In this week's Torah portion, Vayakel, the Israelites are commanded to help build the mishkan, Adonai's Tabernacle. Amidst the harsh, bleak desert backdrop, our ancestors are called upon to create beauty.
In past weeks, we have read the details of how the Tabernacle is to be constructed. It is to be ornate, intricate, and opulent. The Torah spins out the materials like an indulgent design show (Divine Design, anyone?):
...gold, silver, and copper; blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, and goats' hair; tanned ram skins, dolphin skins, and acacia wood; oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the aromatic incense; lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and the breastpiece. (Exodus 35:5b-9).
Our ancestors are called a stiff-necked people. They wrestle with faith (it was just last week they erected a golden calf, after all). They complain. They struggle. In this week's portion, though, they are called upon to do something very different. They are called upon to give freely from their hearts.
Take from among you gifts to Adonai; everyone whose heart so moves him shall bring them - gifts for Adonai (Exodus 35:5).
This week, the people are challenged: don't just create trouble, don't just come along for the ride, don't just stand back and let others take charge. Give from your heart, freely. There is potential for great holiness amongst you, but you must create it. (Or, "If you build it, God will come")
The text is clear here: Adonai will need both men and women to share their finest goods and to share their best skills. It will take the community, not through coercion, but through honest heart-felt giving, to build the mishkan.
Today, we are taught that God does not only dwell in a mishkan, a centralized holy place (although, it is still often in our holy places that we feel closest to God). Rather, our tradition teaches: God is in each of us and is in every thing. So, what, then, does it mean for us to give "freely from our hearts" today? How can we be a part of building a place for the divine to dwell?
I believe we can do so by extending our concept of holy space to a notion of holy time (an idea articulated by Abraham Joshua Heschel in his book The Sabbath). One of our most precious possessions is our time. Each of our minutes is sacred. Our tradition calls us this week to give of them freely. We are told: Give to the degree that your heart moves you and you will create a dwelling place in your life for the divine.
When we create time for reflection, for learning, for quiet meditation, for joyful praise, for social action, and for real interactions, we re-create the mishkan of old. It remains true today what was true then: We must give of our finest goods in order to create a space for holiness.
There are inopportune moments when I find myself reaching for my Blackberry and instinctively rolling the trackwheel, reflexively scrolling through messages: times like family dinners, hikes in Griffith park, early mornings, to name a few. When I stop and realize what I am doing, I am instantly filled with regret. Why did I just do that?
This is not a new story (I know the Blackberry jokes!). But, I tell it anew this week as we read the Torah Portion, Ki Tissa. In this parashah, the Israelites, tired of waiting for Moses to return from Mount Sinai, construct a Golden Calf to worship.
This is a week for reflecting on idolatry.
One of the central mitzvot from our tradition is "You shall not bow down to idols." What is an idol in our contemporary context? At its core, an idol is a misused object. Most idols are not inherently sinful; they are inanimate, afterall. It is only when an object is misused by its creator/owner that it stops being a potentially sacred tool and becomes a destructive force.
There was nothing wrong with the calf until the Israelites started worshipping it. There was nothing wrong with my Blackberry until I became enslaved by it.
For me, each year, Ki Tissa is a check-in point. It is a time for me to reflect on my life and on my actions. This tends to be a relatively quick check-in. Not too deep or difficult to discern. I ask myself: "What am I 'worshipping' this year?"
In today's world, idols tend not to take the form of golden calves. They are much more illusive. They can look like computers or cell phones or even our work, or any other host of "shiny objects" that we find ourselves misusing. They are those things in our life that end up controlling us. They are those objects that instead of being means to good ends become destructive ends in and of themselves. It is not about the object, it is what we do with it.
Some weeks I experience Torah as a profound lesson. Some weeks the message is all too simple. This Shabbat, our tradition tells me: "Put the blackberry down and go back to living." What does it tell you?
This week's Torah Portion, Tetzaveh, provides instructions on how the Israelite priests' clothing should be made. The text delights in its details, "On its hem make pomegranates of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, all around the hem, with bells of gold between them all around: golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, all around the hem of the robe" (Exodus 28:33-34). In this Torah portion, it seems, the clothes really do "make the man."
What are we to make of this?
I believe the priestly garments were meant to physically demonstrate the holiness and dignity of each individual priest. The priests, by vocation, were called to be the intermediaries between the people and the divine. The priests helped others worship and interact with God. Their clothes were intended to glorify their holy purpose and to beautify their sacred work.
I read these descriptions in a new light this week. This past Tuesday, during our TBS Tuesday night teen school, our 7th-12th graders learned about homelessness in Orange County firsthand. We listened to one woman's story of her (and her family's) experience of being homeless and her rise out of homelessness. We watched a DVD that featured homeless youth telling their own stories. We studied statistics about homelessness in Orange County. I cannot adequately express to you how moved I was by our teens' reflections and soulfulness during the program.
In today's world, with the Israelite priesthood long dismantled, each of us, in a way, has the potential to serve as priest. Each of us has the power to relate to God, to worship God, and to be equal members of a sacred community. And, in that vein, each of us should have the ability to wear clothes that illustrate our inherent holiness and that represent our own essential human dignity.
Sadly, too many people in our community cannot outfit themselves in ways that reflect their own inherent worth. During our teen program, I saw through new eyes just how prevalent poverty and homelessness are in our very own community. OC Partnership reports that there are between 27,732 and 35,065 homeless in Orange County. What can we do with these numbers?
This Shabbat, let us learn from Tetzaveh and act to bring dignity and holiness to those around us. A couple of hands-on ideas:
- Take some time this long weekend to clean out your closets. Model for your children what it means to donate gently used clothing to those who go without. Talk to them about our priestly tradition of sacred dress. And, if you are planning a clothes shopping trip, consider purchasing an extra outfit and donating it locally (it can be fun for families to choose the clothes together).
- Throughout March, TBS will be engaging in a pajama drive for homeless youth in Orange County. Many youth who live in shelters lack pajamas and are forced to sleep in their clothes. Think of the difference TBS can make in our community if each of us purchases new pajamas (and encourages others to do the same).
This week's parashah could easily be read as an outdated "Project Runway" episode. But, with an eye toward justice, we can elevate our text so that it might become a relevant call to action for each of us. My blessing for us is that we have the power to continue hearing Torah anew!
This week I am very excited to share an exceptional Torah resource with you. Each week, the wise folks at American Jewish World Service (AJWS) send out a commentary on the parashah, the weekly Torah portion, called dvar tzedek, which focuses on issues of social justice. If you are interested, you can sign up for it on their website www.ajws.org or by clicking here.
This week's Torah portion, Terumah, describes God's detailed instructions to the people as to how they should build a mishkan, a dwelling place, for God. The mishkan is to be a portable sanctuary, which will carry the Law that was given to Moses at Mount Sinai and provide a place of meeting for the Israelites and the Divine. The Torah portion explains:
Adonai spoke to Moses, saying: Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him. ...And let them make Me a mishkan, a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. ...And deposit in the Ark the tablets of the Pact which I will give you. (Ex 25:1-2, 8, 16)
In this week's AJWS dvar tzedek, Evan Wolkenstein, writes:
Taking a closer look at who or what resides in the mishkan, we find that God is not, in fact, the tent's primary resident. Rather, at the center of this sacred structure is the Law - the two stone tablets chiseled during Revelation at Sinai, when the human and heavenly worlds met.
Wolkenstein suggests that the mishkan was not only intended to be an abstract dwelling place for God, but also a physical home for the tablets. He suggests that this placement has profound meaning. He writes:
God dwells among us when we build relationships that are founded on morality and focused on the encounter.
Our Torah teaches us a fundamental lesson this week: We encounter God when we honor our tradition's central messages of justice and morality. We have a lot to learn from this ancient model. And I wonder:
What is our modern day mishkan? What do we place inside it?
What are ways that we can couple our commitments to spirituality with our commitments to justice?
Our ancestors in this week's Torah Portion, Parashat Beshalach find themselves in the desert (This is just six weeks after the exodus from Egypt). The desert, as you know, is a wild wilderness, filled with harsh conditions and fresh setbacks for the newly freed slaves. Not surprisingly, there were two things first and foremost on the Israelites' minds: water and food. The Israelites cried out to Moses and Aaron, saying "If only we had died by the hand of Adonai in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate our fill of bread! For you have brought us into this wilderness to starve this whole congregation to death" (Exodus 16:3). Without bodily nourishment, the souls of the Israelites begin to shrivel. Their physical hunger brought about spiritual doubt.
And so, God responds to the Israelites' request by "raining down bread from the sky." God explained that one portion of this special bread, called manna, would fall from heaven every day, except on Shabbat. Rather, the Israelites learned, a double portion of manna would fall on Friday and they would collect double, so as not have to work on Shabbat. Except for the special double portion on Fridays, the manna would only last one day. If the Israelites tried to save some for the next day, it would spoil. Why?
Manna was not just food, but nourishment from heaven. It was intended not only to feed the people physically, but also to teach them spiritually.
Manna teaches us to remember and to observe and to honor Shabbat with rest. Manna teaches us to take only our share and to delight in what we have. Manna teaches us that aspects of life are meant to be enjoyed in the present and not imagined for the future.
And I wonder: What is the manna in our lives today? What reminds us and guides and fills us and settles us?
May we blessed this Shabbat with the ability to recognize the Divine gifts that rain upon us, that fill us spiritually, and that bring us nourishment.
We jump into this week's Torah Portion, Parashat Bo, in the middle of the Exodus story. Moses and Aaron are trying to convince Pharaoh to free their people, Pharaoh is refusing to let the Israelites leave Egypt, and God is visiting plagues on the Egyptians. It is the Passover story we all know so well!
But, Rabbi ben Bag Bag teaches in the Mishna, "Turn it over and over because everything is in it" (Pirkei Avot 5:22). Yes, our Torah is meant to be flipped and twisted and challenged, for it is overflowing with learning. It is simply up to us to engage it.
This past week, while attending the annual conference of the Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis, I had the privilege of learning with Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller. Rabbi Seidler-Feller flipped this week's parashah for me. Out of it, I have found a new blessing.
Rabbi Seidler-Feller taught that there was only one person in Egypt who was sure he knew who God was. Moses wasn't sure. Two weeks ago, even Moses had to stop and ask God to reveal the Divine name (Moses asks God: "When I come to the Israelites and say to them 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is God's name?' what shall I say to them?" Exodus 3:13). The Israelites weren't sure. Throughout their desert wandering, the Israelites doubted God, even after God performed miracles meant to prove Divine might and existence. Pharaoh was the only person who knew who God was...Pharaoh was sure that he himself was "God." Pharaoh reasoned: If Pharaoh was "God," why should he listen to Adonai?
We learn a fundamental lesson here. Our tradition teaches us that absolute certainty can be misguided. Our ancestors challenged God, questioned God, and wrestled with belief in God's power.
I take comfort in the struggles of our ancestors. While the process of questioning and rethinking (the stuff of "turning") can certainly be more difficult than just knowing, it often leads us closer to truth. My blessing for this Shabbat is that we continue our turning, delight in our wrestling, and open ourselves to all that we still have yet to discover.
For further reflection:
1. What questioning and wrestling currently engages you?
This week's Torah portion, Vayigash, tells the remarkable tale of Joseph's older brother Judah. A story of change.
Tale One:
In Genesis 37, we learn that it was young Judah, who, in an act that I would label as "not quite evil," convinces his brothers not to kill their arrogant younger brother Joseph, but to sell him to the Ishmaelites as a slave. On the one hand, one might suggest that this is an act of kindness on Judah's part (after all, he did save his brother's life). On the other hand, you have to wonder about a man who is aware enough to know that it is wrong to kill his brother, but not motivated enough to ensure his freedom.
Tale Two:
We next encounter Judah "encountering" his daughter-in-law. We learn that Judah's oldest son dies and leaves his wife Tamar as a widow. Judah's second son then marries Tamar, but this son purposefully does not impregnate her, and he dies too. And so, Judah stalls and does not give Tamar his third son in marriage. This stalling leaves Tamar powerless in a society in which women needed marriage and sons for social security. So, Tamar dresses as a temple prostitute and Judah, not knowing who she is, lies with her. Judah leaves Tamar with his seal, cord, and staff as payment. When Judah hears that Tamar is pregnant, he calls for her to be burned. When Tamar presents Judah with his "payment," Judah sees that he is the father. Judah declares, "She is more in the right than I" (Genesis 38:26).
Tale Three:
Finally, in this week's parashah, we learn vayigash, that Judah "encounters," Joseph once again. Just as Judah did not recognize Tamar when he "encountered" her, Judah does not recognize Joseph when he encounters him (he thinks Joseph is an Egyptian official who is holding his youngest brother Benjamin "hostage"). Instead of thinking only of himself, Judah advocates for the Egyptian official to release his brother Benjamin and send him home to his father (take me instead, Judah says the disguised Joseph). Overcome by Judah's growth and the deep love he shows for Benjamin, Joseph reveals his true identity to Judah.
The Point:
Through Judah, we are reminded that life seldom offers us clear options. We make mistakes that have real consequences in others' lives. But, we also learn that Judah grows and changes. Judah comes to a place of true heart-filled empathy. With this potential for growth and change as a model, how can any one of us doubt our own capability to engage in further journeying?
For further reflection:
What journeying do you still have left to do?
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