Shabbat Shalom --- February 25-26, 2011

Parashat Vayakheil
Cantor Phil Baron

On a Friday night in late January, as part of the Shabbat Shira celebration, our congregational choir premiered 16 new musical works. These were in many cases very challenging pieces with odd time signatures, close harmonies, or sudden dynamic changes.

To achieve success with this material required what this week’s Torah portion calls chochma, t’vunah v’da’at, uv’chol m’lacha – wisdom, insight, knowledge and craftsmanship. The Torah was not referring to the grand choir of the ancient Temple – that came much later. Vayakheil deals with the creation of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle or portable shul where our people worshipped until the creation of the Temple. Its elaborate furnishings and sacred objects had to be lovingly fashioned, forged and fastened from whatever resources were at hand. Moshe needed the most expert designers, craftsmen, carpenters, weavers, seamstresses, jewelers and metal workers. He called for them, “and they came.”

But this was not enough. He also asked for kol n’div libo, everyone motivated by his heart. And all of them came too, everyone -- the men and women who were moved to be a part of the sacred task, they all showed up. In fact, the success of the Mishkan, like almost any endeavor of a religious community, depended on participation of all the people, skilled and unskilled. The pure motivation and love of the volunteer was considered equal to the finely-tuned knowledge and craft of the artisan.

In the Mishkan story, even the names of the two contractors in charge reveal the theme. B’tzaleil (“in the image of God”) and Oholiav (“father of tents”). Why two bosses? The Torah teaches that the tent-master’s experience was invaluable, but that he needed the fervor and dedication of one striving with pure motivation for the glory of God alone.

If you look at the many volunteer organizations here at VBS, from Chesed Connection to the Healing Center to Jewish World Watch to the many projects of Sisterhood, Men’s Club and many others, you will find the same combination of qualities the Torah speaks about. For as it says in this week’s parasha, “Everyone who excelled in ability and everyone whose spirit moved him came.”

Like so many of our congregational organizations, the choir is made up of skilled professionals as well as avid volunteers. When I first approached Dr. Green and the choir about this year’s Shabbat Shira I feared that the sheer quantity of pieces, not to mention their difficulty, might be an insurmountable obstacle. To my delight, they responded with enthusiasm and devotion -- and weeks of hard work. Yes, there were a few professional singers sprinkled in, but the success of the service was due to the combination of these “ringers” and their volunteer counterparts.

Ultimately, what holds the artist and the amateur (“lover”) together? The conductor, for one. But the 18th century Chassidic commentator Menachum Nachum has another suggestion -- that the work of the Mishkan is made whole with nothing less than the Divine Presence. He points out that the sockets joining the upper and lower parts of the Mishkan, as described in Vayakheil, are called “adonim” like the name of God (Adonai). Without these, the whole enterprise crashes to earth.
Making our Shabbat Shira work took wisdom, insight, knowledge, craftsmanship, and the joy and devotion of the volunteer. But religious music, like the many wonderful community projects we participate in also requires a kind of divine inspiration as the joining principle that makes creation possible.

Shabbat Shalom