Parashat Pekudei: The Charismatic Community

While it is important to teach our children that individual leaders can make an enormous impact on communities, it is also important to teach them that communities are most successful when individuals at the grassroots level choose to use their talents to benefit a cause greater than themselves.  Emphasizing this point, Shirley Sagawa and Deborah Jospin write in The Charismatic Organization that organizations can develop “charisma” by utilizing social capital in their day-to-day work:  

“...certain qualities of organizations are more important than charismatic leaders. Charismatic organizations attract people by achieving powerful results and building a community that others want to join. In other words, they build strong social capital. Social capital refers to a network of relationships that yield benefits to those who are part of the network.  These benefits flow from trust, norms of reciprocity, information flow, and cooperation embedded in these relationships...These networks lead to other essential forms of capital—financial, human, and political—that allows the organization to increase its impact and influence even more, beginning a continuing cycle of impact growth” (Shirley Sagawa and Deborah Jospin, The Charismatic Organization, page 4).

Sagawa and Jospin, each of whom work in organizations in the social sector, argue that any communal organization that wants to achieve maximal success cannot rely on money alone, but must actualize the talents of every person in the community, and make each person feel compelled to give of their time and energy to advance the organization’s mission, a vision echoed in this week’s parasha.

Close readers of Parashat Pekudei will notice that the Torah’s description of the completion of the Mishkan parallels the description of the completion of God’s creation in Sefer Bereishit:

• Shemot 39:32: Thus was completed all work of the Mishkan, the Ohel Moed, and the Israelites did according to all the Lord commanded and Moses completed the work.
• Bereishit 2:1-2: Thus were completed the heavens and earth and all their host and God completed on the seventh day His work which He had done.

Upon reading these two texts for the first time, one immediately notices how these passages use similar language to describe the moment when an incredible act of creation and construction came to a close.  However, when we look at the passage from Parashat Pekudei, we see the Torah tell us that the Israelites did “all the Lord commanded,” but “Moses completed the work,” leading the reader to the question of what it means to say that the Israelites “did” what God commanded.

Taking a general approach, Rabbi Obadiah Seforno, an early modern Italian commentator, argues that all Israelites made some kind of contribution to the building of the Mishkan, even if that contribution was not directly described in the Torah itself.  He writes:

“And the Israelites did”: “the work in its totality was attributed to all the people of Israel seeing that each one of them had a direct or indirect share in it, whether by contributing material, labor, or skill” (Seforno on Shemot 39:32).   

Even though the Torah describes specific responsibilities to individual Israelites, the Torah also makes clear that the entire nation was responsible for bringing donations and materials essential to the building of the Mishkan itself.   As a result, when the Torah says that the Israelites did the work, the text is referencing all kinds of contributions, both large and small.

Taking a halahkic approach, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin, other known as the Netziv, writes that the work completed by the Israelites was purely halakhic in-nature, and the Torah wants to make clear that the Mishkan was constructed “by the book.”   The Netziv writes:

“Knowing the intense desire of the Israelites for the Divine Presence to reside in their midst, as I have noted...we might have imagined that to achieve this they want beyond what was required.  On this account the text observed “they did as the Lord commanded-so they did”- not a jot more” (Ha-Emek Davar on Shemot 39:32).

For the Netziv, a major construction project for the purpose of creating a sanctuary to God required meticulous preparation and execution on the part of the Israelites, thereby explaining why the Torah devotes so much detail as to how each object in the Mishkan must be constructed.  As such, the Netziv argues that when the Torah describes the completion of the Mishkan’s construction, it wants to indicate that the Israelites did the work exactly as God proscribed it, following the instructions necessary to create a divine sanctuary.

Finally, taking an educational approach, Rabbi Hayyim ibn Attar, also known as the Or Ha-Hayyim, argues that the Torah wants to remind us that the Mishkan was a collective endeavor on the part of the Israelites, and although certain people had greater responsibilities than others, each Israelite fulfilled a unique role.   The Or Ha-Hayyim argues that,

“...the text wished to indicate the mutual, interlocking character of Torah observance, by means of which the children of Israel brought reciprocal benefits on each other.  The Torah was given to be collectively observed by Israel as a whole.  Each individual would contribute his best to their mutual benefit…[However,] The Almighty gave us 613 precepts and it is impossible for one man to observe them all.  There are, for example, Priests, Levites and Israelite men and women.  Some precepts apply only to priests, others can only be fulfilled by Israelites, and others only by women.   In what way is it feasible for the individual to observe all the precepts, attaining the complete perfection symbolized in the correspondence between the number of precepts, negative and positive, and the 248 limbs and 365 sinews respectively of the human body?   The answer must be that the Torah can only be observed collectively, by the people as a whole, each individual deriving benefit from the observance of his neighbor and each individual’s performance complementing that of the other” (Or Ha-Hayyim on Shemot 39:32).

In this expansive commentary, the Or Ha-Hayyim makes the point that the Mishkan could not be constructed without the shared efforts of the entire Israelite nation, with each person making a contribution that uniquely suited his or her talents and capabilities.   As a result, when the Torah concludes the construction of the Mishkan, it wants to make clear that the construction was completed by a people united in purpose, a charismatic nation capable of great things.

From the first time a parent, student, faculty or staff member walks into the doors of Schechter, we have a responsibility to remind them that a Jewish organization only thrives when people feel able to give a piece of themselves that reflects their unique talents and strengths.   Just as the Mishkan required a little piece of each of the Israelites, whether direct or indirect, whether financial, physical, or artistic, a school requires a little piece of each of member of our community. When we succeed doing in this, we make our school a Mikdash M’at, a little sanctuary that could only be built through the efforts of a charismatic community.

Shabbat Shalom!

Parashat Ki Tissa: When Things Are Just Things

Mircea Eliade of the University of Chicago was one of the most important religious thinkers of the twentieth century, changing the way we understand what it means for a religion to call something holy.  In The Sacred and the Profane, Eliade argues that religion’s essence involves ascribing supernatural significance to seemingly ordinary things.  He writes:

“By manifesting the sacred, any object becomes something else, yet it continues to remain itself, for it continues to participate in its surrounding cosmic milieu. A sacred stone remains a stone...nothing distinguishes it from all other stones. But for those to whom a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into a supernatural reality” (Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane).

According to Eliade, anything can be made holy if we imbue it with sanctity.   However, anything holy can also be made profane, if our actions serve to deny the sanctity of that same item, and idea that is found in how commentators approach the story of the Golden Calf in Parashat Ki Tissa.

When God tells Moses that the Israelites have built the Golden Calf, no instructions are given to Moses as to what he should do about the tablets God spent days inscribing on the top of Mount Sinai.   At this point, the Torah describes the following scene:

“And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand; tables that were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.  And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses: 'There is a noise of war in the camp.' And he said: 'It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome, but the noise of them that sing do I hear.' And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it” (Shemot 32:15-20).

In the above passage, the parasha tells us that Moses broke the tablets primarily because he was incensed at what he saw, not because of what God told him to do.  As a result, the question is raised as to why God was not angry at Moses destroying an incredible piece of divine craftsmanship, and what lesson we might learn from the fact that God saw something powerful in Moses’ decision to destroy these tablets.

The Meshekh Hokhmah, the Torah commentary of Rabbi Meir Simkha Ha-Kohen of Dvinsk, writes a lengthy commentary on what we can learn from Moses’ decision to smash the tablets.   Commenting on the verse “And it came to pass as he approached the camp,” the Meshekh Hokhmah says that asking how Moses could break the ‘holy’ tablets presumes that the tablets have inherent holiness.   However, the Meshkeh Hokhmah argues that,

“Torah and Faith are the essential to the Jewish nation.  All the sanctities--The Holy Land, Jerusalem, etc., are secondary and subordinate entities hallowed in virtue of the Torah…” (Shemot 32:19).

In other words, only “Torah,” or God’s divine teaching, and faith itself have inherent holiness, and cannot be de-sanctified under any circumstances.  However, any other person or thing, no matter how holy we might consider it, is not inherently holy, but is a secondary entity made holy only by virtue of Torah.

As a result, what made Moses furious about the building of the Golden Calf was what the making of idol implied about how the Israelites deemed things holy and profane in the temporal world.  The Meshekh Hokhmah writes:

“The people sought therefore to materialize for ways and means to materialize their conceptions, and when they saw that Moses was delayed, their faith was undermined and they sought to make a calf.   It was this that Moses condemned, that they should imagine he was unique, and that there existed any intrinsic holiness outside God Himself…”(Ibid.).

Taking this perspective, by building the Golden Calf, the Israelites sent the message that they there was something in the world outside of God that possessed intrinsic holiness.

On its face, we might assume that the tablets God inscribed were intrinsically holy, since they were made by God himself. However, the Meshekh Hokhmah argues that “Even the Tablets-”the writing of God”-were not intrinsically holy, but only so on account of God.”  As a result, he writes that,

“The moment Israel sinned and transgressed what was written thereon, they became mere bric a brac devoid of sanctity...For this reason God approved of Moses’ action and said “More power to thee for having broken them.” By this he had demonstrated that the Tablets themselves possessed no intrinsic holiness” (Ibid).

In the words, the tablets were only holy if and only if the Israelites lived lives that were worthy of sanctification.  The minute God and Moses saw them dancing around the Golden Calf, the holy tablets simply between rocks with chiseled words on them.  Furthermore, by smashing the tablets, Moses sent the message to the Israelites that even after receiving God’s Torah, holy things would only be a part of their community if they actualized God’s Torah in a way that made those things holy.  Should the Israelites choose to de-sanctify things with potential sanctity, those things will no longer be holy, but just things.

The above commentary alongside Eliade’s notions of the sacred and the profane have profound implications for what it means to build Jewish Community, for this commentary reminds us that nothing in the Jewish Community is inherently sacred; not our synagogues, not our holiest books, not our most special places.   These things only become sacred if we make them sacred, and we only make them sacred if people live lives that reflect God's vision for a holy world.   As a result, when we encounter someone who does not find Jewish life meaningful, it is because the things we want them to hold most dear are simply things, and the task is to get them to a point where an ordinary thing becomes a sacred thing. May we proactively teach our children at Schechter what it means to make every thing a sacred thing, so that the tablets we give to them become sacred things that they will imbue with holiness every day for the rest of their lives.   

Shabbat Shalom!

Parashat Tetzaveh: Holy Garments

Tal Ben-Shahar, and Israeli-born professor and teacher of the one of the popular courses at Harvard University, writes in his book Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment that an alignment between intrinsic and extrinsic priorities is essential for a meaningful life.  He writes:

“Most of our choices are driven by many factors, some intrinsic, others extrinsic...The question is whether the intrinsic or extrinsic is more fundamental to the choice.   If the primary driving force is intrinsic--in other words, the pursuit is self-concordant--then the person will experience it as something that he wants to do; if the primary driving force is extrinsic, the experience will be more of a have-to” (75).

Shahar’s analysis applies not just to happiness, but to all facets of our life, where the person most likely to feel satisfaction must try to develop the personal qualities on the inside that translate into being a positive example on the outside, a vision echoed in this week’s parasha.

Parashat Tetzaveh describes God’s instructions for what the Kohanim should wear when they ultimately serve in the mishkan, the tabernacle that is still being constructed, as this point in Sefer Shemot.   God’s initial instructions state the following:

“And bring you near unto Aaron your brother and his sons with him, from among the children of Israel, that they may minister unto Me in the priest’s office...and you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother for splendor and for beauty...that they make Aaron’s garments to sanctify him that he may minister unto Me in the priest’s office” (Shemot 28:1-3).

While it is obvious to most readers what it means to say that the sacrifices offered in the mishkan will be holy, it is not clear what it means when the parasha says that the garments of the Kohanim should be holy.  Are the garments because the work itself is holy, or is there something about the garments themselves that makes them holy, with or without priestly service?   Do the garments make the Kohanim holy, or is there something about the Kohanim as people that will make the objects holy?   While our commentators answer these questions in different ways, ultimately our commentaries are united by a belief that the priestly garments teach us something essential about the importance of creating alignment between our inner and outer selves.   

One way of looking at this passage is to take a holistic approach to our parasha’ context, and ask why God would want a specific group of people to wear holy garments at this point in time.  The Akedat Yitzhak, a commentary on Rashi’s Torah commentary, argues that the Kohanim needed to wear holy garments because every person’s status is somehow identified with what clothing they wear.  He writes:

“Just as man can be outwardly identified by his apparel whether he is a merchant, a knight or a priest, so we are able to recognize our inner character by our outward actions.  The latter certainly afford a clue to our spiritual powers.  Prophetic literature has already employed this association with respect to the Deity since He can only be perceived through His action: “You are clothed in majesty, the Lord is clothed, He has girded Himself in strength”” (Tehillim 104:1) (Akedat Yitzhak on Shemot 28:2).

This commentary takes the metaphorical statements from Tehilim that God is “clothed” in special garments and applies to that our everyday life, acknowledging that clothes inherently connote a special status.  Furthermore, because the Israelites are making the transition from the mindset of slaves to the mindset of free people, it would make sense that the spiritual representatives of the newly freed Israelites would be commanded to wear regal clothing that connotes the people’s new status.

Another way of looking at this passage is to focus on the Kohanim specifically, and how the commandment to wear holy garments intends to instill a certain kind of mindset in the priestly class.   Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin writes in his Ha-Emek Davar that by commanding Aaron to wear holy garments, Aaron would, by necessity, also need to sanctify himself:

“The reference is to Aaron, implying that Moses should inform the wise-hearted that I have filled Aaron with a spirit of wisdom.   All this serves as a preliminary to the next sentence: “They shall make the garments of Aaron to sanctify him.”  Since Aaron had been commanded to sanctify himself, the Omnipresent gave him holy garments to assist him in that task” (Ha-Emek Davar on Shemot 28:3).

Instead of connecting the priestly garments to the Israelite people generally, the Ha-Emek Davar focuses on how the priestly garments will benefit Aaron as a specific representative of the entire people.  In other words, if a person is given the responsibility of sanctifying themselves before God, it would be helpful if they dressed the part.

Finally, we can look at this passage and see how it relates to what we wear each day, and what clothing says about us at critical moments in our lives. Rabbi Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Michel Wisser, otherwise known as the Malbim, writes that these garments are holy because they symbolize the inner spiritual life of the Kohanim:

“Now the garments ordained were evidently external ones and the text is concerned to relate how the artisans performed the work.  But in reality they symbolized inner vestments.   The priests were to invest themselves with noble qualities which are the vestments of the soul.  These vestments the artisans did not make.  But commanded Moses to make these holy garments, that is to instruct them in the improvement of their souls and their characters so that their inner selves should be clothed in majesty and splendor” (Malbim on “Holy garments”).

In this final commentary, the Malbim points out that the garments of the Kohanim could only be called “holy” if the people wearing them embodied the qualities of a holy person.   While this commentary limits itself to the Kohanim specifically, we need not look too far to see how it relates to us, as each of us are challenged to create synergy between our inner life and our “outer vestments,” whether those vestments are material, physical, or metaphorical.

Ultimately, helping our children grow up to embody Torah requires that they develop an alignment between inner life and their outer life.   Like the garments of the Kohanim, our children can display certain signs about who we think they are, but the people who are happiest are the ones who can say that what they really are is the same as what we think they are.   May we teach our children to embrace this challenge, so that we might be able to say our children wear “holy garments” each and every day of their lives.

Shabbat Shalom!