VAYAKHEL/PEKUDEY

Shabbat HaChodesh

27th Adar 5770 ~ 13th March 2010

Shabbat begins in London at 17.45 and ends at 18.48

By Norman Bar

Moses reminds the Israelites to observe Shabbat and of the penalties for non-compliance. The Israelites give so generously towards building the Mishkan (Tabernacle) that Moses asks them to stop giving. Betzalel and Oholiav oversee the Mishkan’s construction by the skilled Israelites. The construction, materials, appurtenances, and priestly garments are detailed. Accounts are kept. God’s presence fills the Mishkan. A cloud by day and fire by night guide the Israelites’ travel. Shemot ends.

In Shemot 35:10 we read:

וְכָל-חֲכַם-לֵב, בָּכֶם, יָבֹאוּ וְיַעֲשׂוּ, אֵת כָּל-אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה.

And every wise-hearted person among you shall come and make everything that the Lord has commanded:”

An interesting but oblique and casual reference to wisdom in ‘wise-hearted’.

Hertz comments on “wise-hearted” in Shemot 28:3 and 35 :10 (used elsewhere e.g. 35:25 & 35, and 36:1 & 8): “In Bible psychology, the heart is the seat of intellect, not of feeling.” So Biblical wisdom is intellectual and rational. Thus Telushkin (Jewish Values p.43): “The rabbinic understanding (is) that one of wisdom’s main components is the ability to anticipate the implications of one’s words and acts” Thus if building a new house make a parapet for the roof, to avoid ‘bloodguilt’ if someone falls off. Yet Nechamah Leibowitz (New Studies in Bereshit p.448) describes Joseph’s wisdom as “that which (was) accompanied by Divine communion and revelation”: hardly intellectual or rational: clearly involving profound emotion.

Rabbi Louis Jacobs (The Jewish Religion pp. 588/9) echoes Hertz in describing chochma “usually translated as wisdom” as being used in Jewish literature to describe “mental processes and intellectual attitudes’, and in the Bible to mean ’skill’. The meaning develops. In the Wisdom literature and some late biblical passages, “the sage, (chacham) …….. has acquired ‘knowledge of the world and human nature, sharing his experience with others. … gives prudent advice and is the author of wise saws.” The meaning of wisdom alters further over time until (Rabbi Jacobs, p. 589) ‘ In everyday Jewish use hochma denotes wisdom of a deeper quality than mere cleverness. The hacham is not a clever know-all but a man capable of penetrating into the depths of the human situation and of seeing things as a whole.”

And here we more nearly approach the true meaning of wisdom. Wisdom involves insight, vision, seeing beyond the surface, far more than intellect, rationality or knowing facts. Who has not met clever and knowledgeable people who are anything but wise? Scholars perhaps, but lacking insight, understanding, compassion.

Is wisdom passé? Too subtle, too impractical? Are our scholastically pressurised young people encouraged to value those “capable of penetrating into the depths of the human situation and of seeing things as a whole”, including some who, though for many reasons denied formal education, are undoubtedly “wise-hearted”? In our bustling, ‘knowing’, competitive world, is there room or time for wisdom? There should be. As we read in Proverbs (31:26) “(The Ayshet Chayil) opens her mouth with wisdom; and the law of kindness is on her tongue.”

Norman Bar is a member of NNLS

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Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

The 100 talents of silver were for casting the sockets of the sanctuary and the sockets for the curtain, 100 sockets to the 100 talents, a talent a socket. (Shemot 38:27)

The number of sockets needed for the sanctuary was one hundred, the same number as that of the blessings that must be recited daily. This implies that even as the sockets served as the foundation of the sanctuary, so the daily blessings represent the foundations for the sanctity of the Jewish individual. (Hidushei HaRIM [Rabbi Isaac Meir Alter, the Gerer Rabbi, 1799-1866, Poland])

Rabbi Meir said, a person is obligated to recite 100 Brachot every day, as it is written, “And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God demand of you?” (Devarim 10:12) [Rabbi Meir reads mah (mem-hay, what) as me’ah (mem-aleph-hay, hundred)] (Menahot 43b)

A person should taste nothing before he utters a blessing. Since “the earth is the Lord’s, and all that it holds” (Tehillim 24:1), a person embezzles from God when he makes use of this world without uttering a blessing. (Tosefta Berakhot 4:1)

The berakhah, like most of Jewish prayer, is both a declaration of dependence and an expression of gratitude praising our Creator for the many gifts with which we are blessed. Prayer, which begins with the self, can move us away from self-centeredness and an unreflective routinization of life. Too often we take the world for granted. The berachah is a specific way of not taking the world for granted, of responding to each of God’s gifts with awareness, awe, and gratitude. (Siddur Sim Shalom, page xii)

Sparks for Discussion

Reciting 100 blessings each day seems daunting – however, a person who prays the three daily services and recites Brachot before and after eating will accomplish it easily. Do you think this minimum daily requirement of 100 Brachot should be taken literally? What point is Rabbi Meir trying to make? How often do you say Brachot outside of services or communal meals? How do you feel when you stop to say a berachah?