Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

Blessed work

VaYakhel-Pekudei are two Torah portions often read together, as they both describe construction of the Mishkan/Tabernacle, the place of the Divine Indwelling.

The very first words of Moshe, as he gathers the people to begin the work, invokes Creation: “Six days you shall work (melakhah) and on the seventh day you shall have a day of complete rest”. Thereafter, the word melakhah/work appears throughout the narrative of the construction of the Mishkan.

If the reader were to miss the verbal and thematic allusions to the creation of the cosmos, in the construction of this microcosm, the concluding words of this narrative make it clear: “And, when Moshe saw all the melakhah/work they performed…Moshe blessed them”. The Creation narrative similarly concludes: “And, God finished…the melakhah/work that he had performed…and God blessed the seventh day”.

Our parashah is suggesting that we are co-partners with God in creating a “space” of shared divine and human presence.

Asking “What were the word’s of Moshe’s blessing?”, our Jewish tradition responds, he said to them: “May it be the will that God’s indwelling becomes manifest through the work of your hands”. While some read this blessing as it “May it be God’s will”, others understand it as saying “May it be your (human) will.

Perhaps the human-divine partnership is to make our will one and the same. Where the microcosm of the Mishkan and the macrocosm of the cosmos conjoin, there lies complete rest for both God and man.