Summary

The double portion Vayakhel-Pekudeh is one of the seven designated Torah portions that, depending on the number of Shabbats in the year are either read separately or combined so as to ensure that the entire Scroll will be read throughout any given year. The portions Vayakhel and Pekudeh are thematically linked as they meticulously describe and record all the donations given, materials used and the works done for the building of the mishkan (the Tabernacle) and all its holy vestments. The mishkan is completed and inaugurated by Moses on the first day of the month of Nisan, almost a full year after the Exodus from Egypt. At its inauguration service, Aaron and his sons are anointed as priests while God’s Presence fills the Sanctuary, which is indicated by a cloud which hovers over it, and which will lead the Israelites throughout their journey through the wilderness. And so the book of Exodus ends.

Moses is then informed of Israel’s ‘great sin’, the building and worship of the golden calf. Moses rejects God’s response, to substitute the people with a new, obedient lot and wins God’s approval by being blessed with a full revelation of the divine attributes that will be granted to mortals. However, Moses’ anger leads him to smash the tablets of stone. Dealing with punishment on human rather than Divine terms, Moses then returns up the mountain to receive the second set of tablets. The terms of the ‘New Covenant’ provides greater emphasis to cultic issues than the largely ethical ones of the original Decalogue.

Commentary by Rabbi Kathleen de Magtige-Middleton of The Liberal Jewish Synagogue

At first glance the end of the Book of Exodus seems a bit of an anticlimax. The Book of Exodus begins with a divine struggle for freedom; a real battle between good and evil, between the ethical imperative of God for morality, righteousness, compassion and holiness and human oppression, callousness and indifference. Exodus ends with the detailed description of the building of the Tabernacle and the divine occupation thereof. A description which is repeated in all its rather tedious detail no less than three times; first in the divine command to Moses, then as Moses’ command to the people and finally as an account of the actual building of it.

In fact it is not just the very detailed description, which makes us lose interest so easily, but is the threefold repetition, which seems so superfluous and unnecessary, and which on account of its superfluity has puzzled many traditional commentators because in fact the language of the Torah is normally very terse as it uses its words very economically.

The Midrash explains that the detailed account of the building of the Tabernacle and its manifold repetitions are an example of good practice in dealing with community funds and valuable donations such as the gold, silver and fine materials used for the building of the Mishkan. The Midrash elaborates on this, even by claiming that the official who supervised the collection of shekels was forbidden to wear any garments with long sleeves and pockets so that he could not be suspected of keeping any public money for himself. (Song of Songs Rabbah 3:7)

Even with this insightful Midrash and the lessons we can learn from it, the end of the Book of Exodus always seemed to me an anticlimax, as the high drama of its beginning seems to fizzle out with legal and rather mundane minutia. However, it took me a trip to Hanover, and subsequently to the pretty little town of Hameln at last week’s WUPJ European Region Conference to understand the true meaning and impact that the building sanctuaries has on a community. It taught me that the Book of Exodus does not at all end on a low, but rather on a ‘happily ever after’ of fairytales.

Only after high drama – the drama of the Exodus from Egypt and the shattering experience of the shoah and the sheer extermination of German Jewry, the need for building new buildings and to fill them with the life giving energy and vitality of faith in divine promise even against all the odds, combined with human endeavour, prayer and hope, becomes truly apparent.

After the Shoah German Jewry was all but gone and throughout mainland Europe people, Jews but mainly non-Jews endeavoured to rebuilt a legacy, a memorial for what was; empty buildings, or monuments on plots of wasteland where once a synagogue stood, or a vibrant community, studied, prayed and celebrated their lives. But now these empty monuments are once again occupied. All over Germany small communities are springing up again – building themselves up, teaching their children, training rabbis, and building synagogues. Going to Germany, and witnessing the pride with which these communities tried to raise funds to built once again their own synagogues taught me how vitally important it is to built a building one can proudly call one’s own, a symbol of permanency – even though history has shown its feebleness, and to fill it with holiness and life!

Building the Tabernacle was for the Israelites similarly a sign of permanence, of their survival, their freedom and their own concrete identity in the world. It symbolised the cementing of the Divine covenant, true acceptance of God’s ethical imperative as the guiding principle in their lives; a true symbol of victory against evil and oppression. Therefore it is right when we read the last words of our portion this Shabbat that we should say chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek.

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