VAYAKHEL & PEKUDEI
Vayakhel and Pekudei (Exodus Chapter 35 to end) is our first combined parshiot. The Jewish calendar is a hybrid solar-lunar calendar where the months are based on the phases of the moon, but an extra leap month is added 7 years out of 19 to keep the agricultural festivals happening in the same agricultural seasons. Combined parshiot happen in non leap years.
Vayakhel gives us the blueprints the building of the actual mishkan, the portable housing for YHVH. We’re told how the materials are to be assembled (Chapter 35) and how the inner area and the tent over it and the frame for the inner part are to be built. (Chapter 36). Chapter 37 details the ark, the table on which it sits and all the utensils associated with this space. Chapter 38 tells us how to build the altar of sacrifice, the wash basin and the courtyard. Pekudei recounts exactly how many talents and shekels of gold, silver and copper are used in the construction of the mishkan. The mishkan is actually built in this parsha by Bezalel and Oholiab, (chapters 38 and 39) and then Moses arranges and consecrates all of it. (Chapter 40). The mishkan is now fit for YHVH and “the presence of YHVH filled the Tabernacle.” (40:34) in the form of a cloud. YHVH has his home.
I want to discuss four themes, the first three from Vayakhel and the last from Pekudei.
The problem of now what after the experience of the divine
The artisans as being people “wise of heart.”
The embodiment of the ecological principle that enough is enough.
The contrast between the emptyhandedness of human protagonists in encountering the divine compared to the fullness of shlepping the mishkan around.
Now what? Near the end of the previous parsha we read “Moses was not aware that the skin of his face was radiant, since he had spoken with YHVH. Aaron and all the Israelites saw that the skin of Moses’ face was radiant, and they shrank from coming hear him.” (34:29-30). You go off on this tremendous personal growth retreat, whether it is a vision fast, a week at a retreat center, a transformational experience in a hotel ballroom. You feel like everything has changed, and your face is shining so brightly that everyone is a little scared and jealous of you. And, in the meantime, everyone has just been living their everyday lives. You’ve had your mind and heart blown, and they’ve been busy coping with the craziness that are our contemporary lives. Now what? That’s the question facing Moses and YHVH.
Their answer is to build the mishkan, the tabernacle. It’s an interesting choice. Moses doesn’t try to persuade the people that they too can have radiant faces if they climb Mt. Sinai and do a vision fast. He doesn’t try to get them to make haste to the promised land or urge them to transform their relationships with each other. He says let’s build the mishkan.
Why build the mishkan first? The text gives us no answers. It doesn’t say this is what he heard to do when he was up on Mt. Sinai. Maybe it is Moses’ way to give thanks to YHVH, who he encountered in an intimate way on Sinai? Maybe it is a way of ensuring to the people that YHVH will be with them, something that is truly important to Moses? In traditional face to face societies, the person returning with their face shining would have conversations with selected tribal elders who would guide them. Moses had no elders, and we don’t have much in that way either. In my own transformative experiences, the lack of guidance from elders is one thing that has really stood out to me. Maybe the mishkan is a way for Moses to keep YHVH close so YHVH can give Moses guidance?
One thing that is striking is that Moses promoted something that required communal effort. He didn’t just tell his vision to his family and friends, but he required some kind of concrete action from everyone.
What is your experience with returning from transformational experiences? What kinds of guidance have you received and how useful was it? What would you do differently? What kind of things did you bring home with you to keep alive your experience on the mountaintop?
The artisans who build the mishkan, both male and female, are described as people with a “wise heart” at least 7 times (35:10, 35:25, 35:31, 35:35, 36:1, 36:2, 36:8). It’s an arresting phrase because we don’t usually associate wisdom with the ability to make things. That’s not just us, think about what you know about Proverbs, Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), Job, Pirkei Avot. These are the paradigmatic books of what is called “Wisdom” literature in our tradition, and while I don’t know the literature well enough to think if there is a connection in this literature between artisans and wisdom, I also can’t recall any connection at all. Yet in our parsha, there are 7 verses that make this connection explicit. That’s a lot.
Saying that the artisans have wisdom of the heart is an extraordinary compliment. Saying they have wisdom of the hands would be arresting enough, but wisdom of the heart, implies that the only reason they can create the sacred space of the mishkan is because they are exceptional people, not just talented craftspeople. But what makes them people with wisdom of the heart? The text gives us nothing. I want to say that these artisans are people who manifest some kind of connection with the divine through their artistry, but still, we certainly would not tend to label that connection as wisdom.
Do you know anyone you would characterize as having wisdom of the heart? What leads you to characterize them that way? Do you know anyone who is a talented craftsperson? Does who they are come through in their work? Would you describe them as wise of heart?
Enough is enough. The possibility of accumulating material goods is connected with the advent of agriculture and therefore the potential elimination of an at least semi nomadic lifestyle. After all, if you move, even only two or three times a year, from a winter camp to a few places in order not to gather too heavily or hunt too much in a given location, it’s really hard to accumulate stuff because you have to shlep it with you. But with agriculture and the possibility of permanent settlements because of the ability to store grain, it became possible to accumulate more, much more, than when you had to move it all, even using horses or dogs as pack animals.
The parsha contains a remarkable story. “All the wise persons who were doing the work of the holy came…and they said to Moses, saying “the people are bringing more than enough for the construction…And Moses commanded “Man and Woman, let them not do any more work for the donation for the Holy. And the people were held back from bringing.” (36:5-6). It is striking to me that they didn’t just enlarge the mishkan, or make it fancier in some way (though it was pretty fancy with lots of gold)
Enough is enough is a key ecological principal in humanity’s living in harmony with the more than human world. The rest of the more than human world seemingly lacks either the intention or the possibility of not living in harmony with the rest of the more than human world; lions can’t kill all the prey animals because otherwise they will starve to death; they have to maintain balance. But we humans are able to blow right past balance to excess.
Where, if anywhere, in your life do you feel like enough is enough? Where, if anywhere, does your life feel in balance? How might you expand that sense of balance to more areas of your life or the world? While the list of the ways in which our lives are out of balance with the more than human world is really long, what occurs to you as the most significant ways that your life feels out of balance with the more than human world?
The protagonists who have had visions of the divine, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, (sorry, all males) have been strikingly emptyhanded. Abraham lived a semi nomadic life, Jacob encountered the divine twice, once when fleeing his home after fleecing (pun intended) Esau of his birthright and having nothing, and once when he was alone at the ford of the river Jabbok. Joseph does his dream interpretations when he is a prisoner and Moses in his encounter at the burning bush does not even have sandals after the divine tells him to take them off. Moses also encounters the divine during a vision fast where he didn’t even have food or water. The same is true for Elijah, Jesus and the Baal Shem Tov if we look at the vision fast material I presented last week. They all are empty handed.
The people are no longer empty handed once they have the mishkan. They have the mishkan itself, and all the sacrifices therein require significant material contributions. No one ever went up to the Temple in Jerusalem and proclaimed, as Jacob did, that YHVH was in this place and I did not know. (Genesis 28:16). In the mishkan, as in the temple, not only is YHVH in the house, it is his house. We have entered a different kind of relationship with the divine.
When we are full, it is surely hard to hear the divine, at least in the teaching of Genesis and the first part of Exodus, in the stories of Elijah and innumerable stories from other peoples. This isn’t to justify poverty which is the imposition of emptiness on others so some people can have hands that are too full. We live in a world that is noisy and busy, in which most of us strive to have our hands be too full.
Do you struggle to hear the divine amidst the hubbub of a mishkan, a Temple, a room full of people? How do you empty yourself to prepare yourself to hear the divine, knowing that divine presence is a gift that cannot be forced?
QUESTIONS
What is your experience with returning from transformational experiences? What kinds of guidance have you received and how useful was it? What would you do differently? What kind of things did you bring home with you to keep alive your experience on the mountaintop?
Do you know anyone you would characterize as having wisdom of the heart? What leads you to characterize them that way? Do you know anyone who is a talented craftsperson? Does who they are come through in their work? Would you describe them as wise of heart?
Where, if anywhere, in your life do you feel like enough is enough? Where, if anywhere, does your life feel in balance? How might you expand that sense of balance to more areas of your life or the world? What occurs to you as the most significant ways that your life feels out of balance with the more than human world?
Do you struggle to hear the divine amidst the hubbub of a mishkan, a Temple, a room full of people? How do you empty yourself to prepare yourself to hear the divine, knowing that divine presence is a gift that cannot be forced?
