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Pekudei 5784

In this week’s Parasha, the mishkan finally is finished. First the finished materials are brought to Moshe, and as is says in the last two verses  of Chapter 39 of Exodus:

כְּכֹ֛ל אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּ֥ה ה’ אֶת־מֹשֶׁ֑ה כֵּ֤ן עָשׂוּ֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֵ֖ת כׇּל־הָעֲבֹדָֽה׃

Just as ה, had commanded Moses, so the Israelites had done all the work.

וַיַּ֨רְא מֹשֶׁ֜ה אֶת־כׇּל־הַמְּלָאכָ֗ה וְהִנֵּה֙ עָשׂ֣וּ אֹתָ֔הּ כַּאֲשֶׁ֛ר צִוָּ֥ה יְהֹוָ֖ה כֵּ֣ן עָשׂ֑וּ וַיְבָ֥רֶךְ אֹתָ֖ם מֹשֶֽׁה׃ {פ}

And when Moses saw that they had performed all the tasks—as יהוה had commanded, so they had done—Moses blessed them.

 

Most of Chapter 40 then described how each of the materials were placed, setting up the physical structure of the mishkan, the tabernacle. Then, after 32.5 verses of set-up, Moshe stops, and retreats. As it says in verses 33-35:

וַיְכַ֥ל מֹשֶׁ֖ה אֶת־הַמְּלָאכָֽה׃ {פ}

When Moses had finished the work,

וַיְכַ֥ס הֶעָנָ֖ן אֶת־אֹ֣הֶל מוֹעֵ֑ד וּכְב֣וֹד יְהֹוָ֔ה מָלֵ֖א אֶת־הַמִּשְׁכָּֽן׃

the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of יהוה filled the Tabernacle.

וְלֹא־יָכֹ֣ל מֹשֶׁ֗ה לָבוֹא֙ אֶל־אֹ֣הֶל מוֹעֵ֔ד כִּֽי־שָׁכַ֥ן עָלָ֖יו הֶעָנָ֑ן וּכְב֣וֹד ה’ מָלֵ֖א אֶת־הַמִּשְׁכָּֽן׃

Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting, because the cloud had settled upon it and the Presence of ה’ filled the Tabernacle.

 

There are several notable things about the inauguration of the mishkan. First of all, the blessing Moshe gives to the people when the bring the materials. Rashi says he blesses them: “May it be the will of God that His Shechinah rest upon the work of your hands. . .”

But Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler points out, it’s kind of a redundant blessing – “a mere repetition of God’s opening guarantee regarding the Tabernacle.” But she quotes a Chassidic commentator, the Ktav Sofer, who suggests that may it be Your will, is directed att he people rather than God – that the people should remember the purpose of this sacred task. She writes, “Lost in the details or awed by the majesty before them, there was much in the process that might have taken bnei yisrael away from its core aim: to create space for God to dwell amongst them. So Moshe subtly, but ever so effectively, draws his people back to the essence of their mission just before it is to be fully realized. He calls them back to attention; beckons them to keep God close at hand. For Moshe understood a great irony–that sometimes we can lose God when trying so hard to come close to God.”

The project could only be fulfilled n its holiness when the people stopped the work, and made space for God to enter.

In his dvar torah for the Hadar institute this week, Rabbi David Kasher notes the many parallels between the verbs used in Bereshit at theb eginning Chapter 2, describing the end of creation and the first Shabbat, and the verbsi n this Parashat. The end of the creation narrative is:

וַיַּ֤רְא אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־כׇּל־אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשָׂ֔ה וְהִנֵּה־ט֖וֹב מְאֹ֑ד וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם הַשִּׁשִּֽׁי׃ {פ}

And God saw all that had been made, and found it very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

2

וַיְכֻלּ֛וּ הַשָּׁמַ֥יִם וְהָאָ֖רֶץ וְכׇל־צְבָאָֽם׃

The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array.

וַיְכַ֤ל אֱלֹהִים֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י מְלַאכְתּ֖וֹ אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשָׂ֑ה וַיִּשְׁבֹּת֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י מִכׇּל־מְלַאכְתּ֖וֹ אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשָֽׂה׃

On the seventh day God finished the work that had been undertaken: [God] ceased on the seventh day from doing any of the work.

וַיְבָ֤רֶךְ אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־י֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י וַיְקַדֵּ֖שׁ אֹת֑וֹ כִּ֣י ב֤וֹ שָׁבַת֙ מִכׇּל־מְלַאכְתּ֔וֹ אֲשֶׁר־בָּרָ֥א אֱלֹהִ֖ים לַעֲשֽׂוֹת׃ {פ}

And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy—having ceased on it from all the work of creation that God had done.

Both the finishing of god’s creation and the finishing human’s creation involved the verbs of seeing, stopping labor, holiness and blessing.

And it is only when Moshe stops the work that the presence of Hashem comes and fills the mishkan. This reminded me of a dvar Torah I read two weeks ago about Parashat Ki Tissa. Rabbi Andrea Goldstein noted that the key difference between the Golden Calf, as a collective creative project and the building of the mishkan was not just that one was commanded by God and one was idolatrous, but that, as she put it: “for all its specificity and beauty, the Mishkan was largely a structure made up of empty spaces. Yes, the table, lampstand, and altar were all important. However, the Mishkan and the courtyard surrounding it were dominated by a sense of spaciousness. Rabbi Shefa Gold teaches that the most sacred part of the Mishkan, the Holy of Holies, was empty of all furnishings, save the Ark, precisely so that space for God could exist. In contrast, the Calf was solid, existing, in Gold’s words, “only of and for itself.” It left no room to encounter the Divine (Torah Journeys, 91).

I would argue that the spaciousness and openness of the Mishkan was the source of its holiness. The Polish Chasidic master, Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (1787–1859), teaches that each of us is to build our own mikdash me’at, our own small sanctuary, within the recesses of our hearts (quoted in Itturei Torah). If we do, then God will dwell with us, no matter where we are.”

We see that emptiness in the moment when the mishkan is inaugurated by Moshe’s stepping away and making room for the presence f God to rush in.

It’s the same moment I try to create when, at candlelighting, I ask you to take a deep exhale, to make some room inside to take in the light of shabbat.

If we want to create holiness, if we want to shabbat, we must leave some empty space.

 

Purim and Pesach: Be happy, it’s . . . Adar? (Mar/Apr 2024)

There is a children’s song that quotes a line from Masechet Taanit 29a, “Mishenichnas Adar marbim b’simcha.” When (the months of) Adar begins, we increase rejoicing.” Adar, the month of Purim, is considered the most auspicious time for the Jewish people, doubtless connected to the lucky reversal of fortunes that the Jews experienced in the Purim story that we read in Esther.

Nonetheless, the Joy of Purim is not complete. We do not recite Hallel (psalms of praise) on Purim, unlike the festivals, Rosh Chodesh and even Hanukkah. One of the possible reasons for its omission on Purim is that Hallel includes the line, “Give praise, you who serve God!” Even at the end of the Purim story, teaches Masechet Arakhin 10b “we are still the servants of Ahasuerus,” which is to say that despite prevailing, the Jewish people still had a very uncertain future, in exile at the whim of a fickle king.

On Passover, the liberation is as complete as it has ever been in Jewish memory. That is why we invoke the liberation from Egypt in our liturgy multiple times a day, and why we mention it as part of our blessings on Shabbat and holidays.

But that complete liberation is sadly hard to come by in our general lived experience. More often, we experience incomplete joy: joy despite suffering, despite war, despite the illness and death of our loved ones, despite tremendous moral dilemma and complication.

We can and should hold a vision of complete liberation, for ourselves and the world. But I think it’s telling that Nisan, the month of Passover, isn’t the month in which we are instructed to increase rejoicing. Because we are not supposed to seek joy only in the memory of the miraculous salvation from Egypt (indeed, perhaps the Talmudic rabbis took it for granted that Pesach would be a joyful time).

When Adar comes, we increase rejoicing, despite how complicated and how violent the triumph of Purim is, and not because we should ignore that. But because our lives are complicated, and our present is full of violence, and we don’t wait for completeness to choose joy. As my mentor, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum teaches, “Joy is an act of spiritual and political resistance.” And if not now, when?

Losing sight of the pregnancy in abortion debate

The Register-Guard (December 2021)

Two years ago I underwent a harrowing medical condition. For nine months, my body housed a rapidly expanding uterine growth. It drained my energy, created arthritic symptoms in my joints and caused weight gain of almost 40 pounds. I expelled it from my body in a dangerous process involving 17 hours of increasingly intense pain.”¯I required several weeks of recuperation.

I willingly put up with this””twice! I wanted the babies, and I love the children they are becoming. But as abortion is relitigated, and the issue remains framed as “pro-choice” or “pro-life,” I feel perturbed.

We largely don’t talk about pregnancy when we talk about abortion “” about lawmakers decreeing that other people’s bodies must house something that is excruciatingly uncomfortable and potentially mortally dangerous for nearly a year. In our society, this process coincides with lack of support for the well-being of those women’s bodies and insufficient time to recover from the physical exhaustion of pregnancy and birth.

When I recall this exhausting condition, I am pained at the idea that anyone who doesn’t want to be a parent would be forced to endure pregnancy.

I strongly believe in protecting innocent life. While my faith tradition doesn’t teach that human life begins at conception, I can respect that belief. I can even agree that in an ideal world, abortion would never happen outside of medical necessity; people would have the knowledge and resources to prevent unwanted pregnancy and every conception would be wanted.

The Bible demands that we all care for the widow, the orphan, the stranger: the vulnerable who tend to be invisible and neglected. But as a spiritual leader, I am also aware that it is easy “” and even cheap “” to demand that someone else do the caring. The harder and more important spiritual challenge is recognizing the obligations in our own lives to care for the vulnerable.

Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister who spent decades working to ban abortion, wrote a New York Time op-ed in 2019 about his change of heart. He admitted that pro-life work often ends at birth, failing to provide any social or financial support for young mothers and children.

In his words, “I can no longer pretend that telling poor pregnant women they have just one option “” give birth and try your luck raising a child, even though the odds are stacked against you “” is ‘pro-life’ in any meaningful sense.”

Pregnancy is difficult enough when it is wanted, as mine were. In a society that fails to prevent sexual violence or offer even basic sex education, let alone health care, parental leave or other services, it is immoral to require women to just “take responsibility” for an unwanted pregnancy.

Those who refuse to advocate for welfare, guaranteed food, housing, child care and medical care for needy families are guilty of cheap caring when they simultaneously demand that women find room within their very bodies for fetuses they do not want.

It’s easier to demand another person put her own body at risk to nourish a life than it is to accept a personal share of responsibility for all the lives already here.

Her column will resume after she completes a five-month sabbatical in June 2022.