for Vayakhel-Pikuedei
God’s presence is not a home for the righteous: it is a guide for how we move through the world.
___
Shabbat shalom,
Abe
for Parshat Pikudei
i
God tells Moses of the home the people shall make for Him.
Moses tells the people
and the people construct the pieces
and Moses assembles the pieces
into a home.
And God comes down to be there.
ii
From God to Moses to the people to Moses to God.
*
Sometimes God’s command
is also a dialogue.
___
Shabbat Shalom,
Abe
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
___
Posted/mailed before Shabbat
Exodus chapter 35 and following
for parshat Vayakhel - Pikudei
i
They snatched their wive’s gold
and Aaron melted it
and they worshipped the golden calf
that came of this.
*
That is what we know.
ii
We know the cloth
and the wood
and the metals
and the dimensions
and the crastmanship
that go into the Tent of God.
The Torah tells us
over and over.
iii
An idol is useless
so what it is made of
is rendered useless,
and the building of it
is a useless act.
None of it
bears mention.
*
If you put the materials of the earth
and the materials you own
and the materials you create
and your skills of making
to God’s work,
all of it
is worth talking about
because all of it
becomes holy.
____
Shabbat Shalom,
Abe
____
There are details to the Golden Calf that I have left out, but I think my point is valid nonetheless.
www.TorahParsha.com / @TorahParsha
(for Vayakhel - Pikudei)
i
God tells Moses to command the people
to donate materials
and craft the parts
that will make up God’s Tent,
God’s home.
*
When the people finish this work—
when they have given their materials
when the expert craftsmen have crafted
when the masterful women have woven cloth—
God says to Moses:
you, now,
take these parts
that the people have made
and assemble them into My Tent,
My home.
ii
A leader is one
who finds the amazing things
that each of the people offer
that each of the people can make
with the gifts they own
with the talents they have within them.
He knows how,
when these parts come together,
when these people come together
they can become something incredibly holy:
they can become a home for God.
Shabbat Shalom, Abe
____
Please pray for Neshama Emuna bat Batya
For Parshat Pikudei
The cloud of God rests upon the Tent of God.
The people encamp around the Tent, around the cloud.
When the cloud lifts up, the people follow it.
They follow the cloud until it rests down, and the people reunite with it again.
The cloud rests and rises up, rests and rises up, throughout the forty years in the Desert,
and the people follow the cloud all the way to the Land.
*
The people do not come to the Land by encamping steadily around the cloud.
They do not come to the Land by resting steadily with God.
They come to the Land in the continual process of being apart from God
and reuniting with Him again,
and being apart from God and reuniting with Him again,
and being apart from God and reuniting with Him again for forty years.
In this cycle, they arrive.
____
Shabbat Shalom, Abe
____
Please pray for the premature infant Baer Yakov ben Emunah, who is improving and needs our prayers now; and for the infant Ayelet Yakira bat Chaya Hinda Matel Nechama, and register for bone marrow for Ayelet. Please also pray for Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah and for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther.
God tells Moses: let the people make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.
They shall build the Mishkan, the holy tent, for Me.
They shall make the uniforms for the priests who will serve Me there.
*
The craftspeople build the parts of the Mishkan.
And they make the priests’ uniforms.
And Moses erects the Mishkan from its parts.
And the presence of HaShem filled the Mishkan.
*
The presence of HaShem filled the Mishkan, though the priests wear no uniforms yet.
Moses dresses them in the uniforms only later.
Moses anoints the priests to priesthood only later.
The people have made the priests’ uniforms. But the uniforms are still only a promise.
ii
To bring God to the world, you must make a place for Him.
You must make a promise of service to Him right now.
But wearing the uniform, the actual days of service, can follow.
You do not need to begin everything at once.
And still the presence of Hashem will come down to you, now.
Shabbat shalom, Abe
_____
Verses cited: Ex. 25:8, 40:34
Please pray for the recovery
of Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah, and for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther
i
When the Mishkan—the dwelling-place of God—is completed, Moses tries to enter it.
But he is not able to enter...because the cloud of God’s Glory is there.
ii
At Mount Sinai God came down in a thick cloud, and called Moses up.
And Moses walked up the Mountain and he was alone with God.
*
Now, in the Mishkan, Moses witnesses the cloud of God again.
So of course he tries to enter the Mishkan—where the cloud is, where God is—to repeat what he had done before.
iii
But when the cloud was taken up from upon the Mishkan, the Children of Israel went onward in all their journeys.
So through the Mishkan, the cloud has become a signal for the journey with God.
It is no longer a sign for being alone with God.
*
So it is no wonder that now Moses is not able to enter, on account of the cloud.
iv
There is a time to be alone with God and there is a time to journey with God, out into the world.
This is so, even if the transition feels as if God Himself has shut you out.
~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
~~~~~
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.
~~~~~