March 20, 2009 (Rabbi Bulka)

The second of the five books of the Torah comes to an abrupt end this Shabbat. Abrupt because it is a double reading, Vayakhel-Pekuday. 

 

The double-header begins with Moshe Rabbenu gathering the people to transmit an important message. As Rashi, quoting the Rabbis, tells us, the message is about more than the Shabbat. The Shabbat message had already been delivered in the Ten Statements.

 

The message here is that the workings of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, do not override the Shabbat. Moshe Rabbenu understood that the people were quite excited about building the sanctuary, and thinking it was so critical for the flow of the collective spirit, they might conclude that nothing, including the Shabbat, should stand in the way of building the Mishkan.   

 

Arguably, this message signalled to the people in a way that would have otherwise been difficult to convey, how sacred is the Shabbat, so sacred that building a house for God recedes in the face of Shabbat. The Mishkan is sacred space, the Shabbat is sacred time. Sacred space is limited to the space - sacred time, as in Shabbat, is everywhere.