by Mrs. Sharon Fixler
This past week, Hollywood celebrated the best in film by assembling for the 88th Annual Academy Awards. But this was no ordinary Oscar celebration. There was much controversy this year (known as #OscarsSoWhite on Twitter) as black actors were glaringly omitted from the list of nominees. In fact, in his opening monologue, Oscars host Chris Rock jokingly referred to the evening as the “White People’s Choice Awards”.
So how does this connect to our Parsha, Parshat Vayakhel? Interestingly, our people also assembled, in this week’s parsha, which opens with: “ויקהל משה את כל עדת בני ישראל”- “And Moshe assembled the entire congregation of Israel” (Shmot 35:1).
But while the Oscars assembly was one of exclusion, the assembly of Bnei Yisrael was one of inclusion. All of the people were assembling, as one whole community.
We learn this from the word choice of “Vayakhel”. Usually, the text reads “Moshe spoke” or “Moshe commanded”, but here, “Moshe assembled”. Why here?
As we often mention in English class, context is so important when learning a text, because the context gives you an additional layer of insight. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks writes that “at the beginning of Vayakhel Moses performs a tikkun, a mending of the past, namely the sin of the Golden Calf. The Torah signals this by using essentially the same word at the beginning of both episodes”.
When the nation sinned with the Golden Calf, the episode began with these words: “When the people saw that Moshe was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered themselves [vayikahel] around Aaron …” (Shmot 32:1).
At the beginning of this week’s parsha, having won God’s forgiveness and brought down a second set of luchot, Moses began the work of rededicating the people, and we have the language of “vayakhel” once again.
From the root of “vayakhel”, we get the words kahal and kehillah, meaning “community”.
As Rabbi Sacks writes: “They had sinned as a community. Now they were about to be reconstituted as a community…Ours is a religion of community”.
And where do we most keenly experience the power of community?
Rabbi Sacks concludes: “..Where kehillah lives most powerfully: on Shabbat when we lay aside our private devices and desires and come together as a community, and the synagogue, where community has its home”. These two mitzvot, of observing Shabbat and building the Mishkan, are the very two mitzvot discussed in this week’s Parsha, that help the nation come together as a community.
May we harness the power of community to bring ourselves to greater spiritual heights!
Shabbat Shalom!
