Parshat Vayakhel-Pekudei: D’var by Rachel Bell
We are all adjusting to a new normal, or semi-normal, or I can’t believe this is really happening and nothing about it is normal but we have to learn to work with it normal. In times of upheaval, many of us feel as though we’re helpless or useless or burdensome. The fixers inside of us feel like everything is broken, and that there’s nothing we can do about it. We spend our time taking up new crafts, giving in to the will of the Duolingo owl, and revamping (or starting) an exercise routine. There doesn’t seem to be a home-base, a central force connecting us, something to return to, to feel safe and secure in. We are looking for sanctuary in places that are new, or finding ourselves in places that feel far too old.
In this week’s parshah, Vayakhel-Pekudei, G-d commands the Israelites to build the Mishkan (Sanctuary, Tent of Meeting, tabernacle) in which G-d’s presence can dwell among the Jewish people. G-d provides detailed instructions and asks the people to bring all of the materials for construction. It is written in the parshah, when Moses told the people to go, “the entire community departed before him.” Every member of the community contributed. The Israelites were so intent on this sanctuary being built, and being built properly, that they provided all that they could, to the point that Moses had to tell them to stop giving. They had given too much.
When it feels as though the world around us has stopped, we feel an even greater need to give as much of ourselves as possible. We feel an imperative to produce, to fix, to learn. I think, for many of us, the challenge comes in sitting still, in taking a break, in being with ourselves.
The Israelites did not have to seek the tools to build the Sanctuary — nothing had to be bought or bartered or thought up from scratch. They had the tools all along. In their homes, in their hearts, in their community. We, too, hold many more tools that we know, just waiting to be needed, to be tapped into, ready to engage in the work of building and repairing, as well as the work of just being.
Just as Moses told the Israelites to stop giving, as the Mishkan had all that it needed, I challenge each of us to stop as well. Even just for a moment. I want us to remember all of the things that we have inside of us — all of the hope and the skills and the music and the words and the love. I want us to know, even just for a moment, that that’s enough. This does not mean that we are ignoring the pain and the suffering or the loss of life and livelihood, it just means that we are holding both — we are holding the light along with the darkness.
We are right now faced with a time like no other. We are afraid and seeking and vulnerable. We are all looking for our own Sanctuary — in G-d, in ourselves, in books, in movies, in nature. I believe in finding Sanctuary in each other, not so much in the individual people around us who are also looking, but in the idea of community. In the traditions that maintain us. In the Zoom calls and the check-ins and the text messages and the knowing. Knowing that there was a reason our ancestors made the Sanctuary portable; they did not know where life would take us. And sometimes, we don’t either, but we know G-d (or sanctuary, or history, or whatever grounds you) is there, among us.
This Mishkan, this Sanctuary, was built on, by, and for community. When the Sanctuary was done being constructed, the Shechinah, the divine feminine presence of G-d, entered. Her presence told the Israelites “well done, your work is complete, I am here to stay”.
Some days, I feel her presence more clearly than others. When I sit around a table for a tish at the Bronfman Center, when I spend time with a friend I haven’t seen in awhile, when I cook my mom’s recipes, when I watch the sunset over the Hudson River. In this time of change, I am learning to find her in new things. In moments of laughter, in good news, in unexpected messages from friends I haven’t seen in a while.
The location of our Tent of Meeting may have changed, dispersed, or moved online, but we are still meeting. We are doing so for the safety of ourselves and others. We are remembering that in that, is the holy work. In this parshah, we are told that Moses, along with the community, completes the work of the Mishkan, but the work of Sanctuary is not done. In Pirkei Avot it is written, “you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it”.
We are, at this moment, faced with tasks far beyond ourselves — to stay inside, to take care of ourselves, to be conscious of people around us, to protect the most vulnerable, to fight against racism and xenophobia, to care for the sick, to participate in our democracy, to keep in mind the people for whom looking for sanctuary is not new, the people who have been separated from their families and loved ones (in this time and before it) because of disease or walls or inhumane action — we do what we can, we practice pikuach nefesh (preserving life), we grieve when we have to, we grieve when we want to, we get to, but none of us carry this burden alone.
I know you might not believe me, it’s hard not to feel alone when we are being directed to be just that, alone. But, wherever we are, there is shechinah. Wherever we are, we still have this community — in the most evolving, shifting, building, messy, beautiful way. We have made this Mishkan together, and may we all find sanctuary within it.
While we might not all be sitting around another table for a tish for a while, there is one song that I want to leave you with, perhaps to sing around your own table, or at a Zoom Shabbat, or just to yourself, maybe you’ll find sanctuary in these words, I know I have:
Ve’asu li mikdash veshachanti betocham. Va’anachnu nevarech yah me’atah ve’ad olam, hallelujah
.וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם. וַאֲנַחְנוּ נְבָרֵךְ יָהּ מֵעַתָּה וְעַד עוֹלָם הַלְלוּ יָהּ
Hashem prepare me, to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true. And with thanksgiving, I’ll be a living sanctuary for you.
