In his introduction to this week’s parasha, Everett Fox
writes, “As if nothing had gone awry, the narrative now returns to describe how
the Dwelling was built.” Last week, the covenantal relationship between God and
Israel is on the brink of destruction when the Israelites turn away from God to
worship the golden calf. And this week, the narrative just picks up where it
left off. Now that Moses has all of the instructions for the building of the
Mishkan (Tabernacle,) he assembles the entire community and sends them off to
bring back donations of all of the materials to being the building project. The
people enthusiastically bring gifts of gold, yarn, cloth and wood. They are so
enthusiastic, in fact, that they bring too much, and Moses has to tell them to
stop.
An academic approach would probably lead us to posit that
the golden calf narrative comes from a source different from the source of the
Tabernacle-building narrative. The editor then decided to place the golden calf
story in the middle of the Tabernacle-building narrative. This answer may satisfy
our logical minds.
However, the editor must have had a reason for juxtaposing
these two narratives. The juxtaposition raises fundamental questions about the
relationship between the material and spiritual. What makes a golden calf a
problem, when the construction of an elaborate Tabernacle, using expensive
materials, is a mitzvah? Why is it okay to have a dwelling place as the “icon”
that points us towards God? Is there something about this that is particularly
Jewish as opposed to having a sculpture point us towards God?
A Chasidic teaching, which we will look at together,
suggests that God is very particular about this balance between the material
and spiritual. Both are important for humans to be able to serve the Divine.
However, the material aspect can’t exceed the spiritual aspect even by a hair’s
breadth. Otherwise, the spiritual is in
danger of being obscured by the material. This is why, when the Israelites
bring gifts for the building of the Mishkan, it is problematic when they become
so enthusiastic that they bring too much. The tendency, in the material realm,
is to think that bigger is better. But here, God insists on limiting the size
and ostentation of the Tabernacle in order to have the right-sized container
for the Shechina down here on earth.
