Gary Hill's Fantastic D'var Torah for Shabbat

PARASHAT VAYAKHEL-PEKUDEI

Today’s parashat describes the construction of the Mishkan – the temporary Temple that the Israelites used to worship in the desert.

Moses assembles ALL of the people and calls for contributions, contributions of their treasure for the physical needs and contributions of their talent to accomplish the work.

The Ashkenazic halftorah lists all the pieces that Hiram King of Tyer, a talented bronze worker, created for the Temple. The Sephardic halftorah begins earlier in the same chapter, but talks about who Hiram was. His father had been a skilled craftman endowed with the ability and talent to get complicated and beautiful work done.

Jumping back to Moses for a second – his call for donations was met with enthusiasm and the treasures came in such amounts that he had to ask and then demand the people to quit donating. The talent came with contributions from the most skilled to those who could sew and carry and hold the tools or material for others.

And so today, in this very lovely structure, we will also talk later of the history of its construction and our guide will be like the person described in the Sephardic halftorah, a man of talent who had the ability to get the work done – in this case, my father, Leo.



But to me the heart of this week’s portion is neither the building nor even the leadership. Instead it is the story of so many wanting to give so much. That, as we will hear later, is also the history of our synagogue. It was not my father or even a few rich or super generous. It was the work of an entire people, our congregation. Individuals with little finances who still gave money and much of their personal talent. Individuals with more money who, in addition to financial help, gave of their time.

We will go from here to the social hall and enjoy a lunch to go with our “learn”. In former days that meal and all meals in the synagogue would have been prepared by volunteers, - so many that the chair of the event often asked people to leave so there would be room to work in the kitchen. Ater the meal the remains were removed by people from every table and the dishes cleaned by as many people as there were tables. AND the social hall was filled with tables and each table was full.

I believe that one important part of today’s portion is to remind us that when an entire congregation actively participates in our collective, on-going history that the magnificent structure we end up with is not just the building, but the creative survival of our congregation and our people.