TorahParsha

The Living Within the Fixed

i
The people offer materials with which to build the dwelling-place of God.

God appoints a head craftsman to fashion these gifts into a home.

The craftsmen come to begin their work.

*
But the people continue to offer materials. They bring their gifts each morning.

The craftsmen say: The people bring…more than enough material for the work.

So it is proclaimed throughout the camp that no more gifts should come.

The gifts stop. The work begins.

*
(The Hebrew phrase proclaimed throughout the camp means: they passed a voice through the camp.)

ii
Here is a community of the steadfast. It brings gifts each morning.

But in the face of such steadfastness, newness is an affront.

That is a trouble for the craftsmen, who look to build something new: a new house to God.

iii
They passed a voice through the camp.

Now words pass through the people.

The mass of the community becomes vibrant and liquid with speech.

Not a solid block, but a block that is rich and living: like good soil.

*
This new fluidity grows, easily, into a new form--into a new house for God.

Now the act of building can begin.

~~~~~

The Schedule of God

God commands that the priests are to light the Menorah in the Mishkan, the place where God will dwell among the Children of Israel.

God says: The priests shall order the flames there, from evening to morning.

God says: the Menorah is to burn always; the priests are to light the Menorah in this way this forever.

*
That is God's introduction to the role of the priests in the Mishkan.

ii
The Mishkan is the dwelling-place of God among Israel.

The priests' first role there is the lighting of the Menorah lights, daily, from evening to morning and forever.

This is the beginnings of how the priests make God dwell among us.

*
God comes to us when we make a schedule out of Light.

[This may have been based on a lecture of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein.]

~~~~~

Dreams, Clothes

i
When Joseph is young, in his father's house, and he dreams and tells his brothers and father of these dreams, Joseph's father gives him a special coat.

Later, Joseph is sent to interpret Pharaoh's dream. Joseph changed his garments to prepare for the dream-meeting. And after Joseph delivers his interpretation, Pharaoh arrayed Joseph in garments of fine linen, and put a gold chain around his neck.

Dreams and clothes come together.

ii
Dreams and clothes both come from the world of symbol.

Dreams are meanings waiting to be deciphered. Clothes are patches of cloth that signify (think of fashion).

Clothing is a symbol in the external world. Dreams are a symbol in the internal world.

*
If clothes and dreams are linked, then they are two parts of a whole.

iii
Now think of tzitzit.

You must put tzitzit—specially-tied strings—on your clothes. They are a reminder to follow God, and to not follow after your heart and after your eyes, after which you stray.

Your inner world and your outer world are joined. Your eyes and your heart come together.

Just as your clothes and your dreams come together.

*
If the outer world and the inner world are joined, the tzitzit say, then the external life must guide the inner life: the heart and the eyes guided by the stringing of cloth.

You must shape the realm of cloth to guide the space where dreams live.