Vayakheil: What is inside

 

The book of Exodus( Shemoth) ends with 5 chapters. The fourth chapter, Vayakheil, which we read this week,  and the fifth (Pikudei) repeat the material in the first and second ( Terumah,Titzaveh).  Between them, Ki Thisa, the parsha we read last week, describes the drama that surrounded the Sinai experience. The Israelites gather at Mount Sinai, they witness the awesome voice of Gd, when they tire of waiting for the return of Moses, they ask that  a formed  symbol be made. The golden calf is constructed. The violation incurs the wrath of Moses. He shatters the tablets.  Gd is prepared to abandon the nation. Moses mollifies the anger.  The text returns to the details of building the sanctuary.

This embedding of the golden calf within the description of the sanctuary is eerie. The sanctuary, Gd's guest house, surrounds the golden calf, the symbol of misplaced faith. The millenia that have passed in the absence of a Temple and the rites performed therein, make the sandwich stranger. The Temple and its ceremonies, have become foreign to Jews. The sculptured cherubim and the  representational  tapestries seem idolatrous to the modern Jew. The animal sacrifices seem pre-Jewish.

This week's parsha opens with וַיַּקְהֵ֣ל, and Moses congregated, assembled. Moses gathered the people. The golden calf had demonstrated the risk of  the assembled people. The golden calf experience had shown that there is a populist spirit. The assembled poeple have hidden needs and they do not know how to direct them. Let to their own devices, they will probably make a mistake. Moses is here to provide direction; but he cannot clarify the ineffable core issues.

The golden calf was the product of a desire that emerged from the situation at Sinai. A  large population was expecting revelation. It was not coming from the promised source, so they created a substitute.  They satisfied the desire for an object. The distortion was the crime more heinous than denial. 

The sanctuary serves some of the same needs. It is a central point for the populace to focus upon.  It is the site of the ritual and the mystery. Its deepest secrets are inaccessible. They are the depths of the heart. 

Moses assembled the people to tell them Gd's commandments. He conveys the prohibition of  melacha, "work" on the Sabbath. Rabbi Hanina bar Hama, in the Talmud, relates the specific activities forbidden on the Sabbath  to those that were done in the sanctuary. The prohibited actions are exactly those that are done in the construction of the sanctuary. Despite the enthusiasm, construction of the mishkan was limited to six days  and was not continued on the Sabbath. 

Once the rites of the sanctuary were established, they were continued, even on the Sabbath. The prohibitions of slaughtering an animal, of using fire, etc were all set aside for the service. The lambs were slaughtered, their flesh was burned. The forbidden is commanded; worship is mixed with prohibition. 

There is an elusive, inaccessible depth  that is the source of good and evil. The feelings and motives that necessitate the Temple are those that created the golden calf. There is  internal uncertainty about which actions are positive and which are prohibited and a drive to do something. Is this  the source of battling for a cause, knowing that the goals and the methods are flawed?

I like the word confused. It comes to mean lost, bewildered, disoriented.  But at core it means  mingled together. It is the core  that can never be untangled. A path must be chosen. The second law of thermodynamics predicts that most roads lead to dead ends (or worse). The tradition has much to offer.