March 12th: Vayakhel-Pekude and Hachodesh
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
This week, in addition to the completion of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, we have the special portion reminding us that Passover is fast approaching. Since the initial instructions for the first Passover were given two weeks early—on the first of the month of Nisan, we are reminded as Nisan begins (on Saturday night) that we need to make our own preparations for Passover—which will be here on Nisan 14th.
When God gives those original instructions in Exodus 12, the emphasis is on everyone in the holy community doing the rituals together: “…every man shall take a lamb…and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses…and they shall eat the meat in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it…it is the Lord’s Passover. All Israel shares a common experience and a common fate—a communal salvation.
This togetherness theme continues at Mount Sinai, in Exodus 19, 20, and 24. Everyone is there and included in the covenant: “…as morning dawned, there was thunder and lightning and a very loud blast of the shofar, and all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses led them out toward God.” (Exodus 19.16-17) After the Ten Commandments are pronounced, “All the people witnessed…and said, we will obey.” (Exodus 20.15-16). Later in Exodus 24.3, “All the people answered with one voice, saying, All the things that the Lord has commanded we will do!” We are all together in this holy and awe-inspiring experience. In Deuteronomy 29’s retelling of the covenantal ceremony, we are even given a list testifying that everybody means every body: “You stand this day all of you before the Lord your God; your tribal captains, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the stranger who is in your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water; that you should enter into covenant with the Lord your God…”
Of course, if we think about such a series of events in practical terms, it makes sense that not everyone would be 100% focused every step of the way. It stands to reason that, with human beings, some distractions would be present—or different people would experience the Exodus and the Revelation in their own ways. This seems to be the thinking of poet Jacqueline Kudler as she reflects on the 600,000 attention spans and what it means for a community to be present.
Revelation
For every exile who walked out
of Egypt between walls of water,
for everyone who remembered
the feel of sea bottom underfoot,
the sibilant roar of water rearing
on the right, on the left, someone
forgot. Someone scanning
the dry horizon for a well
or already mourning the musky
smell of autumn in her father’s
fig trees, forgot the hosannahs
and, by the bitter waters of Marah,
forgot the flash of dancing feet,
the shimmer of timbrels.
For every proselyte at Sinai,
someone never heard the horns
at all. Someone turned back from
the mountain to bank the fire,
feed the baby, steal a second
moment with another.
Revelation begins in attention:
while the elders trembled before
the word of God flowing down
the scorched north flank of Sinai,
someone, rising from a last long
embrace, gazed into the rapt face
of the beloved and saw
that it was good.
This poem is published in the new Reform Haggadah, Mishkan HaSeder, and paired with the traditional passage: “Therefore, even if all of us were wise, all full of understanding, all distinguished in learning, all experts in the Torah, it would still be a mitzvah for us to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt. Blessed is one who lingers over the telling of this story.”
We read in the Seder’s passage about the Four Children that our perceptions and realizations of holiness vary—from moment to moment and from person to person. And so, we return to our communal memory regularly—revisiting the events and revelations that represent a continuing font of Revelation: repeated access to the Mind of God. Returning to our sacred memories gives us the opportunity year by year to “remember” parts of the sacred journey experienced by others in our congregation. Our is a communal salvation.
Perhaps this is what the Lord means in Deuteronomy 29: “It is not with you alone that I make this covenant and this oath; I make it both with those who stand here with us this day before the Lord our God, and also with those who are not here with us this day.”