Author: Eve Posen

If I Built a Mishkan – Parshat Vayakhel 5784

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If you asked me what I would do if I wasn’t a rabbi, I’d probably say something along the lines of an experience designer or exhibit curator. I love thinking about the user experience of a place, whether that’s a museum, a park, or Costco. A favorite mental exercise of mine is to imagine how I might build something if those decisions were up to me.

There’s a wonderful series of picture books by Chris Van Dusen that imagines what a school, a car, or a house would be like if built by a very creative kid. It’s fun to read these with my children and then ask them, “If you could build a synagogue, what would you make sure to include?” My synagogue would probably include quiet treadmills and bounce pads in the back of the prayer space and multiple types of seating and standing options, as well as multiple rooms for different sensory needs. Of course, their answers are different from mine, and I’m sure all of your answers would be vastly different too. The point is that everyone’s ideal environment is going to be unique, including God’s. 

We read Parshat Vayakhel this week, and we are inundated with facts about the Mishkan. The Torah teaches that we are to collect special gifts to build this sacred space and that these gifts are to be given because the giver wants to give them, not because they are being asked to give them. The text then continues to explain that because of this “giving what your heart tells you” mentality, they end up with an abundance of materials to build this sacred space. The reason the Mishkan is a magnificent construction project is because of the generosity of spirit the Israelites were moved to exhibit.

The entire text is full of directions for building a breathtaking holy space for God in which the community will gather. We’re talking gold, bronze, and silver, along with garments of majestic embroidery and so much glitz and glam. We’re led to believe that God clearly has a taste for the ornate. 

However, this begs the question, is this space for God to feel at home or for the Israelites to feel safe and present? The text doesn’t provide an obvious answer, but in reading the descriptive details, it appears that the grandeur of the Mishkan is partly because God wanted as many people as possible to contribute to its creation. That way they’d feel connected to the space and proud to be there. While our use of holy spaces has changed, the idea of having everyone contribute remains the same. When you volunteer your time and other resources to Neveh Shalom, that’s how you create a space that’s built for you, one you’re proud to be in. And if that happens to include trampolines in the vestry, you know how to contact me.

See For Yourself – Parshat Ki Tissa 5784

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In a world with surveillance video, body cams, and 4K-capable mobile phones, it has become commonplace for news stories to be accompanied by video footage of every type of event, aired for the entire public to see. Before we had cameras everywhere, the only way to truly know what happened in a specific incident was through eyewitness accounts. We had to rely on people telling the story. That often left room for conjecture, embellishment, hiding facts, and other roadblocks in the way of the “whole truth.” The only way to have a complete story is to be fully (or at least virtually) present when something happens, and now that we have Ring doorbells and security cameras, it’s impossible to go back to a time of having to remember or guess what may have happened. 

Despite the creative imaginations that have conjured up artistically rendered selfies of biblical characters (you may have seen these passed around social media), we don’t have the benefit of video footage of anything that occurred in the Torah. As we read the narrative of the Israelite nation, there are many times when we read about events that seem to only be possible outside the scope of rationality. If certain events in the Torah seem improbable, maybe that calls into question the entire document. Faith usually means believing without seeing. However, our Torah portion this week includes a commandment from God about the obligation to see things for ourselves. 

Parshat Ki Tissa greets us in the desert, where the Israelites have received the Ten Commandments, and they are now set to continue on their journey, with Moshe and God leading the way. But Moshe is delayed in coming down from the mountain, and the people are scared, unsure of this God that they have yet to trust. So they gather their gold, make an idol, and turn their attention to something tangible.

While he’s on top of the mountain in his session with the Divine, Moshe hears from God about the Golden Calf and how the Israelites have already broken the laws they only recently received. Even though furious at their actions, God implores Moshe not to condemn them from afar, but to hurry down the mountain to see for himself. 

Why doesn’t Moshe reflect God’s anger until he returns to the people? It’s because here we receive the legal and communal precedent to actually see for ourselves the entirety of the situation before rushing to condemnation. It’s human (and even Godly) nature to form an opinion based on the biases that we carry, but it is our duty to recognize those biases and fight against them rather than act without all the information.

Instructions (Sometimes) Required – Parshat Tetzaveh 5784

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A memory popped up in our photostream the other day of a time when I was working late and Duncan needed to entertain Shiri. Since the kids like baking together, he prepped a baking activity, but instead of following the recipe exactly, he simply put out all the ingredients (in reasonable quantities) like sugar, flour, eggs, oil, salt, chocolate chips, etc., and invited Shiri to create something. Even though Shiri decided the amount of each ingredient and what to do with it, they actually ended up making chocolate chip cookies that were fairly palatable. 

While baking is a precise science, Duncan can usually use this method himself when it comes to non-baked dinner combinations. He can take a mix of leftovers and whatever else we might have lying around and craft something fairly yummy. By contrast, I’m not a whiz in the kitchen, but I am exceptional at following a recipe to a 90% success rate, meaning what I make is edible and generally meets expectations. I’m not great at experimenting too far outside of my kitchen comfort zone, so I leave that to Duncan, who can put out ingredients and riff on some basic knowledge.

There are times when each of these methods is not only appropriate but also necessary. On the one hand, putting out supplies with no directions can encourage creativity and imagination and can allow people to have a unique and different experience with each interaction. On the other hand, it often makes it impossible to recreate the product, which, outside of the culinary world, might be more problematic than we think. 

Our Torah reading this week invites us into the possibility that both options (following directions or improvising) can be beneficial. Parshat Tetzaveh details the specific clothing items that a priest and those close to him are to wear. This is special attire that distinguishes them from others in their service to God. These clothes are meant to add an aura of holiness to the priests as they complete their sacred duties. Since these vestments and garments are to be used for such a unique purpose, God also gives a special instruction regarding who is to make them. After we receive these specifics, we learn about the details of what is on each garment.

In the Torah reading two weeks ago in chapter 24, the Israelites answer God with na’aseh v’nishma. “We will do it, and then we’ll understand it.” Commentators often refer to this text as the notion that to understand something, one must explore it, be active in it, and test it out. This week, however, as God is giving the instructions on how to install the priests, the opposite is described. First, God lists the materials that will be needed and then gives concrete, careful, exact directions on what to do and how to do it. To mess around with this order is to desecrate holy objects. When you read both portions, what’s clear is the Torah doesn’t just have one way of doing everything. In certain moments, it is imperative to explore, create, and experiment, and in others, there’s a precise formula to ensure safety, continuity, and balance. 

My Dance Space – Parshat Terumah 5784

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It’s no secret that my favorite movie is Dirty Dancing. I remember watching it for the first time and falling in love with the dance moves and the romance of it (without understanding at my young age the more adult themes). When you watch good movies over and over again, they never get old because you tend to find new things to take from them. As many times as I’ve watched Dirty Dancing, I’m still finding little lessons and commentaries on the state of society and more. One of those themes I noticed recently is the notion of setting boundaries.

When the character of Johnny is working on helping Baby improve her dancing, he talks about posture. In the beginning, as they’re getting to know each other, Johnny teaches Baby to lock her arms, declaring “This is my dance space, this is yours.” If you know the movie, you know that the two characters are establishing not just the boundaries for dancing with each other, but the boundaries of their relationship. After they get to know one another and care for one another, Baby later teases a noodle-armed Johnny while dancing, calling out his “spaghetti arms” and throwing his previous line about dance space right back at him.

While I wouldn’t necessarily call Dirty Dancing biblical commentary, I would certainly be willing to say that the relationships and boundaries explored in the story are as old as the Torah itself, and one of those lessons can be seen in our Torah portion this week. This week we read Parshat Terumah, which reminds us of the importance of giving gifts just because we want to. The parshah focuses mainly on the building of the Tabernacle (the Mishkan) and what the ark and decorative pieces will look like. The instructions are specific, including what materials should be used, exactly how big each piece should be, and how the floor plan should look when the building is completed.

While the directions for building the Tabernacle are being given, we read in chapter 27 about a specific kind of enclosure that needs to be made for the more sacred of the spaces. This is when we learn the notion that any sacred area must be clearly separated from the profane space outside of it. In other words, there are multiple levels of boundaries throughout the Tabernacle and Temple plazas to allow for the complexities of relationships and how different roles would interact with each other and with God. 

Sacred spaces can be physical like the Tabernacle or a synagogue, or they can be personal, between two human beings. Parshat Terumah suggests that regardless of where they are, boundaries can have their own inherent holiness, and respecting them allows for more trusting relationships. The most beautiful movements together happen when you have your dance space and I have mine.

Jewish Sex – Parshat Mishpatim 5784

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When I used to teach in the day school world I would frequently be called upon to offer a unit called “Jewish Sexual Education” to our 4th-8th graders as part of their human sexuality units. My role was to offer up a sex-positive, safety-positive lesson about the way we look at our bodies and how we treat our partners in intimate relationships. This spanned the spectrum from strictly emotional relationships (and emotional abuse) to the very nature of our physical beings and anatomy. It never failed; each year I’d walk into the classroom to have kids shade their eyes and hide their faces because it was too much for them to hear the rabbi use medical terminology for genitalia.

I started each year with the same speech about how “this too is Torah” and reminded them that the Torah is chock-full of examples of boundaries being violated and rules about what constitutes an appropriate physically intimate relationship. This is acknowledged in multiple ways throughout the Torah, but specifically in our current Torah portion.

This week we read Parshat Mishpatim, the middle section of text in Sefer Shemot, the Book of Exodus. The Israelites are on their way out of Egypt to Israel. They have begun to set up their own system of laws and rules, beginning last week with the Ten Commandments. This week, Parshat Mishpatim focuses on interpersonal laws in regard to business. The main idea of this section of text is that we have the obligation to treat each other in business and in relationships as complete, equal human beings.

In the list of responsibilities towards other humans, the text talks about indentured servants and other types of “ownership” relationships. It may sound strange to modern ears, but this includes marriage. The Torah is explicit that the rights of two people in a committed relationship are food, clothing, and conjugal love. Jewish law values the rights of both partners to sexual satisfaction within their partnership. Moreover, withholding pleasure from a partner is seen as breaking a commandment. 

We often think of biblical Judaism as being ancient and antiquated. We often have to dig deep into laws about sacrifice to figure out how those laws are relevant to us today. For this law, there’s no need to dig. The Torah values responsible and committed physical bonding and recognizes that withholding that physical need is a form of enslavement. It’s a pretty progressive take for these ancient words.