A word of Torah:
The Hasidic master, the Sefat Emet, considered the moment of the building of the sanctuary as the spiritual apex of the Exodus story. The Jewish people came together as one to give generously of both their wealth and skill to build the mishkan/sanctuary. Va-yakhel: Moses gathered all the people to participate in this project.
In contrast, last week the same verb, Va-yakhel, is used to describe the people coming together to demand the building of the Golden calf. The midrash says that the people first approached Hur, Miriam's son. When he refused, the mob killed him. After that, faced with “an offer he couldn’t refuse,” Aaron agreed to create the Golden Calf.
It was not so long ago that many of us felt that our world was continuing to improve despite periodic setbacks. Modernity offered a world based on science and the rational. Life seemed more knowable and less chaotic. We had a sense that the next generation would inherit a better world.
Today, many people think the opposite is likely. It often feels that we are living in a period similar to the disunity of the Golden Calf rather than the one envisioned by the Sefat Emet of the unity in building the sanctuary. We are divided. We feel weighed down by Covid. The future of the planet itself is uncertain. What can help us move forward?
There is a folk tale that comes in many versions about a Jew who seeks a hidden treasure and is told in a dream to look for it by the gate of a distant city. Arriving there, he overhears a guard telling a fellow guard about how he had a dream about a treasure buried under the table of some Jew named Hayyim from Lvov. Knowing that he is himself Hayyim, he returns home to find the treasure that was always right there.
The Dalai Lama teaches that a pure body of perfect spontaneity can be at the heart of our inner experience. The Sefat Emet teaches that everyone has a spark of holiness within that cannot be extinguished.
What we seek is not across the sea or with some teacher or book that we have not yet discovered. It can be found by going out into nature. It can be found by sitting quietly and paying attention to what arises. It is striving to hear what the Voice of Sinai is saying in this moment.
In the Torah, the building of the sanctuary is connected to Shabbat. Why? Because Shabbat is about oneness. Like the experience of building the mishkan, on Shabbat we are to build “a sanctuary in time” to use Abraham Joshua Heschel’s phrase. We renounce our mastery of the world and slow down and listen. Va-yakhel—we gather all the pieces of ourselves, we gather with family and friends, we gather with a community of study and prayer to find the treasure of oneness that lies beneath our feet.
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