The shock is immense. For several weeks and many chapters – the longest prelude in the Torah – we have read of the preparations for the moment at which God would bring His Presence to rest in the midst of the people. Five parshiyot (Terumah, Tetzaveh, Ki Tissa, Vayakhel and Pekudei) describe the instructions for building the Sanctuary. Two further…
…to fit in. So, when there were tyrannies and totalitarianisms, it was the Jews who stood up against them and insisted on the right of freedom and the dignity of the individual. And that led to some of our worst habits and some of our highest virtues. We’re going to read, in two weeks’ time, parshas Ki Tissa and Moshe…
…Ki Tissa, Vayakhel, Pekudei – I didn’t count them up: it’s somewhere between 500-600 verses. In other words, it takes almost twenty times as long to build a shul as to create the universe – the reason being fairly simple. Shuls tend to be put together by a committee! But it is a very striking thing. You will forgive me:…
…Ki Tissa [Exodus 30], and I want you to listen to its strangeness. It says, “ki tissa et-rosh Bnei Yisrael lifkudayhem” – when you count Jews – “venatnu ish koffer nafsho leHashem bifkod ottam” – then each of you must give a ransom, give a half a shekel as a ransom for your life to Hashem when you count them…
…book of Shemot and spans five parshiyot (Terumah, Tetzaveh, half of Ki Tissa, Vayakhel, and Pekudei). It is interrupted only by the story of the Golden Calf. Why is it so long, and so detailed? In Bereishit, God’s creation of the entire universe is described in just thirty-four verses. Why focus on the Mishkan, which was just a temporary structure…
…here. Rabbosai, Parshat Terumah begins a most extraordinary sequence. Hakamat haMishkan, the building of the first collective House of God, occupies Terumah, Tetzaveh, half of Ki Tissa, Vayakhel and Pekudei, an enormous length – the longest, as it were, single sequence in the Torah. And there is something very strange about it. As the late Nechama Leibowitz, of blessed memory,…
There is a verse so familiar that we don’t often stop to reflect on what it means. It is the line from the first paragraph of the Shema, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your me’od.” Deut. 6:5 That last word is usually translated as “strength” or “might”. But…
…greater the labour, the greater the love for what you have made. TETZAVEH: When you experience suffering, the question to ask is, “Given this has happened, what then shall I do?” for this has an answer not of thought but of deed. KI TISSA: We should never feel anger. But there are times when we should show it. People sometimes…
…kinds of artistic craftsmanship.” (Exodus 35:30-33) In both last week’s parsha, Ki Tissa and in this week’s parsha, Vayakhel, we meet Betzalel, the builder of the Tabernacle. He is a rare character-type in the Hebrew Bible – the artist, the craftsman, the maker of beauty in the service of God, the man who, together with Oholiab, created the Tabernacle and…