podcast #6 Vayakhel-Pekudei

Shalom, in this podcast episode, the hosts discuss the end of the Book of Exodus and the importance of community and time in Judaism. They talk about how the two parashot, Vayakhel and Pikkudei, emphasize the gathering of people and the building of the tabernacle. They also mention the work of Chabad and their efforts to bring Jews together in remote places. The hosts discuss the concept of sanctifying time and how it has played a crucial role in the survival of the Jewish people. They share a quote from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel about the sanctity of time and its significance in Judaism. They also mention the subjective and objective nature of time and how the Jewish calendar is remarkably accurate. Shalom, everyone. Welcome back to our sixth podcast. We're actually ending the Book of Shemot this week with a double, two parashot joined together on a year that's not a leap year. Some shorter parashot are lumped together, so to make sure that within one year we will read all the parashot of the Torah. So I'm sitting here with Professor Shlomo Yital and Elisha Wolfin of Kilat Bar Haftam. Shalom, Elisha. I think we're ending the Book of Exodus on a high note. These two parashot are really interesting. All right. First of all, Shlomo, I love your optimism. Optimism is such a great trait in a person. Well, I think optimists live longer and live better. Okay. But it's very hard sometimes, especially these days. Yeah. Yeah. So you'll set the example for us on how to be an optimist, even in dark times. We'll try. So the two parashot that we're ending with, Moshe just descends from Mount Sinai. It's parashat Vayakhel Pikkudei. Vayakhel means to gather the people. He just came down a second time from Mount Sinai with a second tablet in his hand this time. No big surprise at the bottom of the mountain. He doesn't have to throw them on the ground. And they start building the tabernacle. Elisha, I think it's amazing. On this parashat, from time to time, Chabad literally implements Vayakhel. As you know, Chabad has shlichim all over the world in the most remote places. We visited them in Singapore and in China. And they send shlichim there and they stay there forever. They build a life there. They're amazing. From time to time in Vayakhel, they bring them all back. They have Vayakhel. They get them all together. Because that sense of community is really important, especially for people who are so remote. Chabad are quite amazing in the dedication of their shlichim. They are. They truly are. If you already mentioned Chabad, we're bouncing off one another. So when I was in Irkutsk, the very, very, pretty much the most eastern tip of the Russian Empire, if you like, and not far from the Chinese border, our savior there was a Chabad rabbi and his family. They did such an amazing and phenomenal work there. And so I really want to echo what you said. They know how to gather Jews together. So I didn't know they all gathered Vayakhel. Thank you for telling me that. But that's exactly what they do, too. They really gather Jews together. Well, more so outside of Israel than in Israel, but that's a different conversation. That's true. I have a small story about that very briefly. So we were at the bat mitzvah of our grandniece in New York at a center on the east side. It was a Chabad center in New York. I spoke to the Chabad rabbi and I told him I'm from Saskatchewan. At least nobody knows Saskatchewan. And the Chabad rabbi said, oh, yeah, I know Saskatchewan. I was in Prince Albert. What were you doing in Prince Albert? That's a far north, a remote village. Yenerech, as they say, he went to a federal penitentiary there because the rabbi had heard that there might be Jews in that penitentiary. And they sent him to Prince Albert to find out if he could find any Jews in the penitentiary. And he did. He found Jews and made contact. That's Chabad. That's beautiful. Beautiful. So what are we going to talk about today? So Vayakhel, the idea of congregation and this is, I think, why Jews survive. This abstract idea of community and the sanctification of time, which you're going to explain in a moment. We lost our bet mit dash. That could have been fatal to the Jewish religion 2,000 years ago. The rabbis were brilliant. They decided our homes would be bet mit dash. Our homes would be places of prayer. So we had to learn Hebrew so we could pray. And we had to be literate. And that saved us as a people, as our religion. But it also made us literate at a time when most people were not. And then we became bankers of the world because we could read and write. And we had this amazing network. And because we were ethical, moral, religious people, that enabled us to survive as a Jewish people for 2,000 years. Yeah, yeah. I hope I can echo the last part of what you said about the ethical and the moral. But yeah, so we're going to be discussing a little bit the idea of the sanctity of time. Throughout the story of the Mishkan, there are basically five parashot, 15 chapters, dealing with the Mishkan. And between each section of the instructions to build the Mishkan and the building the Mishkan, the Shabbat is mentioned. God keeps reminding Moshe, but observe Shabbat, i.e., the sanctity of time precedes the sanctity of space. Mishkan is sanctifying space and Shabbat is sanctifying time. And it's an idea that Heschel kind of advanced, and you'll quote from Heschel later on, that the novelty of the Jewish people was that they sanctified time. And that's a beautiful, beautiful idea. And I never thought of it that way, just as you just said it now, that maybe that's the reason for our survival, that when our sacred space was destroyed and we were exiled, we were not destroyed because we sanctified time. Yes, exactly. Maybe this is a good time to read the quote from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. My wife and I were privileged, we heard him speak just before we made Aliyah in the late 1960s, and he was an amazing presence. Let me just read this brief passage from Heschel's book. It's his book on Shabbat. One of the most distinguished words in the Bible is the word Kadosh, holy, a word which more than any other is representative of the mystery and majesty of the divine. What was the first holy object in the history of the world? Was it a mountain? Was it an altar? It is indeed a unique occasion in which the distinguished word Kadosh is used for the first time in the book of Genesis, at the end of the story of the creation. How extremely significant is the fact that Kadosh is applied to time, and God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. There's no reference in the record of creation to any object in space that would be endowed with the quality of holiness. This is a radical departure from accustomed religious thinking. The mythical mind would expect that after heaven and earth had been established, God would create a holy place, a holy mountain, a holy spring, whereupon a sanctuary is to be established. Yet, it seems as if the Bible, it is holiness in time, the Sabbath which comes first. When history began, there was only one holiness in the world, holiness in time. When at Sinai, the word of God was about to be voiced, a call for holiness in man was proclaimed, thou shalt be unto me a holy people. It was only after the people had succumbed to the temptation of worshiping a thing, golden calf, that the erection of a tabernacle, a mishkan, of holiness in space was commanded. The sanctity of time came first, the sanctity of man came second, and the sanctity of space last. Time was hallowed by God, space, the tabernacle, was consecrated by Moshe. Yeah, yeah, that is very, very, very powerful. And I think what's important to know, especially since this podcast is in English, is the word for time in Hebrew is zman. And zman is a really interesting word. Dishlal, just in general, the Hebrew language, the whole root system, is very suggestive and allows for some really interesting interpretations. So, zman, if you look at the root, zman is also the same root as le'haznim, to invite, le'hizdamim, to encounter people, to, like at the end of the Gatimazon, we do zimun, if there are at least three people there, we summon them to bless together. So, zman, the realm of time, is a realm in which people can congregate, can come together. Now, until recently, you could say that people could congregate only if there was both space and time. But recently, with COVID and Zoom and other such technologies, we realized that no, no, no, all we need is time. People could be in different places all together, and they could still congregate, but they did have to agree on an agreed-upon time, on zman. So, sanctifying time is really sanctifying community, sanctifying the gathering of people. So, people come before space. Exactly, and Elisha, when my late sister passed away three years ago, and at the end of the month of mourning, we wanted to have a family gathering, and of course, our family is scattered all over the world, all over the U.S. and Canada. So, we set a time, and we gathered people on Zoom, and it was the most emotional, most meaningful gathering of people. We all told stories and reminiscences about my sister, and we were all together, despite being in different places, because we had set a time, and we sanctified the time by joining together. That's beautiful, and then you did also something else. You also, not only did you gather together at a certain, not at a certain place, but at a certain time, you also reflected on her life, on the time that she spent. And it didn't go systematically. What did she do every single minute, hour, or day? You reflected at key moments in time, and that's also very precious, because it kind of shows that time is subjective. We don't talk about every, you know, when we talk about our history, we don't talk about every day in our history, we talk about meaningful moments. So, our ability to reflect on meaningful moments is another way that we actually hallow time, that we elevate time and redeem ourselves through the ability to reflect on our time on Earth. True. So, it's true. Time is very subjective, as you know. Time passes quickly when we're having fun, and very slowly when we're suffering. But time is also highly, highly objective. And here's an example. The Jewish calendar. Elisha, the Jewish calendar is a miracle. It's amazing. It was developed, I think, over a thousand years ago, and it is so accurate at a time when, for example, the Muslim calendar goes all over the place. And I keep asking people who are knowledgeable, how in the world did the rabbis know astronomy so that they could create this phenomenal, accurate calendar? I haven't gotten an answer yet. I don't know. But part of worshipping time is having an exact calendar. That's right. But you know, that's interesting what you're saying, because you're giving it as an example of objective time, and that's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it would be what the rabbis actually created was saying that they had this interesting dialogue between the objective and the subjective. When Rabbi Gamliel knew that, well, first of all, I should say that Rosh Chodesh was sanctified, not through looking at the new moon, but through human witnesses coming to say that they saw the new moon. Now, the rabbis didn't need the witnesses. They could just walk out and see the new moon. But no, they needed people to come up to Jerusalem and say, yes, we all saw it. And there's a very famous story in which the rabbis, Rabbi Gamliel heard two witnesses. He knew that they were both lying, and they had some evil intentions. But nevertheless, he accepted their testimony, knowing that they gave false witness. He nevertheless accepted his testimony, which meant that Yom Kippur would fall that month, it was the month of Tishrei, that Yom Kippur would fall one day early. And if time is objective, then God forbid, should we not fast on the real day of Yom Kippur, on the objective day of Yom Kippur, the gates of heaven are already closed? How can we pray on that day and eat on the 10th of Tishrei? And even though he knew that they lied, he still insisted, we're going to do Yom Kippur on the 9th of the month instead of the 10th of the month. And there was a lot of upheaval in the Sanhedrin, but eventually he got his way, and Rabbi Akiva gave his backing to this decision. And the moral of the story is that we human beings, we congregate and we decide on time together, forget what the stars tell us, even though we know what the stars tell us. Having said all that, you're absolutely right, the Hebrew calendar is a masterpiece. So this brings up another beautiful point in Parashat Vayakhev, which is the crucial role of community. Rabbi Gamliel gave this priority to what the people think rather than what the great rabbis think. I have a small story about the crucial role of community. So my wife and I came to Zichron in 2015 and joined the Haftah. The reason we came here, really, the main reason was because of the community of the Haftah. And a few weeks ago on Shabbat evening, we were supposed to deliver a short drashah, we call it a Bisseh L'Hashra'ah, a little bit of inspiration, and we forgot. And we were both quite tired that day and we decided we'll skip shul, we'll stay home and rest. And a little later there was a knock on the door and two of our friends from the Haftah came and knocked on our door and they looked really worried and they asked if we were okay. And that sounds, you know, not like a huge thing, but for us it was really huge, because we're a part of a community where people care about you, and if you don't show up, they want to know what happened. Elisha, we have 17 grandchildren and a great-granddaughter and a huge family, but nonetheless you still need community, because your community is here right where we are. And a little bit later in our in our chat, I'm going to cite some medical evidence that community helps people live longer, because isolation is bad for your health. I'm looking forward to that insight. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. And I think another piece that I love about this idea of community, before they build the sacred space, Moshe gathers all the people, and the people express a lot of generosity and so much so they actually have to tell everyone to stop bringing gold and silver and everything, there's way too much, stop, stop, stop. People want to give, that's a whole other subject that we've talked about in the past as well. But another beautiful aspect is those who actually put the pieces together, built the tabernacle, were called, both men and women, were called Chachmei and Chachmot HaLev. And I love that term, those of wisdom of heart. I have this special kind of wisdom. And the reason why I love that, I've resourced that term quite extensively over the years, and I've come to the conclusion that what we learn from these parashat about the wisdom of heart, what is the wisdom of heart, which may be different from the wisdom of the intellect. And the wisdom of the heart, I found, is their ability to piece the pieces together. And that's also part of community, where community is about piecing human beings together, and matching, and the terminology for the different pieces in the twice, in Achot Eleve Utah, like one sister bring together to its other sister, one plank of wood connecting to another plank of wood, they're actually sisters, but you need those who are wise of heart to connect them together. And just to point out that there's so many words of instructions, but there's not one single instruction about how to assemble. They're told, assemble this, put them together, but not how to assemble. So how to bring, how to piece things together, the puzzle of community, that's the wisdom of heart, and that's a mystery, that's a divine mystery. I have a question about that, this has been troubling me for a while. So in English literature and culture, you have heart and mind, you have emotions and reason. But I think in Jewish tradition, in the Talmud, this is not exactly emotion, is it? What is live in the Talmud, Elisha? Right, that's a good question. You're right, the heart is, which is also why wisdom of the heart. The heart is not necessarily, you're right, it's not as we perceive it today as the center of emotion, which by the way, I would even argue, is indeed the heart the center of emotion, or is the gut the center of emotion? But that's a whole other conversation. The heart, perhaps, the heart is where the two meet, where intellect, thought, mind, and kishke, and gut, and intuition, where they meet together and produce a whole fresh form of wisdom. And thank you for that comment, because I'm thinking about this aloud, right now, that maybe when we try to put things together, an example of it would be matchmaking. God is considered to be the ultimate matchmaker, because matchmaking between two people requires divine wisdom of heart. But in every village, in town, there was always the matchmaker. And the matchmaker, she must have been, it usually was a she, and she must have been incredibly intuitive, where her brain, i.e., for example, you don't match a wealthy businessman with a very poor, whatever, you don't match their children together, it just won't work. So you do need the sehel, the brain, the mind, to do the proper matching. But she also was able to have a sense of, yeah, but those two families, or those two kids, or kids at the time, they, it's water and oil, they won't mix together. And most of the matches worked. Here we are, we're a proof of it, it actually worked. So yeah, so matchmaking is in the heart, and the heart is perhaps the union of, it's also midway between the mind and the kishke. You know, I have many friends from India, and many of them are highly educated, they work in the U.S., they're high-tech programmers, computer experts. When the time comes for them to marry, they return home and they engage in a matchmaking. Their marriage is arranged by the parents for them. And it sounds awful to many people in the West, but Elisha, it works, it works. We have three grandchildren who have been married, or about to be married, their meetings were made by matchmakers, and they're perfect, they're absolutely perfect. Thinking about myself, dating as a kid, you know, when your hormones are raging, and by accident you're looking at this beautiful person, or what, matchmaking actually has a lot to be said because it combines the heart and the mind. Live in the sense of both emotion and also reason, and that's something that's in scarce supply when you're 22. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, indeed. So from the wisdom of the heart, and the heart is what creates community, you wanted to teach us why it's really worthwhile nurturing your communal life in your community. So I found some research about how social life might help you live longer. We read a lot, Elisha, about we have to eat well, we have to exercise, I try to do that more on the exercise than on the eating well, but social life turns out to be crucial, and I found a book called Growing Young, How Friendship, Optimism, and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100. The author is called Marta Zorowska, and she has some phenomenal results here. One of the results is a study that sounds really awful. Research participants were voluntarily infected with cold virus, and then had their symptoms monitored by researchers. There were two groups. One group, people with strong community connections. Another group, people who were socially isolated. Unfortunately, there are many of those. Those who were socially isolated in life were 45% more likely to become ill. 45%. Wow, that's amazing. And there's a physical explanation. There's a hormone called cortisol, and it's produced when we are in stress, like when we're isolated and alone and depressed. When we have community and friendship, there's another hormone called oxytocin, and that reduces cortisol and changes the way our brain responds to political, to potential stresses. And political stresses. And political stresses these days, absolutely. So it's physically healthy to have a strong community, and I wish more people, more elderly people especially, could have that. My mother and father lived in Saskatchewan, a very cold place, and they decided to retire to Florida, to Century Village, the village of elderly people. They had a lovely place there. But Alicia, they were isolated, socially isolated, and it was not good. It was not good. You do not cut yourself off from your community just for the sunshine, and a lot of people do that. Yeah, it's quite amazing. First of all, thank you for this research. It really reminds me, you know, why we're in this business of community building and why it's so important. And I come from a kibbutz, where it was a built-in community, for better, for worse. You know, there are also some, I wouldn't say downsides to it, but stressors as well. But nevertheless, the one thing that I'm taking from that, that I took away from kibbutz life, is the value of caring for one another and knowing someone else cares for you. And I think there's another added value to community. And I'll see if I'll be able to articulate this, because I haven't quite expressed this through yet. We, as a human being, we're part of a fabric. And knowing that we're part of a fabric, experiencing being part of a network, experiencing ourselves as being part of a greater One with a capital O, that takes a lot of porousness. We need to be open. We need to be able to be open to other people and allow ourselves to share with other people. And that requires training. That requires, when you grow up in isolation, it's really difficult to create this porous relationship with other people. And there's a beautiful song by Natanzach. So the people who are alone, who are lonely, become hardened. And, you know, and I don't want to, you know, there may be people who are experiencing loneliness, who are maybe listening to this podcast. And I would just like to suggest that the best way perhaps to create community for ourselves is to reach out to another. If we're waiting for others to reach out to us, then maybe they will, maybe they won't. And if they won't, we'll feel miserable. And we'll also be at the mercy of someone reaching out to us. But being able to reach out to others is a great way to start. Even if it's a tiny thing, even if it's your next-door neighbor doing just one really sweet thing to be really small and sweet, of giving, of opening our boundaries to porousness. Absolutely. And we learned from the Parsha and previous Parshat, in creating a community amongst the children of Israel, in building the Mishkan, the key role was played by Aharon. Moshe distanced himself, he went out of the community and isolated himself. But Aharon was the community builder. Communities really do need somebody who is the architect, the builder. And I don't want to embarrass you, Elisha, but you are our community builder. And I want to ask you about this. I find it amazing that you know everything about what's going on in your flock. You were once a shepherd, I know, on kibbutz, and you still are our shepherd. And you seem to know everything that's going on when we travel, when we come back, when we have simchas, when we have grief. And I'm wondering where you got this ability to have deep and sincere interest in other people. I've known many rabbis in my life, and part of rabbinical training, I don't think, is that skill of being a community builder. It's learning Talmud, in many cases. Where did you get the skill of being so deeply, deeply interested in everybody in your community, your flock? Well, it is a bit of an embarrassing question. I can't attest for myself. I don't know. Thank you for the compliment. I appreciate it. The only thought that comes to mind right now is that I really, really do love people. I love humanity. I have a lot of compassion for us human beings. For many years, I used to say to myself and others, wow, it's tough being a human being. It's the hardest thing we'll ever do, being a human being. And we're fragile. We get hurt. We are subject to the impact of everything around us. And life is really not easy. We're living behind a veil. We have no clue what's going to happen tomorrow, what other people are thinking of us. And there's something just admirable about every human being who wakes up in the morning and goes out to live their daily life. It's an act of bravery. It's an act of overcoming so many hurdles in just living one single day. So I just have a lot of compassion for us human beings. And I'm really curious how I love seeing how human beings evolve and change and overcome. When someone tells me about a story how they overcame a challenge, I move to tears. Because that's our daily bravery. So all I can say is I just have a lot of empathy for us. So I have a personal perspective on this, Elisha. I grew up mainly as an only child. My sister was 12 and a half years older than me. And she went off to college, to Pittsburgh. And I was pretty much an only child. I invented games. I threw the football to myself in the backyard. And that was kind of my worldview for quite a long time. It took me a long time to learn to be more interested and loving of other people. And part of it was the Havta and the idea that we are created in God's image and that people are reflections of God because God lives inside people. So how can you be hateful of people when God is inside people, even ones that you're not super fond of? And I'm astonished, Elisha, we have an enormous amount of vitriol and hatred going on now in our country, and not only in our country. And I'm just wondering about people who are God-fearing and God-believing. They call themselves Haredim, God-fearing people. And how in the world can they have so much hatred of people who do not dress like they do? Yeah, well, and I just want to wonder if are we judging the Haredim from the outside? Are we ourselves maybe scared of their growth, of their power in Israeli society? And what are we maybe projecting onto them? I just remember one little, little tiny anecdote that was very meaningful to me. When my grandmother, before she passed away, she had a heart failure. I can't remember what happened. I was living in Los Angeles, and I went to rabbinical school. And I was very close to my grandmother. I was her oldest grandchild, and we were very, very, very close. She had a huge impact on my life. And my mom called me to say, listen, it looks like you're not going to make it through. And you might want to consider coming over, and you'll make it in time for the funeral. Well, I made it in time to see her. She even got a bit better, and she lived for another few years. But when I came, I flew in right away. And I spent a lot of time by her bedside in a hospital in Jerusalem, first at Hadassah Hospital, then at the Herzog Center. And one woman walked in every day with boxes of food, not for the sick, because they were fed by the hospital, but for the visitors of the sick. She was very firm. She was hardy. And without saying anything, without telling us who she was and who she represented, just walked in, just shoved a box of food into my hands, and walked on to the next bed, to the next visitor. And that was such a powerful... I was looking forward to just say thank you. And I was also curious. I was in rabbinical school, and I was learning, how do you become a holy human being, if it's a thing? She was holy in my eyes. And this was so many years ago, probably like 26 years ago, and I still remember it so clearly. And there was a double mitzvah there. Not only was she giving out the food without saying anything and talking, you know, no ego was involved there, but she was also giving the food to the visitors, so they can perform their mitzvah of visiting the sick, and increase community, and increase connection, and increase the love between people. So just as we started with an example of Chabad at the ends of the earth, and this Haredi woman at the Hadassah Hospital. I think all of us human beings are inflicted with hatred, and mostly with fear. We're scared. We're scared creatures. And if we can only be a little bit less scared, maybe we'll love one another a little bit more. I hope so. And this parasha comes at a perfect time, Alisha, because we're in big trouble in Israel. This sense of community, this delicate fabric that unites us, it's being torn apart. When all this is over, we're going to have to reweave it. We're going to have to reconstruct it. And the messages here in the parasha, by Hakeb, come together. Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So thank you all for listening, and wishing us all the way, you know, this Shabbat to just love more, I guess, and reach out more, and do good. Just do good. So Shlomo, thank you so much. Thank you, Alisha. As always, very interesting. Yeah, it really, really was. And thank you for your insights. And Shabbat Shalom to everyone. We'd love your feedback, by the way. So feel free to let us know what you thought. Shabbat Shalom. Bye-bye.