Shabbat Learning with Rabbi Abi Weber: In Defense of Beauty

Vayakhel-Pekudei / 5783 / 18 March 2023

One of my favorite TV shows of the last few years is “Easy,” a comedy-drama anthology that follows a group of interconnected individuals in the city of Chicago. The first episode that I happened to watch features two wealthy urban parents who come home to find their eighteen-year-old daughter in bed with a boy. Alarmed, they demand that she join them each week at church, presumably thinking that this terrible punishment will scare her off of sex for a few more years. What they don’t expect is that the teenager will whole-heartedly embrace Christianity – or so it appears. She so internalizes the value of charity that she begins inviting unhoused residents into their home, giving them thousands of dollars’ worth of camping gear. When her father gets home and objects, she defends herself: “We never use any of this stuff anyway. Don’t you think that these people could use it more than we could?” 

“Ok, ok, you’ve made your point,” her father concedes, recognizing that forcing her to go to church may not have been the wisest decision on his part. But his daughter is undeterred. She begins volunteering at the church’s food pantry, packing boxes for delivery. So moved is she by the church’s charitable activities that she decides she must donate. As an 18-year-old, she now has full access to her college savings account – and she chooses to liquidate the entire account and give it to the church. That’s right, she walks into the priest’s office and gives him a $50,000 check. 

Obviously, her parents are horrified, having lost all of their hard-earned savings in one fell swoop. Their attempts to take the money back are in vain, though, as the daughter continues to insist that the donation stay with the church. 

In the climactic final scene of the episode, the daughter sits in the front row of the church, taking in the prayers and the ambiance. The priest stands up and effusively thanks the young woman for her deep generosity – he tells the congregation that, thanks to her donation, they were able to do a complete renovation of the church altar. The teenager’s face falls immediately. She stands up in outrage, shouting that she intended for her money to go to charity, not to interior decoration. She storms out of the church, and it is clear that her experiment with religion has reached a stormy conclusion. 

In our parasha this week, the people of Israel are overcome with a level of generosity similar to that young woman’s. Moshe reiterates God’s command that anyone “whose heart so moves them” bring contributions to the building of the Mishkan, the Holy Tabernacle. People step up immediately. They give brooches, earrings, rings, gold pendants; blue, purple, and crimson yarns; fine linen, ram skins, acacia wood; rare gemstones and fine spices and oils. They bring all of their objects of beauty. 

Remember that this is a people who has recently escaped from slavery. Living in poverty and servitude in Egypt, it is hard to imagine how they came by these precious objects. The rabbis bring us two theories: one, that these were hard-won items, crafted with great care and skill during years of bondage. Two, these were gifts that God moved the Egyptians to give them upon their exit from Egypt – what some scholars have called a form of reparations. Either way, this was not disposable income. These were priceless objects, tiny and large things that were of great value to their owners. And their owners chose to give them away to be melted, woven, beaten into new shapes – all to create the Holy Mishkan. All for the sake of interior decoration. 

Not all of the Israelites gave objects – presumably because not everyone had such fine items. Many people chose to give in the form of service. Skilled women donated their time and efforts to spin yarn and fine linen; stonecutters cut stone; woodcarvers carved wood. Everyone found a way to give in this collective effort towards building a home for God on earth. 

But this outpouring eventually becomes a problem. Bezalel, Oholiav, and the other craftspeople had to call Moshe in and say, “Listen. The people need to stop bringing stuff. We can’t even get our work done because of this constant giving.” Moshe then must proclaim to all of the Israelites to stop giving – calm down, people, he says – we have enough. The Israelites’ generosity, so desired at the beginning, becomes a hindrance to building. 

There is something so beautiful about this overabundance of generosity. For a formerly enslaved people to find the means to give and give and give – it is heartbreaking and beautiful. But there is a disturbing element to it, too. Like the young woman in the TV show, they give without thinking about the consequences; they give because they care so deeply about what is being built. 

This level of care is hard to imagine today. And yet – if you walk a few blocks south of here, to Christian Street, you’ll come upon the First African Baptist Church. I’d like to thank Rabbi David Greenstein for pointing out to me the historical marker in front of this church that reads, “First African Baptist Church. Founded in 1809 as one of the first black Baptist churches in America. Later two members sold themselves into slavery to free a slave to serve as pastor.” Two members sold themselves into slavery to free a slave to serve as pastor. (pause)

The pastor’s name was James Burrows, and he was born enslaved in Virginia. Burrows felt called to preach, but his enslaver refused to permit him; finally, Burrows persuaded the master to let him come to Philadelphia to earn money to purchase his freedom. But on one condition – two people had to come take Burrows’ place in servitude. Two cousins from Philadelphia, Samuel and John Bivins, volunteered, traveling down to Virginia to place themselves in bondage. Forget gold and silver brooches – these two men, who had nothing else to give, gave themselves. Their bodies. Their freedom. To support a church that perhaps they believed was a dwelling place for God. 

And thank God, Pastor Burrows soon earned enough money in Philadelphia to buy the cousins out of captivity. Thank God, the men survived to tell this story. But imagine being those two people – so committed to God that they were willing to lose everything to support their church. 

In that case, the men were not only supporting the church, but also liberating another human being through their generosity. How should we react, though, when our donations support not such a clearly worthy cause, but something less obvious – like a new church altar? 

Don’t worry – I’m not going to turn this dvar Torah into a pledge drive for the synagogue kitchen, tempting as that may be. But I am going to ask a question that relates to the beautiful stained glass windows, lovingly designed by our member Deena Flanagan, a skilled craftswoman in our community, that are yet to be built. Why, in a city where 22% of the population lives in poverty, would we give our hard-earned dollars towards glass windows? Why, when our generosity could literally buy people out of slavery or save lives, would we give to art? 

This is an age-old question. Philosopher Peter Singer, best-known for his work on animal liberation, as well as his offensive and even disturbing ideas about people with disabilities, has a clear opinion on this matter. Singer is a proponent of an idea called “effective altruism,” which argues that human beings have a responsibility to do the most possible good for other sentient beings. The philosopher encourages his students to take high-paying jobs in finance or other fields, including those with morally problematic elements, so that they are then able to give the greatest possible sum of money to alleviate suffering. When choosing where to donate, Singer says that we should never give to the arts or to organizations like the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which spend considerable resources to fulfill the dreams of relatively few children. Instead, we should give all of our earnings to organizations that create and distribute vaccines in developing countries, or provide direct support for people in extreme poverty, or give essential medical care to children in need. When we maximize what we are able to give, and give it to those who need it the most, we can have an enormous impact on thousands, or even millions, of lives.

It’s a convincing argument. Who wouldn’t want to do the most good? 

But as with many of Singer’s arguments, it is incomplete. Singer forgets that human beings are not automatons, capable of calculating the effects of each and every decision in order to provide the maximum benefit for other creatures. Yes, in my view, the world would be better off if we pooled all of humanity’s wealth and distributed it equitably across all countries, giving every person an equal footing on which to stand. But to say that no one should give to the arts, because people are dying in the streets, is too far.

To start, there are many utilitarian reasons to give to the arts. Studies show that artistic endeavors unify communities and decrease levels of violence. Arts improve individual well-being, strengthen the local economy, drive tourism and revenue to local businesses, and have even been shown to improve health outcomes. Donating to the arts also saves lives. 

But beyond that lies a deeper reason to give. “There will always be poor among you,” the Torah teaches us, and yet we are asked to give to build the Mishkan, because in beauty dwells the Divine. 

Beauty. This concept is characteristically difficult to define. For Plato, “beauty” is an eternal, immutable, divine existence, alongside “good,” “truth,” and “justice.” Beauty is not just an idea, but an objectively existing permanent being. Beauty lives in the realm of divinity. For his student Aristotle, beauty is not an immutable being, but is rather a property of nature and of works of art. Some philosophers since then lean towards the idea that beauty is a culturally-specific and hedonistic characteristic; others reject the aesthetic approach and find beauty instead in relationships between human beings. 

Most thinkers throughout history, though, find immense value in this slippery concept that we call “beauty.” Reverend Charles Kingsley writes, “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful. Beauty is God’s hand-writing.” (pause)

Beauty elevates us. Beauty lifts us out of the everyday and into the holy. Beauty is the dwelling place of the Divine. 

There are limits, of course, to what we should give for the sake of beauty. The Talmud encourages us not to spend more than one-third extra for the sake of hiddur mitzvah, beautifying the mitzvah, usually understood as making our ritual objects aesthetically pleasing rather than simply functional. And with regard to this parasha, scholar Avivah Zornberg reminds us that before Moshe asks the people to give for the sake of building the Mishkan, he reiterates the importance of Shabbat. For Zornberg, this shows the emphasis that we must place on creating beauty in time, rather than only in physical objects. You may be tempted, she writes, to think that building the Mishkan supersedes any of the other commands at that moment – as soon as we receive the command to build, all time, resources, and efforts must go towards creating this home for the Holy Blessed One. But Rashi explains that this is incorrect. All work associated with the Mishkan must stop on Shabbat, because the kodesh of Shabbat is greater than the kodesh of the Mikdash itself. In fact, the kinds of work performed to build and operate the Mishkan become the template for the 39 forbidden acts on Shabbat. The act of physical creation – of creativity, of art – is forbidden on this day. 

One day a week, we halt all of our artistic endeavors. But the other 6 days, we create. We bring our skills. We bring our resources. We give, because we believe that the cause is worthy. Because we believe that beauty is God’s hand writing through us; that beauty is wonderment and longing and love and color and joy; that in beholding the beautiful, we kiss the Divine. So yes, as I look up at the light pouring in through these monumental stained glass windows, I am convinced that it is worth it to build beautiful stained glass windows in our new kitchen. That we should spend a little more than is strictly necessary, according to what our means allow, to buy a colorful tallit. And that we should even be willing to donate to renovate an altar, if that were a thing that we had in synagogues. And when we’ve given too much, our leaders must say to us, “It’s time to stop. It’s time to have Shabbat. We have enough, and you must provide for yourself first. But the next time we need, we’ll let you know – don’t worry, we’ll let you know – because only with your help can we bring beauty down from the heavens into our realm.” Shabbat shalom.