Dear TBZ Community,
I have been feeling really unsettled lately, a bit lost, and I suspect I do not need to explain too much or even name all that is happening around us for you to understand why. The war with Iran, the state of our country, the constant news of more injustice, more fear, more violence, more pain… It feels relentless, like a stream of headlines that never quite pauses long enough for us to catch our breath before the next wave arrives.
In conversations I am having with many of you, with friends, and with colleagues, I hear a similar sense of confusion and sadness. It can be difficult to hold on to a clear vision of hope when each week seems to bring new layers of uncertainty and pain. There is a kind of emotional exhaustion that comes from living in a moment like this, where so many of us are shouldering worry not only for ourselves, but for our families, our communities, and the world our children are inheriting.
Every other week, I meet with the parents of Beit Rabban (TBZ’s afterschool learning program) to study Abraham Joshua Heschel’s book, The Sabbath. This week, we began the session simply by checking in with each other. Before opening any text or beginning any formal learning, we took a few minutes to ask a simple question: where are you right now? How are you actually doing?
As people began to share, the room filled with very familiar feelings. People spoke about sadness and anger, about fear and confusion, about being overwhelmed by the pace and intensity of the world around us. Several parents spoke about trying to make sense of events that often feel impossible to understand, and about the emotional weight of trying to explain these realities to young people while we ourselves are still trying to process them.
There was something grounding in recognizing that these feelings are widely shared, that the heaviness many of us carry privately is actually being carried by many people at the same time. None of us are alone in feeling unsettled by this moment.
And, as often happens in Torah, the portion we read this week, Parshat Vayakhel-Pekude, seems to arrive precisely when we most need its perspective.
At the very beginning of the parasha, before we hear any details about the building of the Mishkan, the sacred sanctuary in the wilderness, the Torah begins with something that at first glance feels almost unrelated. We read:
וַיַּקְהֵל מֹשֶׁה אֶת־כָּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם אֵלֶּה הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּה יְהוָה לַעֲשֹׂת אֹתָם׃ שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תֵּעָשֶׂה מְלָאכָה וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי יִהְיֶה לָכֶם קֹדֶשׁ שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן לַיהוָה כָּל־הָעֹשֶׂה בוֹ מְלָאכָה יוּמָת
Moses then convoked the whole Israelite community and said to them: These are the things that Adonai has commanded you to do: On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a sabbath of complete rest, holy to Adonai (Exodus 35:1-2).
Why does the Torah place Shabbat at the very beginning of the instructions for building the Mishkan? The rabbis noticed this connection very carefully. In fact, they taught that the thirty-nine categories of labor prohibited on Shabbat (“melakhot”) are derived precisely from the kinds of work required to build the Mishkan. The sanctuary in the wilderness becomes the blueprint for understanding what melakhah (creative human labor) actually is.
Before the Israelites even begin building, the Torah establishes a boundary around human creativity. They are about to transform raw materials into a sacred space where God’s presence might dwell among them. Yet even that sacred work must stop. The same creative power that allows human beings to build, shape, and transform the world is also the power we are asked to pause from on Shabbat. Holiness, the Torah suggests, does not emerge only from what we create, but also from our ability to stop creating.
The Torah describes how the materials for the sanctuary are gathered; we are told that people brought gifts as their hearts moved them – offerings of gold and silver, yarn and fabric, precious stones and skilled labor. The project depended on generosity, on the willingness of individuals to contribute their talents and resources. And yet there was also an obligatory offering: the half-shekel that every member of the community was required to give equally.
Building the Mishkan required two kinds of participation: generosity of the heart and shared responsibility. Both were necessary: the offering of our gifts and the willingness to show up, even when we feel tired, discouraged, or uncertain.
Perhaps this is also where Shabbat itself begins to feel urgent. In his extraordinary book The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel writes:
“The Sabbath itself is a sanctuary which we build, a sanctuary in time” (p. 29).
The very labors used to build the Mishkan become the labors we refrain from on Shabbat. The sanctuary in space and the sanctuary in time mirror one another. Heschel continues:
“Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work (Exodus 20:9). Is it possible for a human being to do all his work in six days? Does not our work always remain incomplete? What the verse means to convey is: Rest on the Sabbath as if all your work were done. Another interpretation: Rest even from the thought of labor” (p. 32).
Rest as if the work were done. What a radical, almost impossible invitation. Our work is never truly complete. There is always more injustice that demands attention, more suffering that calls for compassion, more work that remains unfinished in our homes (more laundry to fold, more dishes to wash, more homework to help with, more taxes to file… you name it), our communities, and the world. And yet Shabbat asks us – perhaps even commands us – to practice a different posture toward the world, at least for a brief moment. To rest not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually.
Shabbat invites us into imagination. Our tradition describes Shabbat as me’ein olam haba, a taste of the world to come. For a few hours each week we are asked to inhabit a different vision of reality, one in which the work is complete, the world is whole, and we can simply exist in relationship with one another and with the divine presence. Imagination allows us to perceive possibility even in moments of despair. It allows us to see what is not yet visible, to believe that something sacred can still emerge even in the wilderness.
Shabbat invites us to imagine the world as it could be. Imagine the people you love – your children, your friends, your neighbors, your community – living in safety, dignity, and peace. Imagine the possibility that fear does not have the final word. Imagine a world in which holiness truly dwells among us. Imagine a world without wars.
At the heart of the Mishkan story, God tells the Israelites:
וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם׃
Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them (Exodus 25:8).
God will dwell not simply in a structure, but among them: within the community, within the relationships between people who gather to build something sacred together. The Mishkan ultimately is not about a building. It is about the possibility that holiness can dwell among human beings.
Even in times of uncertainty, even when the world feels chaotic and frightening, even when we ourselves feel tired or overwhelmed, we can still gather, we can still build, and we can still create moments of sacred presence.
The world may feel unsettled. The future may feel uncertain. Many of us may feel exhausted. And yet we can still gather. We can still contribute what we are able. We can still build sanctuaries in space, in community, and in time.
This Shabbat, may we allow ourselves, even briefly, to step into that sanctuary in time, to rest as if the work were done, and to hold on to the fragile but powerful imagination that the world, like the Mishkan in the wilderness, can still become a place where holiness dwells among us.
Praying for peace,
Shabbat Shalom,
Rav Claudia