Vayakhel Pekudei
Summary of the Parashah
This week we read the final two portions of Exodus, a book which began with the Jewish people enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt and which ends with the building and completion of the Mishkan (Sanctuary) in the desert.
Vayakhel begins with Moses assembling the entire Israelite community reminding them of the commandments God had given about the construction of the Mishkan. First he again instructs them to observe Shabbat. He asks them to bring their willing gifts of materials to build the Mishkan and the people bring generously, much more than is necessary. Moses has to announce that no one should bring any more gifts for the building of the Mishkan; Moses asks for those who have the skills to come forward to perform the work of building the Mishkan. The people come forward and are to work together under the leadership of Bezalel and Ohaliav, as the Torah describes in detail the fabrication of every aspect of the Mishkan. The Torah describes the making of the cloth walls, roof, planks, and bars of the Mishkan, the curtain for the Holy of Holies, and the screen for the entrance. Bezalel makes the ark and its cover, the table, the menorah, the altars for incense and for burnt offerings, the anointing oil, and the incense.
In Parashat Pekudei we have a complete accounting of the gold, silver and copper that was contributed by the people for use in the Mishkan. Itamar, son of Aaron, is instructed to conduct the accounting. Torah then goes on to describe the weaving and crafting of the special vestments to be worn by the High Priest.
Once all the work is finished, Moses inspects and approves everything from the utensils onwards. Then God instructs Moses to complete the Mishkan, to anoint it and its contents, and to consecrate Aaron and his sons into the priesthood. Then the cloud representing the glory of God’s presence fills the Mishkan, lifting only when it is time for the Israelites to set out on their journey.
D’var Torah
The opening three verses of Vayakhel deals with the observance of Shabbat: “And Moses gathered together all the congregation of the Israelites and said to them: these are the things which God has commanded that you do. Six days shall you labour, and the seventh day shall be holy, a Sabbath unto the Eternal; whoever does work on it shall die. You shall not kindle fire in all your habitations on the Shabbat day. Rashi reminds us that the verse order, where the law of Shabbat precedes the laws about the building of the Mishkan, teaches that even the building of the Sanctuary is less important than observing Shabbat. The Sabbath, the day for remembering God’s creation, for resting from work, is so important that even the holy work of building this place must stop for it.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel speaks of Shabbat as being ‘a palace in time’. He sees the entwining of the biblical texts on Shabbat and the Mishkan, and understands that sacralising time is far more important than sanctifying space. The pattern of six days of work which are followed by the Shabbat when all labour should be avoided, is a deliberate resonance with the Creation of the world in Genesis. Shabbat is the culmination of the Creation, a weekly prompt to us of our purpose in the world. Heschel reminds us that “The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation, from the world of creation to the creation of the world.”
The sanctification of time rather than place is the real innovation in the worship of the incorporeal and transcendent God. Along with its lack of physical dimension, time is universal, it belongs to everyone. Unlike buildings or land, no one can claim that the day belongs to them alone, no one can claim ownership of time. And the sanctification of time does something else. As Heschel wrote “Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time... There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious.”
Each of us is able to control how we use our own time, each of us has the same resource measured in minutes, hours, days, weeks, seasons. If we choose to pay attention to how we use our time in this world, if we deliberately use our time to work for the purpose of making our world a more sacred place, then we will have understood the message in Vayakhel.
Heschel reminds us that the verb ‘kadesh’ meaning to sanctify or to separate out for a distinct purpose is first used at the end of the story of Creation, when God “blessed the seventh day and made it holy”, a statement we recite at kiddush. There is no other reference to anything else in creation being made holy. Not the world, not people, not any special place. At the beginning of our history holiness was to be found in time. We became a holy people much much later, at the theophany at Sinai. And places only became holy with the building of the Mishkan, the sanctuary whose completion we read about this week.
Every hour we have is unique, filled with possibility, endlessly precious, and potentially holy. Once we have sacred buildings it is easy to forget that actually we live in sacred time. But we do; and ultimately each of us uses our own time, making choices about how we spend it, how we allow its use to impact upon us.
Time is more sacred than space. And all of us live in time that is limited yet infinitely possible. As we come to the end of the book of Exodus, leave behind the stories that begin in slavery and move into the wealth of possibilities that is the desert experience, the constraints of place need no longer oppress us – we inhabit holy time.
Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild