Masterpiece in the Desert

Logo of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem

Parashat Vayakhel: Exodus 35:1–38:20

Ben Volman, UMJC Canadian Regional Director

When Israel emerged from the desert after 40 years, they were led by one of the most iconic human creations of all time: the ark of the covenant (Josh 3:1–3). According to tradition, Moshe received the original vision of the ark in the presence of God on the heights of Mount Sinai. Though he saw it, Moshe was not called to build it. This parasha gives us some insight into the artistic genius of Israel gifted by God for that purpose: Bezalel, and his equally creative partner in the work, Oholiab. Together, they brilliantly oversaw the design, construction, and numerous artistic talents that fashioned the Mishkan, Israel’s portable setting for worship, known as the Tabernacle, or Tent of Meeting.

We rarely associate Israel’s 40-year trek through the desert with great art, but the biblical text reflects a deep respect for Bezalel and Oholiab’s divinely inspired gifts. Bezalel’s name even has a certain flair. It means, “In the shadow [protection] of God.” The rabbis tell us that when Moshe first shared the vision of the Mishkan, Bezalel immediately grasped certain details that had eluded Moshe. He remarked that Bezalel, in a way, must have been there, “in the shadow of God.”

The Talmud tells us that the people also were required to approve the appointment. This is how Moshe commends Bezalel and his co-worker, Oholiab:

See, Adonai has called by name Bezalel son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. He has filled him with the Ruach of God, with wisdom, understanding and knowledge, in all manner of craftsmanship. . . . He has also placed in his heart the ability to teach—both he and Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. He has filled them with wisdom of heart . . . they can perform every craft and ingenious designs. (Exod 35:30–35)

It’s an impressive seal of approval on their calling, and a midrash gives special attention to their combination of talents. The singular dedication of men from tribes of very different standing in Israel, Bezalel of Judah and Oholiab from Dan, carries an important message about national unity for a great cause.

Indeed, in the barren desert, this uniquely beautiful place of worship fashioned by the Spirit’s gifts of “wisdom, understanding, and knowledge” is nothing less than a renewal of Creation. The Mishkan brings Israel closer to the original relationship we were meant to have with our Creator. The threatening image of angels who guard Gan Eden after the expulsion of Adam and Eve is replaced here by the golden, winged seraphim overseeing “the mercy seat.” This is the spiritual heart of the nation where the children of Abraham can receive absolution from sin and Hashem will be truly present to His people, as he was in the Garden before Adam and Eve sinned.

I have a special sense of connection with Bezalel and Oholiab. My late father, Yossi, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary, grew up in a world which has long since perished. Raised from youth to work in his father’s workshop, he learned the craft of a metalsmith alongside a talented older brother who died in the war. It was a time when much of the industrial world was being constructed in steel, and these skills were highly valued. When Yossi arrived in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg, north of Berlin, in 1944, he became a slave laborer, permitted to receive bread with a scraping of butter once a day that allowed him to survive.

Out of the ashes of the past, my father recreated a workshop in the basement of our home. Here he put me and two older brothers through a regimen like the one he had received. I worked alongside him at many jobs, although my own talents would lead in a much different direction. Yet, while we worked in steel, I learned a great deal about art. There was always a striving for excellence in our labor, a love of beauty in the mastery of each skill. The brilliant writer of the apocryphal book Sirach says of the crafters: “they keep stable the fabric of the world, and their prayer is in the practice of their trade” (Sirach 38:34).

Those experiences have in turn shaped me, and I think of myself as a crafter in words. When I consider the past, I not only recall my father, but connect to his beloved brother for whom I am named, and the grandfather murdered in Auschwitz. For some years, I felt some bitterness for toiling at work in which I had no future. And then, I had a thought. My father was giving his sons the only wisdom, understanding, and knowledge that he possessed that he might equip us to survive in circumstances beyond imagining wherever the shadow of God might find us.

In the early years of our Messianic Jewish movement, a sense of freedom in the arts was a wonderful aspect of our unique vision. We recalled that Israel had been famous for its arts, including song, dance, music, and the art of worship, and could be again. That vision was rooted in a spiritual renaissance that was resonating in the rest of the Jewish world.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reverently recalls how Rav Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine, supported the founding of a school for the arts in Israel in 1906. Kook once told a sculptor that he was particularly enamored by Rembrandt’s paintings and even considered him a tzaddik. The painter was one of those who are wonderfully gifted to use light as if he had experienced it on the first day of creation. Rabbi Sacks agrees that in Rembrandt’s pictures, the artist portrays in the faces of his subjects “the transcendental quality of the human, the only thing in the universe on which God set his image.” And this is the name of the school on which Rav Kook gave his blessing and still continues today: the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.

Our gifted brothers, Bezalel and Oholiab, alongside the many artists whose unique talents raised up the Mishkan, were blessed by the Spirit to fulfill an extraordinary vision that unites all of Israel across the ages and ages to come. In the climax of the book of Revelation, when all humanity is united under the reign of Messiah, the ark will also be there: “Then the Temple of God in heaven was opened, and the Ark of His Covenant appeared in His Temple” (Rev. 11:19). The ultimate signature of excellence is in its enduring value. For it is not just a reminder that we have survived. The art of Bezalel and Oholiab has left an indelible imprint on the human imagination and continues to empower the worship of our Creator even long after the ark vanished into mystery.

All Scripture references are taken from the Tree of Life Version.