The key to a good cup of tea or coffee is not to rush. Dunk a tea bag in a cup and take it out, and your tea will taste more like coloured water than tea. Instant coffee is far removed from the real thing. But source your tea or your coffee carefully, tend it and wait for it, and subtle flavours will emerge, rewarding your effort.
In the narrative of building the tabernacle in the desert, the Torah does not rush. Three weekly sections give instructions for the collection of materials, textiles, gems and gold, the appointment of those skilled in the various crafts, and the plans for the individual items and the priests’ robes. Then, after an interruption telling the story of the golden calf, the building takes place, and the narrative is repeated, almost word for word, in the double section read this week (Exodus 35-40). Like every biblical repetition, this second time round it is not quite the same. Here, the wise-hearted people who are in charge come to Moses and say: ‘The people bring more than enough, more than is needed for the work God commanded.’ So Moses sends out a proclamation asking every man and woman to stop giving! (Exodus 36: 5–6). This is astonishing—how often do we hear of a fund raising campaign turning away donations because the target has been reached?
Aviva Zornberg points out in her book on Exodus, The Particulars of Rapture that both the golden calf and the tabernacle emerged from gold and from fire. The rabbinic tradition saw the building of the tabernacle as a way for the people who demanded the golden calf to atone for the wrong they had done. When God instructs Moses about the project in Exodus 25, God explains that this will be the divine dwelling place in the midst of the people as they travel through the desert. But when Moses tells the people about it, he doesn’t relay the reason. Why does he leave this out? Does he perhaps not trust the people with this information? Or, now that the people have built a golden calf, does he think maybe that God will not be present in this sanctuary after all? I think perhaps he was both weary and wary of their behaviour. And yet they contributed generously, more than enough.
An alternative explanation could be that since ‘there was no prophet like Moses’ (Deuteronomy 34:10) that he had some insight into their future. For this people who as slaves had made bricks from mud and straw were to become artists, jewellers, designers and textile workers in future centuries. Jews were involved in the working of silver, gold and iron in ancient times. Under the Romans, Jewish slaves worked in mines in Spain, Sardinia and Sicily: Jews became bronze and copper workers in Byzantium. In medieval Egypt, Jews were able to take up professions which required a large capital investment, and became goldsmiths, perfumers, wealthy dyers and silk dealers. There and in many other places throughout the Muslim world, Jews were able to obtain government contracts to produce coins. Genizah documents from Cairo mention all kinds of jewellery, including those made from gold, silver or precious stones. And Jews played a significant role in the early centuries of Venetian glass blowing.
Today, it is common for synagogue fabrics, Torah mantles, curtains and desk coverings, to be made by members of the community. The same generosity – donating to excess – from the Torah still continues in the way so many people give so freely of their time to beautify their place of worship. There are many sections of the Torah where it is difficult to see the relevance to our Progressive Judaism today. But the long and repetitive narrative of the building of the tabernacle deserves to be studied and reviewed slowly and at leisure. When God said to Moses ‘I shall show you the pattern’ (Exodus 25:9) a course was set, not just for the tabernacle, but for all time. Just as with tea and coffee, the secret to a work of art or craft is not to rush. Source the materials carefully, take care throughout the process, and subtle shapes and colours will emerge, rewarding all the effort.
At the end of the book of Exodus, the people march off into the unknown, with God to guide them. May God guide us too, as we face danger and uncertainty in our own time. May our treasured stories from the past bring a sense of meaning and purpose into our own lives, and sustain us for the journey ahead.