Wonderment and Order: A Path to the Heart

Mar 24, 2017 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Pekudei | Vayak-hel

The Baal Shem Tov posed a question about Parashat Pekudei that I too find most puzzling. Why are we told over and over again—10 times in the course of Exodus chapters 39–40, by my count, in addition to a declaration at the start of Parashat Vayak-hel (35:4)—that the Israelites did all they did for the Tabernacle, gave what they gave, built what they built, “as the Lord had commanded Moses.” Why not just tell us once, at the end of the account, that all they did was done in this way, for this purpose? 

A Job Well Done

Feb 26, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Vayak-hel

Who gets the credit for a job well done? The work of the Tabernacle was not a solo endeavor; indeed Exodus 31:6 tells us that Oholiab ben Ahisamach and “all who are skillful” were enlisted for the undertaking. The rabbis’ populist bent seeps through the midrash here and elsewhere as the work of the Tabernacle is discussed.

Nediv Lev

Mar 13, 2015 By Michael R. Boino | Commentary | Pekudei | Vayak-hel

We often think of love as something comfortable, something comforting. The truth is, it can be the exact opposite. True, unbounded love from another source can cause us to confront parts of ourselves with which we are uncomfortable: our vulnerability, our self image, our passive role as the recipient of care rather than as a caregiver.

Artisan and Architect

Mar 4, 2016 By Barbara Mann | Commentary | Vayak-hel

Ben Uri looked at the work of his hands and was astonished at how the ark stood firm while he himself was like an empty vessel. His soul was sad and he broke out in tears.

—S. Y. Agnon, Agunot

Imagining Community, Then and Now

Mar 4, 2016 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Vayak-hel

Anyone who has mounted a fund-raising campaign, or sought volunteers for an institution or organization, will immediately recognize the account of the Tabernacle’s construction in this week’s Torah portion as utopian in the extreme. “All the artisans . . . said to Moses, ‘The people are bringing more than is needed for the task entailed in the work that the Lord has commanded to be done.’ Moses thereupon had this proclamation made throughout the camp: ‘Let no man or woman make further efforts toward gifts for the sanctuary!’ Their efforts had been more than enough for all the tasks to be done” (Exod. 36:5–7).

The Seeds of Democracy

Feb 25, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayak-hel

The Hertz Humash often confronts us with bones of contention long buried. Written in the interwar period by the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, Joseph H. Hertz, the first graduate of the Seminary in 1894, it resonates with the echoes of Christian biases and Jewish anxieties stirred up by the Jewish struggle for equal rights in the nineteenth century. A fine example is to be found in this week’s parasha on Exodus 35:34, where Rabbi Hertz writes: “The opinion is often expressed that there is no art in Judaism; that the Jew lacks the aesthetic sense; and that this is largely due to the influence of the Second Commandment which prohibited plastic art in Israel (p. 376).”

A Feminist Mandate

Apr 8, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayak-hel

The recent conference in New York City on “Feminism and Orthodoxy” heralds a major escalation in the confrontation between Jewishly well-educated Orthodox feminists and a bitterly defensive rabbinic establishment. The word on the street in the weeks before the conference was that it would be a brief one, implying that the two topics had nothing in common. But reality proved the cynics wrong. Nearly a thousand Orthodox women of all stripes convened for two days of study, prayer and protest to challenge the gender inequities that abound in contemporary Orthodoxy. The plight of women stranded without benefit of a Jewish divorce from their husbands evoked an added measure of outrage.

A Plurality of Voices

Mar 25, 2006 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayak-hel

Community is the heart of the Jewish people. To nurture a sense of holiness within our synagogues, it is critical to work toward strengthening a vision of communal responsibility. This notion is emphasized in the opening of this week’s Torah reading, Parashat Va–yakhel: “Moses assembled the community of the children of Israel, saying to them, ‘These are the obligations that God commanded to do them'” (Exodus 35:1). Not only does the general opening of the reading focus on community, but more significantly, the very word with which the parashah begins, vayaqhel, contains the Hebrew root qof–hey–lamed (meaning “community”) — for this is not simply the act of assembling, but it is gathering together a community. What will be the nature of the community we build?