Vayakhel / Pekudei ויקהל / פקודי

Vayakhel / Pekudei

This week's parsha is most unusual. First off, we read two portions, וַיַּקְהֵל and פְקוּדֵי at the same time.

Why double up? The simple reason is that there are more Torah portions, 54, then Shabbats in a year, 51 or 52. Depending on the each year's configuration, there are also some Shabbatot that fall on Yom Tov, where we read special parshiot and not the usual weekly portion.

For example, Shabbat must fall at least once during Hol HaMoed Pesach and Sukkot, so right away we "lose" two weeks or regular Torah readings.

Some of the "doubled" parshiot have similar subject matter, and this week's parshiot are no exception. After the first three verses of Vay'ke'hel, all the focus is on Am Yisrael building the Mishkan, the traveling tabernacle. This brings us to another unusual aspect of this week's portions.

We have already read this stuff in Parshat Terumah, where God gives the instruction for building the Mishkan.

Why do we read this information twice? Isn't every word in the Torah supposed to be meaningful and unique?

Let's take a look at the distribution of themes in the Five Books of Moses.

Thirteen full chapters of the book Exodus are devoted to describing the creation of the Mishkan and the priestly garments. Contrast this with the one chapter describing the creation of the universe, and the three chapters describing the revelation at Mount Sinai. In fact, more time is spent on the details of the traveling temple than on the Exodus from Egypt, only eleven chapters!

What gives? I thought that what makes the Jewish G-d so special is a lack of physical being. We are commanded over and over again to avoid creating physical objects to worship. עבודת זרה, idol worship, is one the most serious sins in the Tanach. Yet here we are lavishing detail upon detail of a physical structure?

In trying to understand this puzzling phenomenon, I was helped immensely by the teachings of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, (z"l), also known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe

Of course, "the Rebbe" was one of the more controversial Jewish leaders of his time, mainly because some of his followers think that he is/was the Messiah. If we can ignore the more fantastical and outlandish beliefs associated with certain fans of Rabbi Schneerson, and perhaps some of our own biases about the Chabad movement, we can learn a lot from this deeply profound and knowledgeable man, who gave so much of his life to helping others and building a stronger Jewish world.

According to Rabbi Schneerson, the Hassidic response to the ultimate question 'Why are we here?' can be summer up simply- "to make a home for God in the material world."

What exactly does this mean? - after all, are we not taught that God is everywhere, in everything

True, we cannot bring God into the world where God is already present. The difference is a matter of awareness - God's house is not always a home. A home is a place where you feel comfortable, accepted, one of the "chèvre." As living beings, when we walk around forgetting about our holy neshamas, and those of other people, God does not feel at home, even though God is present.

When we are selfish, thinking only of our own needs and wants, we forget that we were created for a higher purpose. When we recognize this, and connect with our own divinity, God feels at home.

Humans also have the power to transform physical objects from ordinary matter into a instrument for God. This is truly what is happening in building the Mishkan.

Schneershon himself says it best:

When we take a piece of leather and make a pair of tefillin out of it, when we take a dollar bill and give it to charity, when we employ our minds to study a chapter of Torah -- we are effecting such a transformation. In its initial state, the piece of leather proclaimed, "I exist"; now it says, "I exist to serve my Creator." A dollar in pocket says, "Greed is good"; in the charity box it says, "The purpose of life is not to receive, but to give." The human brain says, "Enrich thyself"; the brain studying Torah says, "Know thy G-d."

When God commands the Israelites to build God a temple, in the middle of the desert no less, I believe God is trying to teach us a difficult lesson. Material objects are not ends in themselves. In order to be holy people, we need to put these objects to holy use. Gold, Silver and Copper and fine linen are great in and of themselves - but God wants us to keep of all these objects in their proper perspective.

This is not an easy lesson - think of the Golden Calf. Am Yisrael was feeling abandoned by Moses and the direct connection to God that he represented. They wanted to use their material possessions that they had recently acquired in Egypt to create a new object to focus their spiritual energy on. So close - yet so far away.

True, the Israelites were using their material possessions for a higher purpose, but the possessions themselves had become the objects of worship. We are free to USE material objects as tools to help us get closer to God, but must never mistake the object for God itself.

In our modern world, our new Golden Calf is undoubtably money. People will do almost anything to get a little bit more than the next guy/gal. How many times have we read about the abuse of human beings, and even entire cultures, for a bit of material wealth? Our drive to make use of the Earth's resources to fuel our engines is threatening to destroy the very planet that we live on. How many people spend their entire lives in pursuit of more and more cash, forgetting about those around them, let alone God?

How de we as Jews relate to money? It's simple - Jewish tradition has lots and lots of rules about money, and Jews have been traditionally good at making lots and lots of it!

Seriously though, Judaism is not a religion of austerity and denial - we feel lucky when we can feed our love ones and even indulge in a bit of the pleasures of the material world (as long as we say a bracha over it). During Rosh Chodesh, we even pray for פרנשה טוהב" a good living.

At the same time that we realize the importance of money in allowing us to live successful, happy lives, we must also realize that money, just like the precious metals of the Israelites, is a tool to be used for the greater good, starting with our family and moving outwards toward the entire community of the world.

Perhaps the Torah emphasizes the exacting details of building the Temple precisely because it knew the great length to which Modern people would go to make money, and how lost we would become in the search for it.

I bless everyone hear today for success in the economic sphere, but even more importantly, the wisdom to use it in the best way possible.