Joy in the Messiah

וַיַּקְהֵל 
Vayakhel / And He Assembled
Exodus 35:1-38:20
1 Kings 7:13-26

     Vaykhel comes right after the golden calf incident.  Vayakhel means ‘And He Assembled’. This is exactly what Moses had to do after the Golden Calf - Vayakhel – assemble the Israelites into a kehillah, a community. He did this by restoring order. When Moses came down the mountain and saw the calf, the Torah says the people were pru’ah, meaning wild, disorderly, chaotic, unruly, tumultuous. He “saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies” Exodus 32:25. This group of people, the community had turned into a chaoti, unruly gang. 
      How did he begin to restore order?  He began by reminding the people of the laws of Shabbat. Then he instructed them to build the Mishkan, the Sanctuary, as a symbolic home for God.  
     But why these two commands rather than any others? Because Shabbat and the Mishkan are the two most powerful ways of building community. The best way of turning a disconnected group into a team is to get them to build something together. Hence the Mishkan. “The best way of strengthening relationships is to set aside dedicated time when we focus not on the pursuit of individual self-interest but on the things we share, by praying together, studying Torah together, and celebrating together - in other words, Shabbat. Shabbat and the Mishkan were the two great community-building experiences of the Israelites in the desert.” (Rabbi Sacks). 
     Is it religion that builds a community or is it relationships? Walking in the Torah is not a religion but rather a relationship with the God we serve.  It is our mitzvot. Same with the people in a community. We can share the same religious principles, but it is the relationships that we cultivate that make us a community.  The Shabbat, the sign on God’s people, brings us under the umbrella of a family, a kehal. But it’s more than just sharing a commandment, it’s contributing to the community, sharing the responsibility, the ups and downs and sharing the high holy days with one another. 
    When Moshe emerged with the second set of tablets, he had to reinforce the purpose of God’s people. He had to reunite the people. 
   In Deuteronomy 12:8 when Moses gave the Torah to the people of Israel, one of the chief principles was, “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes”. The idea that everyone should get to define for themselves what is right and true is a recipe for disorder and disaster. It is the very definition of moral anarchy and chaos at best. 
     Years after the episode of the Golden Calf, the Book of Judges describes one of the longest, bleakest times in the history of Israel. It covers a 450-year time frame extending from Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land until the time of Samuel, which is more years than America has been a nation. That entire era is riddled with horrific acts of evil, bloody conflicts and tales of human misery. It was an age of absolute moral chaos.
     The people of Israel would grow desperate and cry for help, and God would raise another leader to conquer whatever enemy was oppressing them.  Known as “judges,” these people weren’t necessarily perfect models of spiritual virtue, but God empowered them to deliver His people from disaster.  Then when peace was restored, the nation would fall right back into another long stretch of sin and apostasy. It happened every time and was repeated again and again.  
     Judges 17:6 states ‘In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.’ The book of Judges closes with the same: ‘Everyone did what was right in his own eye’. Judges 21:25.
     Israel was always about a people and their God.   Moses performed a tikkun, a mending of the past, namely the sin of the Golden Calf by calling or assembling the people together. We see this because essentially the same word is used at the beginning of both episodes: k-h-l  “to gather, assemble, congregate.” It eventually became a key word in Jewish spirituality.  From it we get the words kahal and kehillah, meaning “community”.  
      They had sinned as a community. Now they were about to be reconstituted as a community. Hebrew spirituality should be first and foremost a communal spirituality.  Moshe directs their attention to the two great centers of community in Torah: one in time and the other in physical space.  The one in time is Shabbat. The one in space was the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, which led eventually to the Temple and later to the synagogue. This is where kehillah lives most powerfully: on Shabbat when we lay aside our private devices and desires and come together as the community and the synagogue where community has its home. 
     This way of life, between the Shabbat and the Tabernacle – us as the living Tabernacle- and now the community of a Messianic Synagogue, is ever -evolving but ever -constant. As we as individuals change, the dynamics of the Kahal will change, but in essence the dynamics of God within the Kahal remain.

וַיַּקְהֵל
Vayakhel / And He Assembled
Exodus 35:1-38:20  
1 Kings 7:13-26 
פְקוּדֵי
P’kudei / Amounts Of
Exodus 38:21-40:38
1 Kings 7:51-8:21

    The Divine Presence Within Us

    This parsha begins with more instructions regarding the Sabbath and Moshe reiterating that is a holy day. Moshe continues with the offerings for the Tabernacle.  Exodus 35:20-22 states: ‘And all the congregation of the children of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. ²¹ Then everyone came whose heart was stirred, and everyone whose spirit was willing, and they brought the Lord’s offering for the work of the tabernacle of meeting, for all its service, and for the holy garments. ²² They came, both men and women, as many as had a willing heart…’ 
     ‘…heart was stirred…spirit was willing…and a willing heart.’ What was the spirit that moved them?  It was the light of Elohim, the light and spirit of the Torah. 
    Vayakhel continues with instructions for the Ark, the showbread and the lampstand. P’kudei begins with the altar, the bronze laver, the making of the court of the Tabernacle and the garments for the priests.  
    We see in P’kudei the importance of the first month. Exodus 40:1-3 states: ‘Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ² “On the first day of the first month you shall set up the tabernacle of the tent of meeting. ³ You shall put in it the ark of the Testimony, and partition off the ark with the veil.’  Exodus 40:17 ‘And it came to pass in the first month of the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was raised up.’  This precedent was set in Exodus 12:2 ‘This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. ³ Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household.’
     This Torah portion ends with the cloud and the glory. Exodus 40:34-38 ‘Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. ³⁵ And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. ³⁶ Whenever the cloud was taken up from above the tabernacle, the children of Israel would go onward in all their journeys. ³⁷ But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not journey till the day that it was taken up. ³⁸ For the cloud of the Lord was above the tabernacle by day, and fire was over it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.’
     Throughout Scripture God reveals the importance of the cloud and fire.
     The Cloud:
      Ezekiel 10:4 ‘Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub to the threshold of the temple, and the temple was filled with the cloud and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord.’
     Matthew 24:30 ‘And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.’
    Mark 13:26 ‘Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.’ 
    Luke 21:27 ‘Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory’
    2 Chronicles 5:13-14 ‘in unison when the trumpeters and the singers were to make themselves heard with one voice to praise and to glorify the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice accompanied by trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and when they praised the Lord saying, “He indeed is good for His lovingkindness is everlasting,” then the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.’
     Mark 14:62 ‘And Jesus said, “I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
     Ezekiel 43:2 ‘…and behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the way of the east. And His voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shone with His glory.’
     Isaiah 60:1 ‘Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.’
     Was it just a cloud? The word cloud in Hebrew is ‘anan’ which means simply cloud.  However, this word is also the root word for diviner or miracle worker.  The word is spelled “Ayin, Nun, Final Nun” עָנָ֑ן and is very interesting because it means spiritual insight through faith.  However, the double/final Nun would suggest that this spiritual insight is through faith and truth. Knowledge is one thing, but to ‘know’ God brings the spiritual to the flesh. It is interesting that the word for knowing in Hebrew is yada’ which means to be intimate with. 
The Fire:
     Acts 2:3 ‘And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.’
     Luke 3:16 ‘John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
     Exodus 3:2 ‘The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.’
     Exodus 9:24 ‘So there was hail, and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very severe, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.’
     Hebrews 12:29 ‘…for our God is a consuming fire.’
     Revelation 1:14 ‘His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. 
     Revelation 19:12 ‘His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself.’
     Regarding fire and religion people tend to go right to the destructive aspects of fire, and think immediately of the lake of fire, eternal flames, and some sort of torturing hell. “Much of what we view as hell-fire was appropriated from late medieval writings and art, and has little connection to the Biblical text. Late medieval artists and writers often pulled metaphorical Biblical images and embellished them for full shock-value effect, and the most popular image used to illustrate hell was fire”. This kept people in check within the church systems. But Biblical fire imagery has a much deeper meaning. In fact, fire can be associated with the ultimate art of perfection. The Presence of God is often described as fire. 
     Exodus 3:2 ‘The angel of YHWH appeared to him in a blazing fire [esh] from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire [ba-esh], yet the bush was not being consumed.’
     Exodus 24:17 ‘The appearance of the glory of YHWH was like a consuming fire [ka-esk] on the mountain top.”