Shabbat Shekalim-P'kudei

Exodus 38:21-40:38; Exodus 30:11-16

D'var Torah By: Rabbi Jonathan E. Blake for Reform Judaism Magazine

What Is the Purpose of the Synagogue?

The Hebrew term for synagogue is beit k'neset. It means "house of assembly" and thus approximates the Greek word 'synagoge' which also means "assembly." For centuries, the synagogue functioned primarily as the ancient world's idea of a "JCC," a place for Jews to assemble. These institutions dotted the Jewish landscape even while the Second Temple-shrine of our ancient worship-stood. The synagogue of antiquity might have struck us as surprisingly "secular" in orientation. Originally, people may not have come to the synagogue primarily to pray or study. They conducted local business in the synagogue, promoting the general welfare of the Jewish community. Accelerated by the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, synagogues evolved to absorb many of the ritual and religious observances of an emergent Rabbinic Judaism. Over time the beit k'neset also became a beit t'filah, a "house of worship," and often a beit midrash, a "house of study," too.

The archetype of the synagogue, the Tabernacle that constitutes the focal point of the wandering wilderness community, completes construction in Parashat P'kudei. "In the first month of the second year, on the first of the month, the Tabernacle was set up" (Exodus 40:17). The text credits Moses with erecting the completed structure and arranging all of its fixtures, beginning with its planks and posts, and concluding with the screen covering the outermost gate. "When Moses had finished the work, the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of the Eternal filled the Tabernacle" (Exodus 40:33-34). The Tabernacle, spiritual antecedent of the synagogue, is complete. The text signals God's satisfaction with the work when God's Presence enters the structure. Over the Tabernacle a cloud rested by day, and fire would appear in it by night, as a constant, visible reminder of God's nearness and as a guiding presence for the Israelites' journeys (Exodus 40:36-38).

That human beings have successfully brought God into their midst through the construction of a sacred sanctuary marks a dramatic shift in ancient Near Eastern mythology. The Mesopotamian Epic of Creation is typical in its depiction of the gods creating their own dwelling place on earth, here to be named Babylon:

The Anunnaki [Babylonian deities] began shoveling. For a whole year they made bricks for it.When the second year arrived,. . . they had built a high ziggurat for the Apsu [other deities]. (Tablet VI, from Myths from Mesopotamia, trans. Stephanie Dalley [New York: Oxford University Press, 1989], p. 262)

The Torah, in contrast, imagines human beings teaming up to fashion earthly materials (precious woods, metals, fabrics) into a place where God's Presence will abide. The inversion is poetic and brings God's work of creation full circle. In the first chapter of Genesis, God creates a home for human beings to inhabit. In the last chapter of Exodus, human beings, Israelites charged with a holy purpose, create a home for God to inhabit.

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Vayakhel

Exodus 35:1–38:20

D'var Torah By: Rabbi Peter S. Knobel; Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

Sanctifying Time and Space, Shabbat, and the Building of the Mishkan

At the beginning of Parashat Vayak'heil Moses convokes the entire community and reiterates the commandment on Shabbat observance:

These are the things that the Eternal has commanded you to do: On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you have a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Eternal, whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire throughout your settlements on the sabbath day." (Exodus 35:1-3)

Then Moses instructs them regarding the building of the Mishkan (the Tabernacle or portable sanctuary), which would accompany them through the wilderness and which presaged the building of the Temple. The Creation of the world and the building of the Mishkan are parallel activities. Through them we see how time and space are both the locus of potential sanctification.

In The Sabbath1, Abraham Joshua Heschel writes:

Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time. . . . Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year. The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals; and our Holy of Holies is a shrine that neither the Romans nor the Germans were able to burn; a shrine that even apostasy cannot easily obliterate."

The sanctification of time makes Judaism portable and turns us away from an overemphasis on the building of edifices that honor the builders more than the Creator of the Universe. However, our parashah describes the building of the Mishkan as a divinely ordained project that requires crafts people of great skill and a project supervisor, Bezalel, who is endowed with "a divine spirit (ruach Elohim) of skill (chochmah), ability (t'vunah), and knowledge (daat) in every kind of craft" (Exodus 35:31; 31:3). The work follows an architectural blueprint provided by God. So inspiring is the project that the community volunteers to provide more resources than are required and Moses has to instruct them to stop making donations. The people are inspired by the building of sacred space, which is meant to draw them to the Presence of the Divine.

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Ki Tisa

Exodus 30:11−34:35

D'var Torah By: Rabbi Peter S. Knobel; Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

When Moses Is with God for 40 Days and 40 Nights, It’s Back to the Idols

Parashat Ki Tisa recounts the incident of the Golden Calf in a multilayered narrative about faith and leadership. In Exodus, chapter 32, we read that Moses remained on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights. In his absence, the Israelites demanded that Aaron fashion an idol so God would be present with them. Aaron created a Golden Calf, probably modeling it on statues of the Canaanite god El1, who is depicted in the form of a bull.

The irony of this incident is that the people already had experienced the invisible God who led them out of Egypt. When the Golden Calf story takes place, they are waiting for Moses to return from the mountain with the Ten Commandments, which explicitly prohibit depicting God in a physical form. One might argue this story is out of place because the Ten Commandments were given in a prior text, in Exodus, Chapter 20. Or we can resort to the Rabbinic interpretive dictum, ein mukdam um'uchar batorah, "there is no earlier or later in the Torah" (see Rashi on Exodus 31:18). While this teaching solves the chronology problem, it tells us little about the meaning of the story.

For a better understanding, let's take a closer look at the text. When the people insist that Aaron make a god who will go before them, they give this reason: "for that man Moses, who brought us out from the land of Egypt – we do not know what happened to him" (Exodus 32:1). Why are Moses's whereabouts so important to them? Why are they so dependent upon Moses?

Perhaps the people depend heavily on Moses because it is just recently that they have been freed from slavery and they still feel a need for the kind of dictatorial rule they had experienced under Pharaoh. Since Pharaoh was considered a god in Egypt, perhaps they considered Moses a god. When Moses is not available they feel God is absent: they become frightened and disoriented, and need a physical representation of a deity. As we know, Moses was not good at delegating, so he may have encouraged the people's dependency. Leaders often are tempted to make their organizations overly dependent upon them. For Moses, it took the wisdom of his father-in-law Yitro to help him delegate and develop a governing structure (see Exodus 18:13-26).

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Tetzaveh

Exodus 27:20−30:10

D'var Torah By: Rabbi Peter S. Knobel; Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

Finding Satisfaction in Others’ Success

Parashat T'tzaveh opens with the following words. "You shall further instruct (V'atah t'tzaveh) the Israelites to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, for kindling lamps regularly" (Exodus 27:20). Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, in her commentary, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus, points out the unusual use of the pronoun V'atah, which she translates as, "And as for you," as we read in this excerpt:

With unusual emphasis, God turns to Moses: Ve-atta tetzaveh – "And as for you, you shall instruct . . . " The redundant pronoun in ve-atta, "and as for you," substitutes for the more usual imperative form, tzav – "Instruct . . ." or the simple future form, tetzaveh – "You shall instruct . . . " Such an insistent, abrupt focus on Moses has aroused much discussion among the traditional commentators on the Torah. . . . What shift in focus requires the sudden use of ve-atta, in a context where Moses is everywhere the subject of God's address?1
Zornberg's commentary continues with an important discussion about the relationship between Moses and Aaron that appears in Midrash Tanchuma. 2 The midrash relates how in seven days at the Burning Bush, Moses repeatedly declined God's instruction to go before Pharaoh as the people's representative, saying "Please send by the hand of another." Finally, God had enough. He told Moses "I will pay you back, when the Mishkan is built and you expect to serve as High Priest, and I say to you, 'Call Aaron that he will serve.' " Therefore, Moses called Aaron and his sons (Leviticus 9:1). The midrash continues:

Moses said to Aaron, "Thus said the Eternal to anoint you High Priest." Aaron said to him, "You have labored on the Mishkan and I am to become the High Priest!" [Moses] said to him, "By your life, even though you become High Priest, it is as if I have become [High Priest]. Just the same as you rejoiced when I rose to greatness, so I am happy at your rising."

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