Your Humble Blogger didn’t realize quite how far behind things had gotten in this whole parshah business. Going back, then, two weeks to parshah Terumah, I had wondered how the Israelites managed to make the Mishkan to spec. I brought this up to the congregation, essentially asking ‘What if they failed?’ I was headed to the idea that the construction was essentially miraculous, and just as the other works of the Divine in Exodus were, in essence, natural events heightened to the point of the miraculous, so too was the construction of the Mishkan a matter of natural human craft heightened to the miraculous. There are two points that came up in my mind about this: first, the sense that we and our works are a part of the natural world and therefore the divine world. That is, the Parting of the Red Sea was miraculous, and so too was the building of the Mishkan; a sunset is part of the Creation for which we thank the Creator, and so to is the Segway Human Transportation Device. Second is the sense that when we set ourselves to create beauty, when we set ourselves in partnership with the Divine Creator, we can achieve things beyond reason.
However, in the actual discussion, it quickly became clear that almost everybody felt that what really happened is that the Israelites just did the best they could, and that it probably didn’t come up to spec in the end. That is, that the lesson there was not so much how we could achieve things beyond reason, but how, given imperfections and shortcomings, we could muddle through anyway. To me, this is a very radical notion; the Israelites failed, and the Lord forgave them and moved on. Wow. We went a few different directions from there, the lessons that the Israelites would have learned from that experience, the symbolic meaning of carrying this thing through the desert, the consequences for us in how we create (and carry with us) sacred space and sacred objects.
So it was a terrific discussion, without being at all the discussion I expected. I do like my congregation. This whole experience has been wonderful, and it’s wonderful when, on occasion, I feel as if my own ideas spark new insights or new attitudes. Really, though, it’s much better when other people have ideas that give me new insights and attitudes. Next year when Terumah comes around, I’ll have a totally different take on it.
Thank you,
-Vardibidian.