Dear Friends:
We have come to the end of the Book of Exodus.
We have come to the Month of Adar II (Since this is a leap year in the Jewish calendar, there are two months of Adar.)
And what is the Torah telling us this week?
“He made … they hammered … they made… they made… he placed… he made… they filled… they made… they made… they made… they made… they brought…he took… he put…he placed… he placed… he erected….”
What a Torah Portion! Is this a way to end the Book of Exodus? Not only does it seem repetitious, but we already knew how everything was to be constructed. Why does the Book of Exodus end this way?
I believe, my friends, that the week’s Torah Portion contains the most profound instruction for us. Only a few weeks ago, we witnessed the calamity from whose effects we are still suffering, the creation of the Golden Calf, whose worship, coming on the heels of countless earth-shaking miracles, threatened to destroy the entire mission of the Children of Israel.
How was the Nation to be saved?
How were we to rescue ourselves?
How would a depressed nation climb out of the pit?
This question is relevant today, because we are in the same desperate condition as our ancestors! We have also prostrated ourselves before alien deities! After the countless miracles throughout our long history, we have become very weak. We have settled into the mundane lifestyle of the culture of Exile, and it is a real question whether, in fact, we “believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Moshiach.” (Maimonides, Thirteen Principles, Principle 12)
What is the antidote to the catastrophe of the Golden Calf? What does the Torah in fact show us? Think about this, please, my dear friends, because it is amazing! The Nation says, “We are going to continue! We are going to go on! We may be buffeted by one terrible punishment after another and they are because of our own sins, but we are still going to go on! We don’t deserve to be redeemed, but we are not giving up!”
We are going to receive another set of Tablets of the Commandments!
We are going to build the Tabernacle!
We are going forward even though the way appears hopeless!
There is a famous line in Sefer ha Chinuch: “Da ki ha’adam nifal k’fi p’ulosauv… Know that a man is influenced in accordance with his actions.” (Mitzvah 16) “His heart and all this thoughts are always [drawn] after his deeds ….”
The therapy for catastrophe is to keep going!
Don’t we all know holy people who lost their entire families in the Holocaust, and, despite the most crushing blows that anyone has ever received throughout history, despite the bestial cruelty that was heaped upon these holy people, they went onward, and they built new lives and new families. Despite the agony that must be forever buried in their hearts, they actually learned to smile, to live, to become loving parents, grandparents and Torah scholars, leaders of Israel from whose radiance a new world was nourished!
It is amazing! They went forward!
And this is what the Children of Israel did in the Desert following the catastrophe of the Golden Calf. They went onward. They built the Tabernacle, whose entire purpose was as a Place in which to meet the very G-d against whom they had rebelled! This is repentance! Not simply words, but action showing that they were determined to rebuild that relationship that they themselves had destroyed! They destroyed it with their own hands and now they would rebuild it with their own hands!
This week is Shabbos Shekalim, in which we learn the mitzvah to bring charity (“shekels”) to maintain the Tabernacle! We are saying to G-d, “Yes, I acknowledge that I rebelled against You, that I have made the most horrible blunders and even deliberately rebelled against You! I am not denying it! But here is how I will prove that my repentance is real: I am going to give my wealth to the Tabernacle! I am going to give my service to the Tabernacle! I am going to give my talents to the Tabernacle! Despite the fact that I know I have no standing before You, I refuse to turn away from You!”
And so the Torah recounts the amazing story of how Betzalel and Oholiav fabricated the Tabernacle and the garments for the Kohanim (Priests) and all the vessels needed for its service, how Moses erected it. “He made … they hammered … they made… they made… he placed… he made… they filled… they made… they made… they made… they made… they brought…he took… he put…he placed… he placed… he erected….”
This was their repentance! This was their statement to G-d: “We are going ahead with our work. Our therapy is not to contemplate the terrible mess of our lives, but rather to build a new life and the basis for the lives of our children, a place of sanctity which will assure that the terrible sins we committed will not occur again.”
And so today, my friends, we also labor on, even as the world looks darker and darker, even as we see terrible sights and hear terrible sounds that seem to forebode disaster, G-d forbid. “Shivisi Hashem l’negdi samid…. I have set Hashem before me always.” I live with an image of the Tabernacle and I am going to construct it with my own life. I am going to demonstrate to the King of Kings that I do “believe with perfect faith in the coming of Moshiach and, even though he may delay, nevertheless I anticipate every day that he will come.”
Chazak! Chazak! Venischazeik!
Be strong! Be strong! And may we be strengthened!
© Copyright 2011 by Roy S. Neuberger
