for the basic functions of the human body - "asher yatzar". Judaism takes the most basic aspects of human existence and sanctifies them.

The rabbinic scholar, Max Kaddushin, referred to this process in Judaism as "normal mysticism". Judaism does not require one to leave a normal lifestyle to experience the holy. One does not have to become a monk or live in a commune to experience transcendance. Instead, daily life can be made holy. "Asher kidshanu b'mitzvotav" - G-d has made us holy through the mitzvot. Rarely do we understand the profound teaching of these words. The words transform the everyday task into a unique experience.

Perhaps no movement in Judaism realized this teaching more than Hassidism. Hassidic Jews found spiritual ecstasy through eating and drinking, through song and movement. The melody became a conduit to the holy. This is the power of the niggun - the song without words. The chanting of syllables uplifts the Hassid from the ordinary to the holy. No wonder why Hassidic Judaism gave hope to millions of Jews before the Holocaust and may be the most powerful expression of Judaism in the 21st century!

In the modern world, religion has been marginalized so that it has little meaning in daily life. The sociologist of religion, Peter Berger, tells us that this marginalization is the heart of secularism. Religious events occur infrequently in our lives and when they do they are void of signficance. Sadly, for the majority of Jews such is their religious life - infrequent and without meaning. However, Judaism teaches that every moment of life can be holy.

The great thinkers of Judaism teach us that mirrors are to be cherished. We should not divorce religion from life,
but infuse religious insight into all that we do. Martin Buber taught us of the holiness of human relationships.
Abraham Joshua Heschel devoted his life to social justice through his commitment to the Civil Rights Movement and
his opposition to the Vietnam War. Franz Rosenzweig brought Jewish observance into his personal life by embracing
the mitzvot. There is no Hebrew word for "religion" because religion is all of life.

The mirrors of love were most appropriately dedicated to the worship of G-d in the Tabernacle. Let us search for
holiness in all our endeavors.