TorahParsha

The Children of Rebecca and Isaac

i
The text relays how Abraham's servant brings Rebecca from her homeland to Abraham's house, to become Isaac's wife; in that story the text uses the word camel eighteen times.

For instance. The servant sets a sign to know whom of the women he meets should be Isaac's bride. The sign is that the right woman will volunteer to water the servant's camels. It is Rebecca who fulfills that sign.

And for instance. When Rebecca finally does come to the house of Abraham, to be married to Isaac, she is riding on a camel.

And we do not learn that Isaac actually sees Rebecca when she arrives. We only learn that Isaac lifted up his eyes, and behold: camels were coming.

Rebecca is signified by camels.

*
At the time that Rebecca and Isaac meet, Isaac has just gone out to meditate in the field.

*
After they meet, Isaac takes Rebecca in to the tent, in to their marital home.

And he loved her.

ii
A camel in that time and place was a vehicle of journey, like our car or our train.

So Rebecca, drawn to camels, signified by camels, is a woman of journeys. She looks out to the wide expanse of the world.

*
Isaac is a man of meditation, of plumbing the depths of all things in a single field, of things close-at-hand.

*
Isaac and Rebecca's marriage joins two opposite views within a single home of love.

iii
God gives the Law to the Children of Israel—Rebecca and Isaac's descendants—at a precise mountain, a specific spot, along the Children of Israel's journey from Egypt to Canaan, from landlessness to home, from profane to holy. 

And God asks the Children of Israel to make for him a Mishkan, a portable temple, a meeting-house for the people and God, for the people and holiness, in their journeys from place to place.

And even up through now we meditate upon the Law, that is called Halacha, that means Path, inside the room called a Beit Midrash: a House of Study: the journey and the meditation in one home.

*
So that we, who are Rebecca and Isaac's children, come to God as Rebecca and Isaac's children.

Their marriage is eternal.

~~~~~
This thought owes a great deal to both an online shiur from Yaacov Steinman, and insights from Rabbi Laurie Dinnerstein-Kurs.

The Time of God

i
It is not until all the parts are finished that God sets a date for the erecting of His house. The building is to happen [o]n the first day of the first month.

*
Typically, in building projects, a date is set first. Then the building begins.

Here, the deadline comes close to last.

ii
We are human. The only thing we know for certain of our future is that time will pass. Everything else is a question.

And so of course time must be the framework around which we lay our plans.

*
And so human projects begin with a deadline.

And so also: history from the human view looks like just so many accidents that fill time up.

iii
Time is different for God. For God, time is simply a vessel in which to place the story that He wishes to tell.

Because there is no uncertainty for Him. Everything God wants to happen, happens.

*
So God's deadlines do not have a human meaning. Time is not a framework for God. What God wishes to happen is the framework for God.

iv
Building the House of God, we enter the time-view of God.

We make God's projects before the deadline enters into the picture.

We fill time up with His crafts.

~~~~~

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.]

~~~~~