for Parshat VaYakhel
i
Moses tarries up on the mountain with God
for so long
that the people panic.
They build the Golden Calf.
*
After God forgives the people for the Calf,
Moses tells them:
keep God’s Sabbath.
Then Moses tells them
to build the home
where God will dwell among them.
ii
The people build a Golden Calf
because they are frightened without Moses,
who is their pathway to God.
God is far away
up on a mountain,
and they want to construct a way
for holiness to be close.
To say:
they cannot bear a religious life
not in their grasp.
*
So they build a Golden Calf.
iii
After the sin has passed, Moses speaks first of the Sabbath:
the day we step back
and relinquish control.
Then he speaks of building a house
to bring God.
*
He is saying
what the people at the Calf
do not understand
(perhaps because this lesson is very hard):
we work hard to bring God to us
to build a home for Him on earth,
but first we must realize
that the world of God
is not ours to control,
because the world of God
is not ours.
___
Shabbat Shalom,
Abe
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Posted/mailed before Shabbat
Exodus chapter 35 and following
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