Doing Our Part

Pekudei 5776/ 12 March 2016

I find myself asking the same question every year around this time: how many years of tax returns do I need to keep in my files, and when can I shred some and get rid of them? Answers vary depending on who you ask or which Google results you click, but generally it seems like three to seven years is the right time frame — which I think means this week’s Torah portion, Pekudei, holds the all-time world record for the longest-preserved financial records. Our parshah recounts, in painstaking detail, everything that the Israelites donated for the construction of the Mishkan and how the materials were used. But it’s not immediately obvious why, thousands of years later, we should still bother reading and even studying the Mishkan’s financial statements.

To properly understand parashat Pekudei, we need to read it in the context of the overall Mishkan story. Throughout these Torah portions, certain key terms keep recurring, signaling the most important concepts along the way. Among these motifs, the Torah regularly refers to the Israelites’ contributions as נדיב לב, “gifts of the heart.”^[1] These parshiyyot emphasize our ancestors’ willingness to give as well as God’s desire that the material used in the Mishkan should come only from voluntary donations and not from a tax or levy. Moses’ list of the material collected for the Mishkan reminds the Israelite donors of their original motivation — נדיב לב, gifts of the heart — in making their contribution to the Mishkan’s construction.

However, while gifts of the heart make up the overwhelming majority of donations to the Mishkan, we still find one substantial exception: at the beginning of parashat Ki Tissa, God requests each Israelite to give one half-shekel. Here, the Torah does not specify נדיב לב; God expects the Israelites to offer their half-shekel regardless of their feelings or motivation. In addition, with the other donations God never asks for a specific value, while in this case the verse explicitly instructs הֶֽעָשִׁיר לֹֽא־יַרְבֶּה וְהַדַּל לֹא יַמְעִיט מִֽמַּֽחֲצִית הַשָּׁקֶל, “the rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than half a shekel.”^[2] While the general contributions to the Mishkan teach us the importance of making gifts of the heart, deeply-felt voluntary contributions, the half-shekel emphasizes the importance of participation across the board: no matter their financial situation, every Israelite was expected to give something.

The half-shekel contribution didn’t amount to very much money — a half-shekel, about 4.25 grams of silver, would be worth a little more than two of today’s dollars — but it profoundly changed the Israelites’ experience of building the Mishkan. As Moses details the materials used in building the Mishkan, I can imagine the men and women of that generation standing before the completed structure and thinking, “I gave part of that. I played a role in building this Mishkan. The Mishkan stands here, at the center of the Israelite camp, in part because of me.” My heart swells with the pride I imagine they felt, the joy at seeing their labor and gifts of the heart realized in the Mishkan itself.

This pride at taking part in developing a key religious and cultural institution offers us a window into one of the distinctive features of this morning’s Torah portion. Despite its status as one of the shortest parshiyyot in the Torah, Pekudei uses the same phrase, כַּֽאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה ה’ אֶת־מֹשֶֽׁה, “as the Lord had commanded Moses,” no fewer than fifteen times.^[3] God laid out the vision for how the Mishkan should look; Moses supervised the construction and Betzalel executed the design; but fully realizing God’s vision depended on each Israelite taking part. Vision alone — even a divinely-inspired vision — has no impact without each person chipping in to turn the vision into reality.

When Moses reaches the end of his accounting, he concludes with a blessing — וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתָם מֹשֶֽׁה — but the Torah does not record the content of this blessing.^[4] Rashi, in his usual style, fills in what the Torah leaves unsaid: Moses blessed them, יהי רצון שתשרה שכינה במעשה ידיכם, “May it be God’s will for the Divine Presence to rest upon the work of your hands.”^[5] 

What does Moses see in the Mishkan accounting that prompts him to bless the people, and why does he choose this particular blessing? Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Ferber, a twentieth-century English rabbi, points out that the phrasing of this blessing evokes the language of God’s original vision for the Mishkan: וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָֽׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָֽם, “They shall make me a sanctuary and I will dwell among them.”^[6] While most readers take this verse as a single unified mitzvah, Rabbi Ferber sees two distinct commandments here: one, to build the physical structure of the Mishkan, and two, to carry out the construction in a manner that draws God’s presence into and among the Israelites.^[7] In the course of accounting for the Mishkan and its components, Moses recognizes the quality we spoke of earlier: כַּֽאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה ה’ כֵּן עָשׂוּ, “They did the work just as the Lord had commanded”^[8] — not just building the physical structure according to God’s design, but also working together in the way God intended, building a holy society in parallel to the physical structure and inviting the Divine Presence to live as part of their sacred community. Seeing this, Moses felt compelled to bless them: יהי רצון שתשרה שכינה במעשה ידיכם, “May it be God’s will for the Divine Presence to rest upon the work of your hands,” may everything you do, from now on, be done in a way that increases holiness.^[9]

Ultimately, it is Moses’ blessing that sets parashat Pekudei apart from all other financial reports, and justifies our returning to it each year at this time: the story of the Mishkan forms the template from which Jews in every generation have built holy space and sacred community. The two paradigms of giving that funded the Mishkan — נדיבת לב, the gift of the heart, and מחצית השקל, the half-shekel that enabled every person to participate — still beat in the heart of every holy community. We can achieve the first half of God’s vision, עָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ, making a physical sanctuary, by any number of means; but the second half, וְשָֽׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָֽם, bringing the Divine Presence into the center of our communal life, can only happen if we all participate and if we all give from the heart.

Many of you have already contributed to BZBI’s annual giving this year, and I thank you for joining me in making this נדיבת לב, the gift of the heart, that sustains our community. Today, you and I celebrate alongside our ancestors in dedicating the Mishkan. If you haven’t made your gift yet, I ask you to consider the message of our Torah readings from the past month and, after Shabbat, make your own נדיבת לב, your meaningful contribution to BZBI’s present and future, Remember, as well, the message of the half-shekel: each one of us, whatever our personal circumstances, can give something; and one key facet of sacred community is the ability of each person to say to himself or herself, “I played a part in making this.” May it be God’s will that the Divine Presence rest upon the work of our hands as well.

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Tags: Mishkan, Pekudei, Tzedakah