Our haftarah opens with a glittering metaphorical description of the glory of the Messianic age:

Oppressed and storm swept, never comforted; behold: I am paving your ground with garnet, lapis lazuli your foundations. I am fitting your windows with kadkod, your gates with glowing granite, marking your borders with stones men covet. (Isaiah 54:11–12)

The many gemstones referenced here have more than the simple connotations of wealth and luxury. When we read this description, our memories are directed to the jewel-bedecked Choshen, the breastplate which lay on the heart of the Kohen Gadol, the high priest. The identities of the gems mentioned by the Torah in both that context and this one together hold a secret about the convergence of the physical and the spiritual in our lives.

The Choshen worn by the Kohen Gadol in the Mishkan displayed twelve gemstones, and each was meant to represent one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Each stone, like each of the tribes and each individual human being, had its own color, character, and temperament, highlighting how God embraces and celebrates our unique differences. Some of us shine like rubies; others are tough like diamonds. But all Jews stood equally beloved before God as the High Priest carried us, in all our variety, upon and within his heart.

The two final gemstones enumerated by the Torah as being embedded in the Choshen represented the tribes of Yosef and Binyamin. The Hebrew words for these gems are שֹׁהַם and........

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