Torah: Leviticus 1:1-5:26
Haftarah: Ezekiel 45:16-46:18
Brit Chadashah: Hebrews 10:1-18

We live in a world which claims such Enlightenment ideas as “reason versus emotion.” In 2011, New York Times best-selling author David Brooks wrote a book entitled, The Social Animal, in which he attempts to unpack what drives the decisions people make. His book is very much focused on the false dichotomy of reason versus emotion, concluding that there is an integral relationship between emotion and reason, and that both are constantly driving all of our decisions. In other words, the heart cannot be separated from the mind; we cannot dismiss passion for the sake of the intellect nor can we ignore reason for the sake of pleasant feelings.

In today’s Torah Portion, God speaks to Moses from the Tent of Meeting, instructing him how the people of Israel are to bring offerings to God.

Parashat VaYakhel, Exodus 35:1–38:20 

In 1906, Boris Schatz, court sculptor to the king of Bulgaria, brought six of his students to the land of Israel to found a school of arts and crafts. Schatz sought to establish a center that would affect the cultural life of the whole Jewish settlement. Donors helped to find a market for the weaving, needlework, metalwork, and carvings the students would produce. Within five short years, 460 students and craftsmen labored in the school and its workshops. What is the name of this school, which continues to thrive in Israel today? It is named after the greatest craftsman of the Torah, the one in charge of building the tabernacle and its furnishings—Bezalel.

Schatz and his colleagues were undoubtedly thinking of Bezalel’s artistry when they named their school after him. But equally prominent in the biblical account is Bezalel’s spiritual empowerment. To equip him for his great task of artistry, God fills Bezalel with the Spirit and Exodus describes this infilling twice, both before and after the crisis of the golden calf:

See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship. (Exod. 31:2–3)

See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and He has filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and understanding, in knowledge and all manner of workmanship. (Exod. 35:30–31)