Questions
and Commentary on Parashat Vayyakhel-Pequdei & Shabbat HaChodesh
1. What is the relationship between this week's parasha and last week's? How is the
keeping of Shabbat related to the construction of the Mishkan (tabernacle)?
Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan
There is a huge contrast
between this week's parashiyot, Vayyakhel-Pequdei, and the
drama of last week's parasha, Ki Tissa'. The threat of
loss of Divine Presence contrasts with the movement, at the end of this week's
readings, of the Divine Presence from the mountain, outside the community of Israel,
into the midst of the people in the Mishkan, God's residence. In between
the threat of loss and the reality of God's presence stands Israel's
careful, faithful, and fastidious construction of the tabernacle.
When Moses returns from
his most recent trip up the mountain, he calls together the whole Israelite
community to give them the renewed covenant. The commandments are three: keep
Shabbat, give gifts for the establishment of divine worship in the Mishkan,
and for all the skilled (chakham-lev; Exodus 35:10) to "make all
that the LORD has commanded." God's relationship with Israel,
however gracious, is also dependent on Israel's
ongoing hospitality, on Israel's
making room for God.
Israel's
faithfulness begins with keeping Shabbat:
Six days you shall do work, and on the seventh, you will have
a Sabbath of complete rest for the LORD; all who do work on it will be killed. You
shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings on the Sabbath day.
Exodus 35:2-3
Keeping Shabbat is not
only about not doing work. Shabbat also requires active preparation, intention,
of working to make room for God in the midst of our week. One must work in
preparation for the Shabbat. Many people I know begin their preparation days in
advance. They might set the table on Thursday night, go food shopping on
Wednesday, think about inviting guests on Tuesday. Gradually, Shabbat becomes
more than day of rest to enable you to do work during the week. Rather, the
week itself comes to serve Shabbat enabling you to dedicate a day of complete
rest to God. Shabbat, then, reorders Israel's
time from the endless insomnia of slavery to Pharaoh to a new cycle of six and
one, a full week directed towards the welcoming worship of God.
Israel's
faithfulness continues with their giving towards the construction of the Mishkan.
The Mishkan is a suitable home for God in the midst of the people.
People are to give teruma, gifts, to God for its construction. The list
is extensive and opulent (Exodus 35:5-9). Israel's
response to God's command through Moses is not what you might expect. They do
not give the minimum to construct the Mishkan. They do not grumble about
not having enough resources. Rather their giving proceeds out of an awareness
of the abundance God has given them. They bring "more" than was needed for the
task, so much so that Moses had to order them to stop their giving (Exodus 36:4-7).
This week's readings
teach us that God's dwelling with Israel
is contingent upon their welcoming of him into their community. God's dwelling
with Israel is,
of course, the ultimate purpose of God's deliverance of Israel
from Egypt (Exodus
29:45-46). In this week's parashiyot, Israel
and God culminate this redemption. Israel
invites God betocham "in their midst," and God dwells richly with them. Israel
makes room for God. God dwells with this people because they set out the
welcome mat of ordering their lives according to God's time schedule, of
assembling all of their finest gifts to prepare for God's coming, and of
fashioning a home for God crafted out of the most precious of materials.
2. Why were the leaders of the children of Israel
the last to bring their donations for the Mishkan?
Is there anything in the text that would imply this was a good or bad thing?
What lessons in leadership can we learn from this episode?
Rabbi Jason Sobel
That leaders were last to
bring their gifts for the construction of the tabernacle seems a bit
conspicuous since they are the first to donate at it's inauguration (Numbers 7).
The Midrash takes note of this fact and offers some interesting insights that
teach us a lot about the nature of leadership.
Initially according to Exodus
Rabba, the nesi'im, the leaders of the Tribes of Israel, wanted
to donate all the materials necessary to build the entire Mishkan
(tabernacle). They presumptuously assumed that the Lord would prefer to dwell
in a place made completely from their offerings, since they perceived
themselves as being more spiritual then the majority of congregation (Exodus
Rabba 12, 19). Moses however made it abundantly clear that God wanted
the materials to come from the free will offerings of the entire
congregation (Exodus 35:4-5). The people gave so generously in response to the
Lord's command that Moses requested that people stop bringing their donations
after just two days (Exodus 36:7). This greatly grieved the tribal leaders, for
it became apparent to them that there gifts were no longer necessary for the
building of the actual tabernacle. Commenting on this point Sifre
writes:
At the construction of the tabernacle, the leaders smugly
said: Let the assembly of the people give whatever they will donate, and
whatever is lacking we will give to complete the necessary amount. But when the
people donated everything that was necessary, as it says, "The materials were
more then enough:, the leaders said, "What is there left for us to contribute?"
So "they brought the shoham stones..."
Therefore, at the dedication of the altar, they were the first to donate. And
because they were tardy at the building of the tabernacle, a letter yud is missing from their title; for in
this passage the word nesi'im,
"leaders," is written without the first yud,
as a sign of disapproval.
From a rabbinic perspective,
it is clear that the tribal leaders erred in the sight of God by waiting to
donate their gifts. This view is based upon on the defective spelling of the
word "leaders" which never occurs in this form elsewhere in Scripture and upon
the fact the Numbers 7 devotes a seemingly disproportionate amount of attention
on the tribal leaders' offerings at the dedication of the tabernacle
(seventy-nine verses to be exact). The repetitive nature of Numbers 7 makes
more sense when viewed as trying to demonstrate that Israel's
leaders were making amends for their previous mistake.
The first lesson we learn
about leadership from this passage and the tradition that surrounds it, is that
true leaders seek to empower people to serve the Lord. Great leaders do not
seek to do all the work alone but rather see themselves as equippers who teach
and empower others to do the work of the Kingdom. Shaul underscores this point
in Ephesians 4:11-13:
And he gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists,
shepherds, and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do
his work and build up the Kehila, the
body of Messiah, until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's
Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full
stature of Messiah.
A second important
leadership lesson that we learn is that true leaders lead by example. It was a
big failure on the part of the tribal leaders to stand idly, not being the
first to bring their gifts joyfully. Rather they should have demonstrated their
zeal for the Lord and his commandments. The mark of a great leader is his or
her ability to influence, inspire, and develop the people around them into being
better people and leaders. This however can only be achieved when one leads by
example. Like Messiah Yeshua, we must lives that people want to emulate (1 Corinthians
11:1).
A second important
leadership lesson we should learn is that true leaders lead by example. It was
a big failure on the part of the tribal leaders to stand idly by as the
congregation brought their offerings. Rather they should have demonstrated
their zeal for the Lord and his commandments by being the first to generously
give towards the work of the tabernacle. The mark of a successful leader is
seen by their ability to influence, inspire, and develop the people around them
into better people and leaders. But leaders who do not lead by example will
fail to reproduce other leaders because no one will be willing to follow them.
Like Messiah Yeshua, we must lives worth emulating.
Third, leaders should be
quick to admit to and learn from their mistakes. Like the leaders of Israel,
we must demonstrate that we have learned from our mistakes by doing the exact
opposite when we are put in a similar situation. The leaders of Israel
clearly demonstrated they had learned their lesson by being the first to bring
lavish gifts at the inauguration of Mishkan.
Lance Laytner
Matthew 13:1-23 - Seeking Amidst the Double
Hiding of the Face of God
Then
the disciples came and said to him, "Why do you speak to them in parables?" And
he [Yeshua] answered them, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the
kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given."
Matthew 13:10-11
One of the more
distressing habits of the Almighty is that he sometimes exercises his
sovereignty through silence, and his Son seems to have picked up this family
trait. The Messiah intentionally chooses not to clear up the confusion of the
multitude. This kind of non-action on the part of God also takes center stage
in our recent Purim holiday and can give us insight into the Messiah's above
statement.
For a book of the Bible,
it seems a glaring omission that the name of God is no where mentioned in the Megillat
Esther. But the Rabbis point to the name of Esther, herself, as an
explanation. "Esther" comes from a Hebrew root word meaning "hidden" and evokes
Deuteronomy 31:18 in which God warns that idolatry will cause him to "hide his
face" (haster astir panai) from Israel. This concept of Hester Panim
grew in Jewish thought as an important way of understanding why God sometimes
chooses not to intrude in human affairs.
Yeshua seems to follow
this same reasoning later in our Besora reading, attributing his
deliberate obtuseness to the crowd's sin (Matthew 13:13-15). But the Messiah goes on to add another layer of
explanation for how the Word becomes hidden, revealing only to his disciples
the important devotional truth behind the parable.
This double hiding is
also mirrored in Deuteronomy 31:18 when hiding is doubled up as haster astir.
The rabbis have grappled with the ramifications for centuries to no consensus,
but Yeshua's explanation of his parable may be the missing piece of the puzzle.
It seems we must navigate two different Hidings of God's Face, or presence, to
walk successfully in his will. The first hiding is initiated by God as a
reaction to sin. This hiding is mirrored by Yeshua refusing to explain his
parable to the crowd. The second hiding could be more accurately described as
allowing God's presence to be hidden from us. This is one warning of Yeshua's
explanation of the Parable of the Seeds when he details the situations, both
spiritual and natural, that can cause our root in the Word to be lost.
While part of the life of
every Believer is waiting patiently on God, to be completely in the dark
concerning God's will for an extended period of time should be a wake-up call
to check that we have not allowed this second kind of hiding to take place. The
Messiah told us, "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not
know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I
have heard from my Father I have made known to you" (John 15:15). To live a
life of anything less is to deny our birthright in being born from above. As
our Messiah warns, we must constantly make sure that the seed of the Word is
always finding good soil within our souls.
Parashat Vayyakhel-Pequdei & Shabbat HaChodesh
1. What is the
relationship between this week's parasha and last week's? How is the
keeping of Shabbat related to the construction of the Mishkan
(tabernacle)?
2. Why were the leaders of the children of Israel
the last to bring their donations for the Mishkan? Is there anything in
the text that would imply this was a good or bad thing? What lessons in
leadership can we learn from this episode?
NEXT WEEK'S READINGS
- PARASHAT VAYYIQRA
Leviticus
1:1-5:6
Isaiah
43:21-44:23
Matthew
14:12-33
UPCOMING YACHAD NETWORK EVENTS
3rd Annual Young Leaders Shabbaton
Beverly
Hills, CA ● June 8-9, 2007
6th Annual Young Messianic Jewish
Scholars Conference
Beverly
Hills, CA ● June 8-9, 2007
Learning 
