Parshat Vayakel – Pekudei

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Putting Together the Pieces

The parshiot of Vayakel and Pekudei are the parshiot of resolution. The Midrash tells us that “Vayakel Moshe, Moshe gathered the people,” is a tikkun for “Vayakel Ha’am, the people gathered to build the egel.” Similarly, we sinned as a nation with the words “eileh elohecha Yisrael, this is your god, Israel,” and we atoned with the words, “eileh pikudei, these are the accounts of the Mishkan.” These are the parshiot in which we get back a bit of what we lost at chet ha’egel. Which also means, these are the parshiot that give us insight into how to regain our spirituality when we feel disconnected.

Our moment of connection at Har Sinai was an echo of the first moment of creation.  The world was created with ten ma’amarot. During the first ma’amar, Bereisheit, which brought everything into existence in potential, the unity of Hashem was still perfectly clear. Then, through the next nine ma’amarim, the details of creation came into focus and the unity of Hashem was more hidden. By the time Adam was created in Gan Eden, he was standing in a world of details and differentiation. His avodah was to look out at all those forces and find the unity of Hashem .

We achieved this avodah at the foot of Har Sinai, when we stood as a nation, completely unified in our desire to serve Hashem. At that moment, when Hashem communicated the first of the Ten Commandments, the unity behind creation was revealed with clarity. “Now you see and know that Hashem (YKVK) is Elokim, there is no other.” (Devarim 4:35) The name Elokim reflects Hashem’s mastery over all the various forces of creation.  The name YKVK expresses Hashem’s unified essence, which is beyond the confines of this world.  At Har Sinai we could see clearly how all the forces of nature are only expressions of the unity of Hashem. We became eidim, witnesses, to the unity of Hashem, and in that way unified all of creation.

Unfortunately, we did not stay in that spiritual state of unity. We moved into a state of separation. And that, explains the Maharal, is the root of evil in this world. Chazal compare the four rivers that branch out from the one river in Gan Eden to the four kingdoms of our galut. The farther we are from unity, the farther we are from Hashem. Chazal tell us that Eisav lived in a state of separation, worshiping many gods, and that the antidote to Eisav is Yosef, whose name means to gather, and who has the ability to gather all those many forces into one.

As a nation we gathered together to build the egel, but it was not for the purpose of real unity. We fixed this by gathering together for the purpose of creating the Mishkan, a place where Hashem’s unity could be perceived in the world.

After chet ha’egel, we could no longer understand the Torah in the same way. At Har Sinai we understood the mitzvot from their highest level, from their source, and all the details of the mitzvot followed naturally from that understanding. After chet ha’egel the path was inverted. We see the details, and from the details we recreate the unity. And so, the parshiot after the egel are filled with detail after detail. As a nation, we put all those details together to create the Mishkan. In this way we transformed the path of separation we created with the words “eilah elohecha Yisrael, this is your god, Israel,” into a path toward unity and closeness with Hashem, the path of “eileh pikudei, these are the accounts of the Mishkan.”

Yosef is our guide for this path. He is the force that overcomes Eisav. His name has two meanings, and they work together. The first is asifa, to gather. Yosef’s strength comes from his ability to gather within himself all of his own various strengths, and to focus on the source of those strengths. The other meaning of Yosef’s name is “hosafa,” to add. The result of gathering together our strengths within ourselves, and focusing on the Source, is that we draw forth vitality and siyata dishmaya. When we focus on our connection to Hashem, we have more than what we started with.

This struck me as a particularly powerful message as we are approaching Rosh Chodesh Nissan, and all the preparations that come with preparing for Pesach. There are so many scattered details, so many scattered crumbs. The result is that we ourselves start to feel scattered. This piece of Torah reminded me of the strength we can give ourselves when we take a few moments, perhaps over a cup of tea, to gather together the parts of ourselves that feel scattered when we are stressed. We can gift ourselves with tremendous vitality just by taking a few moments of quiet relaxation and gathering our strengths. Whether we are beginning to prepare for Pesach this week or not, may we all be blessed with a joyous, relaxed, and productive week.

Parshat Ki Tisa

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The Broken-Up Path

At the moment that Bnei Yisrael were building the Golden Calf, Moshe was on Har Sinai in the process of receiving the first set of luchot. The Talmud Yerushalmi (Taanit 4:5) describes the moment with the following, fascinating description. Hashem was holding onto two tefachim of the luchot. Moshe was holding onto two tefachim of the luchot, and there was a space of two tefachim in the middle. As Bnei Yisrael began to worship the golden calf, Hashem began to pull the luchot out of Moshe’s hands. But Moshe refused to let go. He grabbed them back from Hashem, as is described in the last pasuk of the Torah, “And by and the strong hand and awesome power that Moshe performed.” Clearly, this Gemara makes no sense if we understand it to be describing a battle of strength between Moshe and Hashem.

Rav Schorr explains that the Gemara is actually describing how Moshe’s tremendously strong will and  desire to receive the luchot on behalf of Klal Yisrael is what overcame the natural results of their sin.  But that is not the end of the story. Moshe brings the luchot down to Klal Yisrael, and promptly shatters them. Again, Hashem is in full agreement with Moshe’s actions. What was the point of fighting to get the luchot, only to break them?

The first luchot, the ones Moshe fought so hard for, reflected the spiritual level we were on at Har Sinai. The writing on the luchot was the writing of Hashem, and it infused the stones completely, the same way our souls infused and uplifted our bodies completely. After the giving of the Torah, we were charged with the task of waiting for Moshe to come back down, so that we could solidify our spiritual gains.  When we sinned with the golden calf, our neshama, as always, remained pure. But our bodies were no longer on the same spiritual level.

The stones of the first luchot, crafted by Hashem, represented the way our bodies were spiritually uplifted at Har Sinai. However, we were no longer on the level where we could receive them.  Moshe had to break them. At that moment the letters on the luchot, the indestructible words of Hashem, flew into the air. Those same letters would later engrave themselves on the second set of luchot. Nevertheless, Moshe did not get rid of those first stones. The stones he broke he placed in the Aron, next to the second set of luchot.

The message is that we still have a path back to where we started. That path is described at the end of the parsha. After Moshe confronts Bnei Yisrael over the sin, he asks Hashem to reveal Himself to him. Hashem replies, “You will see My Back, and My Face will not be seen.” The Chidushei HaRim points out that the order of the words in this pasuk allow us to read it in a few ways. We can read it, “You will see my back and my face,” and we can read it, “my back and my face will not be seen.” This is a description of the broken-up path to spirituality that we experience today. Each time we get to a place of greater closeness, it opens up a new level of comparative darkness.  We oscillate back and forth between times of closeness and times of distance. If we ride the waves, we move closer to Hashem over the course of our life. What we experience now, after chet ha’egel, is a longer, more broken path. But we did not completely loose that which Moshe fought so hard to keep for us. The broken luchot are still resting in the Aron.

Parshat Tetzaveh

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smoke and light

Smoke and Light

Parshat Tetzavah is the parsha of the kohanim, and it is therefore also the parsha that speaks to the importance of what we do in this world. Let me explain what I mean by that. The creation of the world culminated with the placing of man into Gan Eden, a place where there was room for Hashem’s Presence to be felt. In Gan Eden, Adam was given the job of working on and guarding his surroundings. The Mishkan, like Gan Eden, was also a place where there was room for Hashem’s Presence to be felt, and the Kohen Gadol, like Adam, was given avodah to do within it.

The specific avodah the parsha opens up with is lighting the menorah. The Midrash asks a question about this avodah, which it places in the mouth of Klal Yisrael. “Hashem, we are happy to do whatever you ask of us. But we know that you created the entire world and filled it with light. Do you really need us to light a candle in your Mishkan?” To which Hashem replies that our avodah is precious. He desires the things that we do ourselves. Anyone who has treasured a messy piece of artwork or a misspelled card given to them by a child understands this idea intrinsically.

The Mishkan is an expression of two connected spiritual realities. It expresses how Hashem draws His Presence down to us, to create a relationship with us. It also expresses the way in which we shape our relationship with Hashem by actively responding to Hashem’s presence in the world. This is reflected in the two modes of Torah that we received through the Mishkan, the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. The Written Torah we received as a gift from Hashem, through the nevuah that emanated from the Kodesh HaKedoshim. Moshe was its emissary, and it was represented by the luchot, which were literally the writing of Hashem.

The emissary of the Oral Torah was Aharon. From the beginning of Moshe’s mission to bring us out of Mitzrayim, Aaron served as Moshe’s “peh,” his interpreter. And it is through Aharon that we see the first instance of a s’vara, where human intellect is used to determine halacha (see Vayikra 10:16-20). The menorah, lit by Aharon daily, was the reflection of the Oral Torah in the Mishkan.

When the Gemara (Shabbat 22b) asks, “Why did we need to light the menorah at all? Didn’t we travel by the light of Hashem for all 40 years in the desert?” Rav Schorr understands the question to be, “For 40 years in the desert we were traveling through life according to the direct word of Hashem. Is there room in this scenario for the independent thoughts of man?” And the answer, given to us through Hashem’s command to light the menorah, is yes. Even in a world with 24/7 direct access to Hashem, our response to that revelation, our avodah, is still precious.

And so the parsha begins with Aharon creating light from pure oil in an indescribable golden menorah. This avodah expresses how beautiful our actions, when done properly, can be. But that is only the beginning of the parsha. At the end of the Parsha is the description of the mizbeach hazahav, which seems to be out of place, as it is not with the other keilim of the Mishkan mentioned in Parshat Terumah. We can understand its place here, at the end of the parsha, as giving us insight into the specific avodah of the Kohanim.

The Kohanim have a different avodah than Moshe. The Torah describes Moshe as judging the nation “from morning until evening (Shemot 18:13).” The essence of Moshe’s avodah was to bring the Torah from the clarity and light of the spiritual realm into the comparative darkness of this world. In contrast, the Torah describes Aharon as lighting the candles of the menorah “from evening until morning.” (Shemot 27:21). His avodah is the inverse of Moshe’s. He takes the complexity of this world and draws it close to Hashem. He starts in darkness but ends in light.

This avodah is expressed through the mizbeach hazahav, on which we offer the ketoret. The ketoret has a very interesting feature. One of its 11 mandated ingredients is the chelbanah, which is pungent and not particularly good smelling. The chelbanah is an illusion to the sinners of Israel, and the ketoret can not be made without it.

Aharon is the one who lights the menorah, but he is also the one who offers the ketoret. He is the man of peace, who brings resolution to arguments, and who loves everyone, tzaddik and sinner alike. He is a representation of the nation as a whole, in all our various spiritual levels. His avodah is also a message to us about the value of everything that we do as a response to Hashem’s Presence in the world. All of our avodah, even when it begins in a place of darkness is precious.

Parshat Terumah

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It’s All In The Perspective

This Friday is the anniversary of Moshe Rabbeinu’s death. It is also the anniversary of his birth. This was a confusing point for Haman, who knew about Moshe’s death but not his birth. Haman was overjoyed when the lots he cast determined that Adar, the month of Moshe’s death, would be the month to effect his plot against the Jews. He was less than overjoyed with the way that turned out for him.

This perspective shift really expresses the whole essence of Adar. Adar is the month of Pisces, the month of the two fish, where everything can be seen in two ways. For example, the Torah tells us that Nissan is the first month of the year, which makes Adar the last month, and therefore, from one perspective, the month that is therefore the farthest away from the beginning. On the other hand, time is cyclical and so the month at the very end is also the month closest to the beginning.

Adar is also the month of the leap year. When we need to add an extra month, we add an extra Adar. The purpose of a leap year is to bring into sync our two systems of counting our years: counting by the moon and counting by the sun. Counting by the moon creates a shorter year, an indication of how the light of the moon was diminished through the creation process (see Rashi Bereisheit 1:6). At one point, the light of the moon, which symbolizes Klal Yisrael, was a perfect reflection of the light of the sun, which symbolizes Hashem. The creation process created separation between us, although Yishayahu (30:26) tells us that in the World to Come the light of the moon will once again be like the light of the sun. Looked at from this perspective, the ability to create leap years is part of the ability to effect tikkun, to fix part of what is missing.

In fact, the Sfat Emet tells us that the month of Adar is a month of tikkun and teshuva. Just as there are two “first” months in our year, Tishrei and Nissan, there are two months of teshuva that help us prepare for them. Both Elul and Adar are months of teshuva. But there is a fundamental difference between them. Elul is a month of teshuva through yirah, awe. Adar is the month of teshuva through ahava, love.

Which brings us to this week’s parsha. It’s no accident that we read the parshiot of Terumah and Tetzaveh in Adar. Rav Schorr tells us that even though the instruction to build the Mishkan is written in the Torah two parshiot before we sinned at chet ha’egel, the Mishkan is actually result of and response to that sin. Until chet ha’egel, our bodies were on such a high level that we were each capable of creating an individual dwelling place for the shechina. Each of us was an individual Mishkan. And then we lost it, which was certainly, from one perspective, an unmitigated disaster and a complete tragedy.

On the other hand, Rav Schorr tells us that within this section of the Torah lies incredible strength and encouragement for any of us who have ever sinned. That is because the story of the Mishkan is not the story of a perfect nation, creating a place for Hashem to dwell here based on their own spiritual strength. It is a very different story. It is the story of an imperfect people who reached out to Hashem with a perfect love, and how Hashem responded to that desire and helped us create something amazing.

We did not have the strength to build the Mishkan on our own. In fact, when Hashem first gives Moshe the instructions for the Mishkan, Moshe’s first response is doubt (see Shmot Rabbah 31:8). “Hashem,” he asks, “are Bnei Yisrael actually able to do this?” Hashem answers that not only as a nation are we able to create space for Hashem in this world, but that each and every one of us is capable of accomplishing it on our own. And then the Midrash goes on. Hashem helped make it a reality. Each morning, together with their daily portion of mahn, the Jews in the desert received the precious materials they needed, which they then donated to the Mishkan. They did not have when they needed on their own, but their place of lacking became an opportunity for Hashem to give.

Something similar occurred when the nesiim, the leaders of the tribes, made a serious miscalculation with their donation. They delayed in making their contribution, thinking that they would fill in whatever shortfall there was after everyone else gave. There was, however, not much of a shortfall. And yet, they desperately wanted to make a contribution. Hashem responded to their desire, and rained down the shoham stones, which adorned the Kohen Gadol, together with their daily portion of mahn.

Even Moshe was not able to create the Mishkan on his own. Even after Hashem showed Moshe an image of the Menorah in fire, Moshe was not able to figure out how to make it, and so Hashem simply instructed him to throw the gold into the fire, where Hashem formed it for him (See Rashi, Shemot 25:31). The Sfat Emet points out that surely Hashem was aware that Moshe would not be able to make the Menorah. What was the reason for showing him the image in the flames if it was clear Moshe would not be able to replicate it? The answer is that in the spiritual realm, the most important thing is our ratzon, our Will. Moshe’s effort and desire to make the menorah is what really pulled it, fully formed, out of the flames.

The Ba’al Hanetivot, commenting on Shir HaShirim 3:10, says that the essence of the Mishkan was the burning love of the Jewish people, which animated all the physical parts of the Mishkan and joined them into one expression of love. The Mishkan was a physical expression of a national teshuva from ahava, of a national return to Hashem from love. It starts with the desire of each and every one of us to give.

Teshuva is the ultimate “v’nahaphoch hu,” the ultimate perspective change. Our places of lack, the places where we’ve let ourselves down, the places where we are missing in our relationship with Hashem or our relationship with ourselves, and the places where we just don’t have the ability to do what needs to be done—these can all be viewed from another perspective. Every place of lack is a place where the door is open for Hashem to give.

It may be that the Mishkan was the second plan, the back-up plan, after Bnei Yisrael sinned. But Adar is the month to remember that the back-up plan is just as much Hashem’s plan as the first plan was. We are always in Hashem’s hands. All we have to do is find the ratzon, the desire, and Hashem can change the perspective in an instant.

Parshat Mishpatim

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Light That Can't Be Extinguished

The first word of our parsha, is the connecting word ואלה, “and these.” It seems to clearly connect our parsha with the end of last week’s parsha. However, last week’s parsha ended with the spiritual high of Matan Torah, and this week’s parsha doesn’t seem connected at all. Parshat Mishpatim opens with the detailed case of the eved ivri, a Jew who is sold into slavery by Beit Din in order to pay back the value of items he had stolen. He is given his freedom in the shmita (7th) year, or if he chooses to stay after the shmita year, he attains his freedom in the Yovel (50th) year.

Despite the seeming disconnect, Ramban assures us that there is a very deep connection between the mishpatim given in this parsha and the Ten Commandments of last week’s parsha.  More specifically, there is a connection  between the halachot of the eved ivri and the first command, “I am Hashem your G-d who took you out of Egypt.” The midrash expresses the connection as follows: the dibbrot are the Torah of the morning while the mishpatim are the Torah of the evening. (See Shemot Rabbah 30:11).”

The giving of the Torah on Har Sinai was called morning because it was a time of intense clarity which was so strong, it changed our reality. Hashem does not use a language of command when He tells us, “I am Hashem, Your G-d, who took you out of Egypt.” There was no need. We heard the words directly from Hashem and we lived them. They were, in fact, the final component of our Yetziat Mitzrayim. The GRA explains that Yetziat Mitzrayim is mentioned fifty times in the Torah, because we left Mitzrayim fifty times. Each day from the time we physically left Mitzrayim we left another level of tumah behind us. When we stood at Har Sinai we had reached the highest level of taharah. As Hashem spoke to us, we experienced the reality that Hashem is the only power in the world. The result of that clarity was immediate freedom from being in service to anything or anyone else in the world.

In that state of purity there was no need for the mishpatim.  Our bodies naturally did the mitzvot. Not only was there no robbery, our possessions were affected by our kedusha to such an extent that they did no harm to others.  However, we did not stay on Har Sinai forever. When the revelation was over and evening fell, there was a need for the light of the Torah to be clothed in such a way that it could apply in the darkness. And that is exactly what the mishpatim are. They contain the same light as the light of the Ten Commandments, but the light is compressed and clothed in a different form, so that we can continue to access it from a different place. We described this phenomenon last week. At Matan Torah the light of the Torah that exists in shamayim as black fire on white fire was compressed and clothed into the words of the Torah, so that we could understand it in our world.

The mitzvah of eved ivri is a mirroring of the first of the Ten Commandments, “I am Hashem, Your G-d.” It is what the revelation of “Anochi” looks like from a place of darkness. Think for a moment about the mindset of a thief. A thief is willing to steal because he assumes that no one is watching. That “no one” includes Hashem. He has therefore, with his actions, denied that Hashem is in control and denies Hashem as his master. Middah knegged middah, Hashem punishes him by giving him another master.

However, an eved ivri does not remain a slave forever. The kedusha of the first of the ten commandments, the recognition that it is Hashem, and only Hashem, who is our master, remains imprinted in our hearts. “I am Hashem Your G-d” cannot be uprooted. This is why the eved ivri is meant to go free in the seventh year. The Maharal explains that the purpose of the slavery is to repair the damage the thief did through his averot. However, averot only damage us to a certain point. There is always a point at our center that remains connected to “I am Hashem.” The six years of slavery correspond to the six directions of the external world. They correspond to the aspect of ourselves we are able to corrupt with our sins. However, the six directions are connected by a single, internal point. (You can imagine this as the point around which a cube is drawn) That point, which corresponds to our internal aspect of self, and our inner connection to Hashem, cannot be destroyed. It cannot be enslaved. When a person reaches that level, the seventh level, he reaches his freedom. Even if he is so attached to his illusions and delusions that he refuses to go free in the seventh year, the kedusha of “I am Hashem Your G-d” continues to accompany him, all the way to the very deepest level of tumah, the 50th level, and from there, in the Yovel year, it brings him out.  

Our parsha, which begins with the mishpatim, has an interesting structure. The end of the parsha returns to Har Sinai. It’s almost as if our parsha follows the order of a day: “it was evening and it was morning, one day.” We experience the darkness, the evening, first. But the evening always leads to the morning.  They are both part of the same day. The mishpatim and the aseret hadibrot are the same light, just clothed differently. The avodah changes, but the connection remains the same. As Rashi tells us at the beginning of this parsha, “Just as the first are from Sinai, so are these from Sinai.” And as David Hamelech tells us, “If I ascend to the heavens, there You are, and if I make my bed in the grave, behold, You are there (Tehillim 139:8).” Hashem remains with us, connected to us as our G-d, wherever we are, even in the greatest darkness. We never lose our connection to Him.