Meaning in Métier

Mar 6, 2013 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Pekudei | Vayak-hel

The midrash suggests that the building of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) was given not because God needed such a thing, but to show the world—Israelites included—that the Israelites had been forgiven for the sin of the Golden Calf. It is curious, though, that such a gesture would be given as a do-it-yourself assignment.

The Artist’s Insight

Mar 13, 2015 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Pekudei | Vayak-hel

From October of last year until mid-February, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, in collaboration with Tate Modern in London, featured a comprehensive exhibition entitled Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs. It was a reassessment of Matisse’s colored paper cut-outs, which, according to the program notes, “reflect…a renewed commitment to form and color, and . . . inventiveness”. Matisse himself said, “For me, a colour is a force. My pictures are made up of four or five colours that collide with one another, and the collision gives a sense of energy.” (Sooke, Henri Matisse: A Second Life, pp. 97-98.)

Vayak-hel-Pekudei

Jan 1, 1980

¹ Moses then convoked the whole Israelite community and said to them:

These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do: ² On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.

Vayak-hel

Jan 1, 1980

¹ Moses then convoked the whole Israelite community and said to them:

These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do:

Vayak-hel

Jan 1, 1980

⁴⁰ Hiram also made the lavers, the scrapers, and the sprinkling bowls.

So Hiram finished all the work that he had been doing for King Solomon on the House of the Lord: