Exodus 35:1-40:38
I don’t know how many of you real readers (roughly a thousand or so—a drop in the bucket for such websites as this one) are asking the same question that my own imaginary reader is: “How can this guy keep on talking about the weekly Torah reading when the whole world is collapsing around us?”
Good question! On the other hand, what else can I do? My inbox today is full of the words of various authorities—clergy-people of different faiths, university presidents, self-appointed “public intellectuals,” and all manner of other figures—who seem to feel it incumbent upon them to express their own comforting thoughts in the face of the abyss. Do I really need to add to this glut of sincerity?
I don’t know what the future may hold, though for those of us in the “endangered” category (just now calculated to include anyone over the age of 60 plus those whose immune systems are compromised by various conditions) things seem pretty gloomy. So perhaps it is best just to shut up.
Can your patience nevertheless endure one brief word about this week’s Torah reading?
It’s a simple point. For the last three weeks, the Torah has given us all the details of the movable desert sanctuary, the mishkan, that the Israelites were commanded to put together: the different wooden beams and boards, curtains, cloths, hooks, etc. etc. and how these were all to be assembled. But having mentioned all these things, the Torah in this week’s reading now goes on to repeat, almost word by word, all of these same details. What for? Couldn’t this whole matter have been ended last week with one simple sentence: “And the Israelites did exactly what God had commanded”? Why go over the whole thing a second time?
And the obvious answer is this: the movable sanctuary, the mishkan, is really a model of the Torah as a whole, indeed, a model of Judaism. The underlying idea is that no human approaches God as an equal: the only way to stand in God’s presence is as a person who is seeking to do God’s bidding. This doesn’t grant anyone immortality; all of us are scheduled to die sooner or later. But in the meantime, what the Torah provides is a way (the only true way, to my mind) of fitting into the world, that is, into God’s world. All of the Torah’s commandments, all the “blessed details,” are simply a means of allowing people to stand in God’s presence. And the details are everything. Repeating all the particulars of the mishkan a second time is a way of bringing this point home: this is the life of Torah, the way of trying to keep its commandments in all their particulars.