Pekudei
What can the labor of the Mishkan teach us?
Reflection by Carrie Watkins, US Community Manager:
"After several parshiot focusing on the building of the Mishkan - the desert tabernacle - parshat Pekudei arrives to celebrate its completion. `Ela pekudei hamishkan` these are the countings, the sum totals, of the Mishkan, says our parsha before describing, in detail, everything the Children of Israel created together, at the leadership and divine inspiration of Betzalel and Moses. Aaron and his sons then come forward and begin their Priestly service, and a cloud of Hashem comes to rest over the Mishkan by day, and fire by night. God asked us to build a dwelling place among us for God, and we did.
While the Mishkan itself hasn’t existed since those years wandering in the desert, its legacy has woven itself into the present. The blueprint of the Mishkan and its rituals became our model for the later building of the Temple, which, after its destruction, transformed into the prayer services we practice today. The Mishkan also serves as a kind of negative blueprint for Shabbat. The laws of Shabbat prohibiting working are all based around the categories and derivatives of the 39 different types of work we employed to build the Mishkan.
As my teacher Dr Devorah Steinmetz points out in her new book Why Rain Comes from Above, the Mishkan also stands in contrast to the labor we did as slaves in Egypt, in which the main purpose of the labor enforced upon the Israelites was oppression. The labor of the Mishkan is not just the opposite of Shabbat, it’s the opposite of oppressive labor. It is slow and deliberate and creative, work that lifts up the gifts and talents of individuals in service of a collective goal. It is work that requires, in words the Torah writes all around its descriptions of the Mishkan, wise-heartedness and generosity.
Our meditation practice is avodah, spiritual work. The Mishkan teaches us what that labor can look like. May our meditation practices this week be filled with wise-heartedness and generosity, and may it serve not just our individual gifts but our collective potential."