Pikudei: Where is my tree?

When I was a boy, the Jewish National Fund had pushkas with pictures trees on them.  The donations were supposed to be going to plant trees in ( the relatively newly founded) State of Israel.  The money would be used to reclaim the desert, drain the swamps ( and eliminate malaria [an actual great success]). 

When a big donor would come, the  JNF would show him the plaque over the grove that his money had planted.  When the next donor came, a plaque with her name would be placed at the entrance to the same grove. 

The accounting principles of the parsha are far more sound. The tally of silver corresponds exactly to the number of donors.  

The mishkan was everybody's tree, all mixed into one glorious structure, plated  onto cedar wood .  The cloud and fire of the Lrd hovered over it and the cloud directed the people in the desert. 

The mishkan was like the JNF trees. The mishkan was an act of preparation for the nationhood that would involve taking possession of the land.  The JNF trees were to prepare the land for habitation. 

I wonder if my tree is a cedar? I hope it is a eucalyptus.

Vayakheil: privacy

The parsha describes the construction of the mishkan.  The earlier ( very similar) parsha - Terumah- described the plans for the mishkan.  The actual assembly merits its own record.

This parsha disturbs me.  Where is the mishkan that I was supposed to build?  The parsha says that every one who had skill/talent did her work.  Did I use my talent talent to the fullest?

When I was a fellow, training in hematology and oncology, at Columbia University (1986) I presented a poster at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  The work demonstrated that cells made (more) malignant by the introduction of a specific cancer inducing gene(oncogene) were killed by different drugs, depending upon which gene was introduced.  The idea that cancer treatment should be based upon the molecular cause seemed  very reasonable to me. The idea did not catch on at the time.

Now, it is practical to identify the activation of many of the genes that (presumably) cause cancers. There are multimillion dollar projects, at Harvard, Oxford, etc, and a large industry  dedicated  to correlating gene alterations with  response to cancer  treatment.  My Mishkan is being built, my contribution was smaller than I would have liked.


The mishkan is a set of boxes, one inside the other.  The arrangement attests to the majesty of the innermost content, the Tablets of the Law. Entombed in a golden coffin ( aron) with golden , winged, Cherubim  adorning the  cover (of forgiveness- Kaporeth), the tablets have their own room.  They are separated from the holy service objects ( table, candellabra, spice alter)

There is an inaccessible, super holy and super private  place inside every person  We never get there. Maybe, rarely  we can  get close. 

Ki Thisah: to know and love

Ki Thisah: to know and love

The parsha begins with the poll tax.  Every man over 20 years of age is assessed a tax of half a shekel,  The rich give no more and the poor give no less. It is a  blind, perhaps insensitive,  equality.  This  tax is a an atonement.  It is an atonement in advance of the great sin which is to follow: the creation and worship of the golden calf. 

When it comes to making the golden calf, the funds are raised by the voluntary donation of  gold from the earrings broken off the ears of the women and children.  Is this redirecting of gifts a better economics? 

Moshe returns from the mountain, hears the party and sees the golden calf. What was the calf? 

The people had requested  an E-ohim, a power that would go before them.  An entity to answer to .  An entity to unify the people,  a place to deposit their worship. Because 

 כִּי זֶה מֹשֶׁה הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלָנוּ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לֹא יָדַעְנוּ מֶה הָיָה לוֹ.

That man Moshe,who took us out of Egypt,  we never understood what was with him. 

The people wanted something they could understand, something from the old days in Egypt, something that felt right in the context of the culture they had grown up in. Apple pie, pretzels, beer, TV, tolerance.

The people had a stiff neck, they could not change their value system. 

The golden calf was made before the Moshe had descended, before the law had been formally given.  Moshe saw that the people had broken the law by making the calf, so he broke the (tablets of the) law.  The people were not ready.  They did not understand, because: even when they stood under the mountain where Gd displayed glory, there actions were perverse. 

Then comes the great act of forgiveness. The people had made a most fundamental error. Moshe begs their pardon from Gd and receives it , after threatening to be eliminated from the book. For his intercession, Moshe becomes something more than a person, he becomes a person whose face shines , who must wear a veil and live separately. He is the Beloved of Gd who stood in the cleft of the rock. The man who understands Gd

Perhaps the people also have intuition regarding Gd. The people remove their edyo, jewlery, the gift bestowed upon them, the testament of Gd's love for each of them.  And then Gd commands them to remove the jewelry. Gd commands what Israel has done .

My mother told me: "You do not have to understand your wife, you just have to love her."

Titzaveh: Sanctification

How do you make a person holy? This week's parsha gives the instructions.  

You dress him in special clothes. Clothes make the man.

You put a sign in his head: HOLY to GD

He wears golden bells on the hem of his tunic

He bears a breastplate of justice and prophecy

You designate places that only the holy one can go, on holy occasions

There he does holy things: with animal parts and blood and oil and bread

You smear him with oil and sprinkle blood on him 

And you write it all down  so that it is remembered forever.
And you make it hereditary.  That is the wild card.  How do you know that Cohen generations down the road will be holy? Does the nature of holiness change over time?

The story of  Shemayah and Abtalion. informs the point
Yoma 71b


 Our 
Rabbis taught: It happened with a high priest 
that as he came forth from the Sanctuary, all 
the people2 followed him, but when they saw 
Shemayah3 and Abtalion, they forsook him 
and went after Shemayah and Abtalion. 
Eventually Shemayah and Abtalion visited 
him, to take their leave of the high priest. He 
said to them: May the descendants of the 
heathen come in peace!4 — 

They answered him: May the descendants of 
the heathen, who do the work of Aaron, 
arrive in peace, but the descendant of Aaron, 
who does not do the work of Aaron, he shall 
not come in peace!5 

It is noteworthy that Hillel is introduced in Pirkei Avoth as  the student of  Shemayah and Abtalion.

הלל ושמאי קבלו מהם הלל אומר הוי מתלמידיו של אהרן אוהב שלום ורודף שלום אוהב את הבריות ומקרבן לתורה:

Translation:

Hillel and Shammai received from them. Hillel would say: Be of the disciples of Aaron--a lover of peace, a pursuer of peace, one who loves the creatures and draws them close to Torah

The heredity of the holiness is not genetic, it is an educational process and a home environment, like the holiness of Israel.