Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
Divre Torah/Words of Torah, of Prayer and other Reflections
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| TO MAKE THE TENT ONE A teaching from Torah portion Vayakhel, source of a Torah vision of community to be considered throughout the year, through all the weeks of Torah portions Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein |
Once, while teaching and serving as school rabbi in a Jewish day school, I witnessed a
student hurl an unopened container of yogurt to the ground during an outdoor lunch. The
sound and sight of the creamy splatter produced for this student the sought after glee
and momentary rise in status from his assembled peers. Feeling a mix of sadness, pique,
and compassion, it was clear that I needed to respond. At that moment the bell rang,
students dispersed and I approached. Calling to the student, who, of course, had hoped
to blend into the crowd and disappear, I motioned to return to the oozing mess. I asked
some of the obvious questions about motive that adults would tend to ask, quickly
realizing from his face that he could never acknowledge the real reasons, and if he could
even recognize them it would be far too painful to acknowledge them. We talked briefly
about bal tashchit, the Jewish law prohibiting wanton waste, and we talked a bit about
ways of getting attention. Offering to help and hoping to encourage the boy to take
responsibility, I asked him who should clean up. His response stung. I felt something
splatter within me. He said quite matter-of-factly that the janitor should clean it up. This
was now more than a simple lunchtime incident, more than a matter of cleaning up the
sidewalk. The ante had been raised. The shattered vessel of a yogurt container opened
the possibility of a teachable moment, revealing sparks of a life-lesson in moral education.
Sadly, the intrinsic value of a human being had been lost on this student. The janitor’s
role was simply to clean up after others, adolescent whim to be his work order. The
school janitor happened to be a person of great wisdom and spiritual depth around whom
students and faculty would often gather. For all of his insecurity among peers, the student
had a sense of entitlement that allowed him to see the janitor as being of lower standing.
An attitude already in need of being uprooted from a young person’s soul, this twisted
psychic vine did not grow in a vacuum. Its seed came in all the subtle messages of a
society that honors status and fosters hierarchy.
In a true community, a holy community, every individual who gives of self is equally
valued, the labor of each person equally honored as part of a delicate social web. Rooted
in this week’s Torah portion, Vayakhel, this is a powerful message that reveals the Torah’
s profoundly inclusive vision of community. Writing this d’var Torah, this reflective word of
Torah, during the week of Vayakhel, I am suffused with the beauty and majesty of the
Torah’s teaching on community, its practical guidance transcending by far the context of
one week.
On the frontispiece of our holy books, our sifrei kodesh, two letters often appear before
the name of the town from which the author comes. Similarly, the same two letters have
often been fixed above the gates of synagogues throughout the far-flung Jewish world.
These two Hebrew letters, appearing as an abbreviation before the name of a Jewish
community, are kuf-kuf, standing for Kehilla Kedosha, the Holy Community of…. These
letters do not endow a community with holiness, but serve to challenge its members to
create a community worthy of being called holy.
Birthing the Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue has been a vibrantly rich learning
experience, both exhilarating and humbling. As the physical space has taken shape, and
sacred objects of our people’s religious life have found their way to us, as though on
wings, I quickly realized that the building and its furnishings, for all the myriad challenges
presented, was the easier part of the project to complete. A synagogue building, however
beloved, should never be confused with the community of people that gathers within it
and for whom it is a spiritual locus, a place of homecoming. While a community building
can be completed, building community is never done. It is an organic process, ever
evolving, of living life with people.
This week’s Torah portion, Vayakhel, is the quintessential portion about community. Built
on the root kahal, meaning community, as does kehilla, vayakhel means “And he (Moses)
gathered….” A community is an assembly of people gathered together in common
purpose. The process of building the desert sanctuary, the Mishkan, as it unfolds in
Vayakhel is about much more than a physical building project. The nature of that physical
process offers beautiful teaching about the nature of the deeper, never-ending process
of building the community that in body and spirit will fill the building.
As the parasha opens, there is a flood of excitement, the people bringing of their own
possessions, gold and silver and fine fabrics, bringing, though, only if moved by their own
heart-felt desire to participate. The people brought in abundance, like no building
campaign ever seen before or since, “The men came, along with the women, all moved by
their hearts…; Every man and every woman whose heart had moved them to
contribute…, brought…a gift, of their own free will.” Words are then uttered by the project
coordinators that can only stun anyone ever involved in fund-raising, “The people are
bringing too much, more than enough for the service required for the work that God has
commanded to do.”
What inspired such whole-hearted participation that we can draw on? Each person had a
task, and thereby a stake in the project. Each person was equally valued for their
contribution, and thus given reason to feel equal pride in the completed project. The joy
and honor of holy service was not vested only in the professionals. The chief artisans
were Betzalel and Oholiav, each blessed with skill of hand. Their greatest gift and
blessing to the community, however, was not their own creative genius, but the ability to
share their knowledge and skills with others. God put into Betzalel’s heart “the ability to
teach; both he and Oholiav.” Thus would they be able to inspire and empower each and
every member to share in leadership and to discover her or his own gifts and potential
that would in turn bring new blessings upon the community. The human dynamics set in
motion by the nature of the physical building project would remain in motion as a
galvanizing force long after the building itself had been completed.
Through the loving and joyful contribution of each person, the Torah tells us that
eventually, “the Dwelling Place became one whole…,” and the time came “to join the tent
together so that it should become one.” Reflecting on the unified result of so many hands
and hearts working together, the Izbitzer Rebbe, Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leyner, the Mey
Shiloach, explains that because each one was involved there was no room for arrogance
or a feeling of superiority of one over another. As the people saw the sanctuary emerge
and become one, as seamless as if created by one person, they each realized how their
own work depended for completion upon the work of another. In that way writes the
Izbitzer, “Not even the one who made the Holy Ark could boast to the one who made only
the courtyard tent pegs.”
As the Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue strives to “become one,” celebrating equally
the holy ark builder and the tent peg maker, so may we merit the letters “kuf kuf” before
our name, ever becoming a Kehilla Kedosha, a Holy Community.
student hurl an unopened container of yogurt to the ground during an outdoor lunch. The
sound and sight of the creamy splatter produced for this student the sought after glee
and momentary rise in status from his assembled peers. Feeling a mix of sadness, pique,
and compassion, it was clear that I needed to respond. At that moment the bell rang,
students dispersed and I approached. Calling to the student, who, of course, had hoped
to blend into the crowd and disappear, I motioned to return to the oozing mess. I asked
some of the obvious questions about motive that adults would tend to ask, quickly
realizing from his face that he could never acknowledge the real reasons, and if he could
even recognize them it would be far too painful to acknowledge them. We talked briefly
about bal tashchit, the Jewish law prohibiting wanton waste, and we talked a bit about
ways of getting attention. Offering to help and hoping to encourage the boy to take
responsibility, I asked him who should clean up. His response stung. I felt something
splatter within me. He said quite matter-of-factly that the janitor should clean it up. This
was now more than a simple lunchtime incident, more than a matter of cleaning up the
sidewalk. The ante had been raised. The shattered vessel of a yogurt container opened
the possibility of a teachable moment, revealing sparks of a life-lesson in moral education.
Sadly, the intrinsic value of a human being had been lost on this student. The janitor’s
role was simply to clean up after others, adolescent whim to be his work order. The
school janitor happened to be a person of great wisdom and spiritual depth around whom
students and faculty would often gather. For all of his insecurity among peers, the student
had a sense of entitlement that allowed him to see the janitor as being of lower standing.
An attitude already in need of being uprooted from a young person’s soul, this twisted
psychic vine did not grow in a vacuum. Its seed came in all the subtle messages of a
society that honors status and fosters hierarchy.
In a true community, a holy community, every individual who gives of self is equally
valued, the labor of each person equally honored as part of a delicate social web. Rooted
in this week’s Torah portion, Vayakhel, this is a powerful message that reveals the Torah’
s profoundly inclusive vision of community. Writing this d’var Torah, this reflective word of
Torah, during the week of Vayakhel, I am suffused with the beauty and majesty of the
Torah’s teaching on community, its practical guidance transcending by far the context of
one week.
On the frontispiece of our holy books, our sifrei kodesh, two letters often appear before
the name of the town from which the author comes. Similarly, the same two letters have
often been fixed above the gates of synagogues throughout the far-flung Jewish world.
These two Hebrew letters, appearing as an abbreviation before the name of a Jewish
community, are kuf-kuf, standing for Kehilla Kedosha, the Holy Community of…. These
letters do not endow a community with holiness, but serve to challenge its members to
create a community worthy of being called holy.
Birthing the Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue has been a vibrantly rich learning
experience, both exhilarating and humbling. As the physical space has taken shape, and
sacred objects of our people’s religious life have found their way to us, as though on
wings, I quickly realized that the building and its furnishings, for all the myriad challenges
presented, was the easier part of the project to complete. A synagogue building, however
beloved, should never be confused with the community of people that gathers within it
and for whom it is a spiritual locus, a place of homecoming. While a community building
can be completed, building community is never done. It is an organic process, ever
evolving, of living life with people.
This week’s Torah portion, Vayakhel, is the quintessential portion about community. Built
on the root kahal, meaning community, as does kehilla, vayakhel means “And he (Moses)
gathered….” A community is an assembly of people gathered together in common
purpose. The process of building the desert sanctuary, the Mishkan, as it unfolds in
Vayakhel is about much more than a physical building project. The nature of that physical
process offers beautiful teaching about the nature of the deeper, never-ending process
of building the community that in body and spirit will fill the building.
As the parasha opens, there is a flood of excitement, the people bringing of their own
possessions, gold and silver and fine fabrics, bringing, though, only if moved by their own
heart-felt desire to participate. The people brought in abundance, like no building
campaign ever seen before or since, “The men came, along with the women, all moved by
their hearts…; Every man and every woman whose heart had moved them to
contribute…, brought…a gift, of their own free will.” Words are then uttered by the project
coordinators that can only stun anyone ever involved in fund-raising, “The people are
bringing too much, more than enough for the service required for the work that God has
commanded to do.”
What inspired such whole-hearted participation that we can draw on? Each person had a
task, and thereby a stake in the project. Each person was equally valued for their
contribution, and thus given reason to feel equal pride in the completed project. The joy
and honor of holy service was not vested only in the professionals. The chief artisans
were Betzalel and Oholiav, each blessed with skill of hand. Their greatest gift and
blessing to the community, however, was not their own creative genius, but the ability to
share their knowledge and skills with others. God put into Betzalel’s heart “the ability to
teach; both he and Oholiav.” Thus would they be able to inspire and empower each and
every member to share in leadership and to discover her or his own gifts and potential
that would in turn bring new blessings upon the community. The human dynamics set in
motion by the nature of the physical building project would remain in motion as a
galvanizing force long after the building itself had been completed.
Through the loving and joyful contribution of each person, the Torah tells us that
eventually, “the Dwelling Place became one whole…,” and the time came “to join the tent
together so that it should become one.” Reflecting on the unified result of so many hands
and hearts working together, the Izbitzer Rebbe, Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leyner, the Mey
Shiloach, explains that because each one was involved there was no room for arrogance
or a feeling of superiority of one over another. As the people saw the sanctuary emerge
and become one, as seamless as if created by one person, they each realized how their
own work depended for completion upon the work of another. In that way writes the
Izbitzer, “Not even the one who made the Holy Ark could boast to the one who made only
the courtyard tent pegs.”
As the Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue strives to “become one,” celebrating equally
the holy ark builder and the tent peg maker, so may we merit the letters “kuf kuf” before
our name, ever becoming a Kehilla Kedosha, a Holy Community.
| Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue 43 Lochstead Avenue, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 |
