Rabbi Hannah Orden

All week I was struggling to write a d’var for this Shabbat.  I wasn’t sure what the problem was.  It certainly was not because this is one of those Torah portions that is difficult to relate to.  Au contraire!  This week’s portion Ki Tissa is chock full of juicy material – the golden calf, Moses smashing the stone tablets, Moses convincing God not to destroy the People, God placing Moses in the cleft of a rock so he can see God’s back as God passes by.  No, it was definitely not for lack of interesting subjects that I was struggling.

Then, yesterday, as I was reading over the Torah portion one more time, looking for inspiration, it hit me – Ki Tissa is near the end of the Book of Exodus, the section of the Torah that recounts our liberation from bondage to a tyrannical leader in Egypt.  And suddenly the ancient text that we read over and over year after year seemed to be ripped from the headlines: An oppressed people cries out against a powerful ruler and achieves liberation.  Sound familiar?

There is something truly remarkable going on in the world right now, and I realized that it would not be possible for me to stand here in front of you tonight without speaking about the changes that are happening in Egypt and other countries in the Middle East.  In public squares, in traffic circles, and in the streets, ordinary people are gathering to demand freedom and relief from poverty.  That in itself is significant.  But what is even more remarkable is that they are succeeding.  Largely without violence, without terrorism, they are succeeding in bringing about change.

As Jews, how can we not rejoice?  Despite our fears about Islamic fundamentalism and what this might mean for Israel, how can we not see our own story reflected in what is happening in Egypt today?   How can we not rejoice at the liberation of other human beings?

As we begin this week’s portion, we find Moses on Mount Sinai, talking to God.   Moses has been up there for a long time – 40 days and 40 nights to be exact – as God explains in minute detail how to build the tabernacle.  God provides the dimensions, materials, and placement of walls, curtains, table, ark, and altar.  Just before God gives Moses the stone tablets to carry down to the people, there is one last instruction.  And it is this: Ach et shabbtotai tishmeru – Nevertheless, you shall keep my Sabbaths. God continues with words that should sound familiar to you:  V’Shamru v’nai Yisrael et ha Shabbat…. The Israelite People shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout the generations as a Covenant for all time.

The placement of this command immediately after the instructions for building the tabernacle and the altar is a bit of a non-sequitur.  It comes out of the blue and has therefore inspired all kinds of commentary.  But what strikes me as I read this passage this week, in February 2011, is that these are words that need to be spoken to a people who have recently been enslaved.  The Israelites have served a tyrannical ruler – Pharaoh – and now they are expected to serve God.  The question might arise in their minds: what is the difference?  The Hebrew word for slaves is avadim and the word for worship or service to God is Avodah.  It is a fine line.   Perhaps they have exchanged one type of slavery for another.  Perhaps Moses is simply a task-master forcing the Israelites to do the bidding of yet another all-powerful ruler.

And then God says: Ach, et shabbtotai tishmeru – Nevertheless, you shall keep my Sabbaths. As if to say to Moses, do not be tempted to become like Pharaoh.  Do not be seduced by power.  And as if to say to the People, remember that you are no longer slaves.  Remember that there is more to life than endless, crushing labor.  You are a free people.  Keep your eyes on the prize.  Remember that you are always, always, moving toward the Promised Land, a world of justice and freedom for all people.

Meanwhile, as God conveys this inspiring message, down below, the People have turned into a mob.  They have already forgotten who they are and where they are going.  They converge on Aaron, threatening and hostile, demanding that he make for them a golden calf.  On one level this seems inconceivable.  God has brought them out of slavery, parted the sea so they could escape to freedom, and revealed the Torah at Mount Sinai.  And now, God says, saru maher – they have turned aside quickly.

It is difficult not to judge these people harshly.  After such powerful experiences, how could they turn to idolatry?  How could they lose their way so quickly?  But what if we really try to put ourselves in their place?  Moses has led them out of Egypt into the wilderness, the unknown.  And now Moses has disappeared. The People don’t know when he is coming back or if he is coming back.  The Talmud goes into a technical discussion, suggesting that Moses and the people counted the days differently, a question of whether the first day began in the morning or at night.  According to this interpretation, the people believed that Moses had not come back when he had promised.  But even without this technicality, it’s not difficult to imagine the people’s fear.  Maybe Moses is dead.  How could anyone survive for 40 days and nights with no food or water?  Maybe they are alone, without leadership and without guidance.  Change can be exhilarating and it can also be terrifying.  The People are afraid.

Some have suggested that even before the Golden Calf, the Israelites have already made an idol of Moses.  It’s not God they are replacing with the Golden Calf, but Moses.  And here we see the danger, not only of leaders being seduced by power, but also the tendency for people to idolize their leaders, giving up their own vision.  Idolatry could be defined as rigidity – holding tightly to something definite and secure and stopping the process of change.  Our God is called Ehiyeh asher Ehiyeh – I will be what I will be.  Our God is a process of becoming.  And whenever we turn away from the impulse toward change, we are in danger of worshiping idols.

Last week there were non-stop radio programs about the peaceful revolution in Egypt.  One program reflected on the experience of the American Revolution in 1776.  We take for granted the institutions of our democracy – balance of power, democratic elections, checks and balances.  But the newly independent former-colonies in the 18^th Century America could have gone a different way.  On the one hand there were those who opposed any strong central government and on the other hand there were those who wanted to make George Washington king.  That too seems inconceivable today.  These were people who had fought and died to create something new, a government of, by, and for the people.  How could they turn aside so quickly?  Like the Israelites in the wilderness, I’m sure they were afraid of the unknown.  They didn’t know what might happen in the future, so they opted for something familiar and secure.  This, the radio commentator observed, was a decisive moment for our fledgling democracy.  George Washington could have been seduced by power, but he put the ideals of the revolution, the vision of democracy above his own glory.  He refused to become King, and after 2 terms as president, he stepped aside to make room for new leaders.

And now the people of Egypt stand at just such a decisive moment.  It is a moment of great potential and great danger.  We are all too aware that in the past movements for change have veered off course toward chaos and corruption.  It is possible that the Egyptians too will turn aside quickly, from their vision of democracy and freedom and bow down to idols, that, out of fear, they will turn to the rigidity of fundamentalism.  But that is not the only option.  There is also a very real possibility that they will keep their eyes on the prize, that they will remember that they are a free people and will keep moving toward the promised land of equality and democracy.

We don’t know exactly what happened at Mount Sinai thousands of years ago.  We don’t know what form the revelation took. But we do know that something significant occurred.  Something that has inspired people for generation after generation.  So too, something significant happened these past few weeks in Tahrir Square.  Something happened that I think could be called revelation.  Something happened that was significant not only for Egyptians, but for people throughout the world, as can be seen in the way movements for change are springing up all over.  We are living in a moment of revelation – the revelation that it is possible for people to come together to demand freedom and change and to succeed.  It is important not to be cynical.  It is important not to turn away too quickly out of fear.  It is important for all of us to keep looking toward the promised land of a world where all people live in freedom.

Our Torah portion this week begins with God instructing Moses: Tell, the Israelite People to bring me gifts.  The gifts described in the Torah are physical things – gold, silver, copper, fine skins, beautiful gemstones, oil for the lamps – all of the things that are needed to build the tabernacle, a sanctuary for God in the wilderness.  In Hebrew the word tabernacle is mishkan, a dwelling place.  We hear the linguistic connection much more clearly in Hebrew in Ex. 25:8, a verse that we also read this evening.  V’asu li mishkan, v’shachanti b’tocham. In English it is usually translated, Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. But a closer translation would be, Let them make me a place to dwell so that I will dwell among them. The whole point of building this tabernacle is so that God will dwell among the people.  And rest of the rest of this week’s Torah portion is devoted to a detailed description of exactly how to build a dwelling place for God.

The Hasidic Masters of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, living in Eastern Europe, far removed in both time and space from the physical tabernacle in the desert or the Temples in Jerusalem, reinterpreted these words – V’asu li mishkan, v’shachanti b’tocham – as a metaphor for the dwelling place for God that each person must make in his or her own soul.   Rather than translating b’tocham as ‘among them,’ they translate it as ‘within them’ or ‘inside of them.’

Rabbi Arthur Green, in his commentary on the Sefat Emet, one of the last great masters of Polish Hasidism who died in 1905, writes: “Every soul is a chamber for God, a vessel that contains divine light.  This is the message that the Hasidic Masters repeatedly associate with the tabernacle, and all the details of its making.”  The instructions in the Torah for building the Mishkan, that seem so irrelevant to us today, the details that we often skip over or glaze over, come to a new life in this interpretation.  Now they become a guide to how we can create a proper dwelling place, a mishkan for God within ourselves.  “In our souls,” the Sefat Emet suggests, “we light a lamp for God, we set a table, we raise up an altar.  God needs no intermediary – the divine light seeks out the human soul, seeks a place to dwell within us.”

The Sefat Emet then takes the idea of making a dwelling place for God inside each of our souls a step further.  He points our attention to a midrash on a verse from Proverbs.  The verse is: Ki lekach tov natati lachem, torati al ta’azovu. I am sure it sounds familiar to some of you.  It is part of the liturgy of our Torah Service, translated as: Behold, I have given you good instruction (teaching) – my Torah. Do not forsake it.  Most of the time, we don’t pay much attention to where our liturgy is drawn from.  In fact, most of us have probably never paid much attention to the Book of Proverbs.  But when I realized that this is where ki lekach tov comes from, I went to look at the verses that follow it, and they are truly beautiful.

Behold, I have given you good instruction –

My Torah. Do not forsake it

Acquire wisdom, acquire understanding;

Do not forget and do not turn aside from the words I speak.

Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you;

Love her, and she will guard you.

Wisdom is supreme – so acquire wisdom,

and whatever you acquire, acquire understanding!

Esteem her highly and she will exalt you;

She will honor you if you embrace her.

She will place a fair garland on your head;

she will bestow a glorious crown on you.” (Proverbs 4:5-9)

The lesson of these words still speaks to us loud and clear across the millennia and we still need to listen: Whatever else you acquire in life, make sure you acquire wisdom and understanding, hold them close and embrace them and they will exalt you.

The Sefat Emet leads us from these beautiful verses to a midrash on the verse ki lekach tov natati lachem. The word lekach means instruction or teaching; it is a synonym for the word torah, which also means teaching.  Yet, there is another meaning of the word lekach.  It can also refer to something acquired by purchase.  The midrash offers a parable of two merchants.  One has silk and the other has peppers.  They agree on a trade and exchange their goods, but each is still deprived of what the other has.  However, the midrash continues, if there are two scholars, and they teach each other (in other words they exchange their knowledge, as the merchants exchanged their goods), each one keeps what she had and gains the knowledge of the other.

Commenting on the midrash, the Sefat Emet suggests that it is not only true of scholars, but that every human being has a particular understanding, a particular way of seeing things.  Each soul has something unique to bring to the world.  In the language of the Sefat Emet, all the souls of Israel are joined together by Torah.  Ki lekach tov natati lachem – Behold, I have given you this lekach, this exchange, so that each person can give of him or herself and everyone is enriched.  This is my Torah; this is my teaching, says God, do not abandon it.

Bringing this idea back to this week’s Torah portion, Terumah, the Sefat Emet tells us that this is the true story of the building of the Mishkan.  Each person brought his own gifts, not only gold and silver, wood, copper, oil and skins, but music, poetry, wisdom, humor, understanding, compassion – you fill in the blanks.  I want to pause for a moment so that we can each think of the particular gifts that we have to bring.  For some of us, this is the hardest thing – to recognize our own gifts.  So, please take a moment to think about what you have to bring. [Pause]

Thousands of years ago, our People, wandering in the wilderness, learned that only when each person offered his or her unique gifts were they able to create a place for God to dwell.  And still today, it is only in that generosity of spirit, that openness to give and to receive, to exchange in such a way that all are enriched, that we merit having God’s presence dwell among us and within us.

This was a powerful message when the Sefat Emet wrote and spoke about it in early 1900s.  And it remains a powerful message today, as we have seen in recent weeks. After the shootings in Arizona, people said that words had the power to kill.  Too often we condemn the ideas and beliefs of others and shut out the possibility of each person bringing his or her own unique viewpoint, and sharing it in such a way that we can all see the world in a wider, fuller perspective.

Art Green’s commentary on the Sefat Emet speaks of “sharing with others in a context that fully accepts the infinite variety of minds and opinions, all of them making up a single divine whole.”  This would not be easy to achieve.  We are accustomed to dismissing those whose views conflict with our own.  However, this is a vision that our tradition holds out to us to try to live up to.  Tell, the Israelite people to bring me gifts, every person whose heart is willing… Bring all of your gifts and exchange them, openly willingly, and in that act, we create a place for God to dwell both among us and within us.