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Parshat Vayakhel-Pekudei
Exodus 35:1-40:38
29th Adar, 5761

In the double parsha of vayakhel-pekudei, the last five chapters of Exodus, we blithely leave the story of the golden calf behind and return to the work of building the Mishkan. Initially, the people are admonished to observe the Shabbat rigorously, thereby emphasizing Shabbat's primacy over the construction of the Mishkan. Latter, there is an extended detailed description of the construction of the Mishkan and its various utensils, equipment and sacerdotal clothing.

Between the two, from 35:4 to 36:8, the materials for the Mishkan are collected, and Bezalel and Oholiab are once again charged with manufacturing the Mishkan and its accouterments. In these 39 verses, the word "lev" (heart) is mentioned 12 times (verses 35:5, 10, 21, 22, 25, 26, 29, 34, 35, 36:1, 2, 8). Everett Fox translates phrases including "lev" as "willing minds" or "wise of mind". Further, he notes, "The account of what the Israelites brought as contributions for the work, and the description of those who were to carry it out, is long and repetitive. This factor, with the addition of a refrainlike pattern of key words (e.g. "mind' ("lev"-dg), "willing", "service", "work", "wise", "design", "brought"), strongly portrays the people's enthusiasm for and participation in the sacred task."

Objectively we know that the heart is not truly the seat of either our emotions nor of our intellect. It is, if working properly, a beating muscle triggered by the autonomous nervous system. To the degree that we identify it as part of our personality in some way, we do so figuratively. In antiquity, this understanding was not the case. Not having our relatively sophisticated knowledge of anatomy, the ancients identified, for example, the kidneys as the source of emotion. (Likewise, the Greeks thought the liver was the place of the intellect.) In fact, "lev", according the Encyclopedia Judaica, could also mean other than literally "heart"-it could refer to our insides in general, to the breasts, even to the throat. Such indeed are the ways we too use the word "heart": my heart stuck in my throat, my heart dropped, I beat upon my heart.

As Fox's note points out, "lev" also included mind, the ability to reason. That is somewhat different than how we now often think of heart-if anything it is a seat of "illogical" emotion. We speak of "following one's heart" with a connotation of the heart's emotions trumping the mind's hesitance and resistance.

What our modern concept best illustrates is the conflict we experience between our reason and our emotions (or, perhaps more narrowly, our desires). Maybe this reflects to some degree the "mind-body" problem that has afflicted Western philosophy. But the "mind-heart" dichotomy is one most of us live with daily.

Some of the conflicts are fairly silly and benign. We'd rather be at the beach instead of the office (and sometimes the beach wins). Sometimes it can make a mess of a person's life: following the heart to exactly the wrong marital partner, reason be damned in the throes of love.

In the previous parsha, Am Israel following its heart without reason or balance. They built the golden calf, and thus cause an irrevocable, but not absolute, rupture in the relationship of the people collectively and G-d.

So why "lev" here? Does Fox's translation as "willing mind" really give these chapters the literary force encompassed in "lev"? Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible suggests another approach. "Heart was commonly used, as today, of the center of something - whether humans or other objects, and from this usage the term was applied to the whole range of internal and central things in humans.The Hebrews thought of the whole human being and personality with all its physical, intellectual, and psychological attributes when they used "heart". It was considered the governing center for all of these. It is the heart (the core) which makes and identifies the person (Prov. 4:23). Character, personality, will, and mind are modern terms which all reflect something of the meaning of "heart" in its biblical sense."

Everett Fox's comments on this point continue, "Note also the fourteenfold occurrence of "every/all/entire" (Heb. kol) in vv. 20-29. Vv. 3-7 (in chapter 36-dg) push the narrative to a crescendo, with the people actually bringing much more than is needed (any may also be a contrast to their briefly stated surrendering of jewels in the Calf episode, 32:3)."

Let's us make a pun, so to speak. While the "kol" refers to the people as a group, at the same time it might to refer to each individual.

When the willing heart brings the materials to help construct the Mishkan, the entire person makes the donation, as a "kol lev", if you will. The crescendo is not only the entire people bring too much, but each person bringing their all. As G-d reached out, albeit with new constraints, following the sin of the golden calf, now the people, teshuvah completed, reach out with all their limited, human capacity to the Divine.

Richard Elliot Friedman writes on the verse "And they said to Moses, saying, 'The people are bringing more than enough for the construction, for the work that YH-WH has commanded, to do it!'" (36:5)

"My teacher Yochanan Muffs pointed out a paradox about sacrifice: people are commanded to do it, yet sacrifices are regarded as freewill offerings. The same applies here at the point of the establishment of Israel's entire ritual structure. The people are commanded to bring donations, yet they act with a kind of zeal that reflects more than just obedience to a commandment. They bring far more than what was required of them. This is an essential concept ultimately for the entire notion of law and commandment in Judaism. The law is not regarded as a burden. It is mandatory, yet one fulfills it out of choice and with joy. Thus the word for commandment, miswah (popularly spelled and pronounced mitzvah), has two meanings to this day: it means a law that must be obeyed, but Jews also commonly understand it to mean a good deed, freely performed."

Here is a model of us: after the sin of the golden calf, the people could still find a way to G-d, by fulfilling the mitzvah of building the Mishkan "b'kol lev", with all their heart.

At the very end of this section, Moses again commissions Bezalel and Oholiab to actually build the Mishkan. "And Moses said the children of Israel, 'See, YH-WH has called Bezalel, son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah by name, and He has filled him with the spirit of G-d in wisdom, in understanding and in knowledge and in every kind of work..And Bezalel and Oholiab and every man who is wise of heart, in whom YH-WH has put wisdom and understanding to know how to do all the work of the service of the Holy shall do it, for everything that YH-WH has commanded.' And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every man who was wise of heart, in whose heart YH-WH had put wisdom, everyone whose heart inspired him to come forward for the work, to do it."

There is here an odd Zen effect: "to do it". Find that place of unity of heart and mind, training and intuition, thoughtfulness and reaction, and "do it". Given the proper training, the right directions, and a full heart, perhaps we can all help rebuild the Mishkan, or at least a sense of the Mishkan, in our own lives, and our own communities.

Shabbat Shalom,

Dennis