When Israel was building the Mishkan, God instructed them to bring him a donation as their hearts moved them. It comes from our hearts! We build a home for Hashem in our hearts through study, prayer, and good deeds.
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I often find myself caught up with grand events, perhaps the world of politics or global conflict. Then I begin to wonder how God is going to respond to a growing crisis. Yet God is not just the God of big things. He is also the God of the details.
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This past week, while rummaging through old family papers, I found a document that revealed some painful details about my mother’s family and their escape from Germany to Palestine in 1934. It is a deposition given by my late grandmother 65 years ago, detailing the family trauma under the Nazis for a German reparations commission.
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The righteous are almost exactly like everyone else, except for one key difference. And this difference is what defines us. In the Bible, it is what separates the heroes from ordinary men and women.
Speaking of heroes—let’s talk about Moses.
Perhaps the most difficult time of day in my house is getting the kids out the door to school in the morning. A parent’s dream is to tell their kids, “Let’s go!” and to have everyone outside within a couple minutes without any major drama. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask, right?
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Exodus is the Torah’s book of worship. It takes Israel from the scene of oppression in Egypt, to Mount Sinai where they become a kingdom of priests, to the building of the tabernacle in the wilderness, where the Lord will meet with his people in the midst of the camp.
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Our parasha is like so many other times in the story of Israel. While people struggled with their issues of faith, and struggled through the difficulties and torments of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, there was yet something happening behind the scenes.
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Through the literary structure, techniques, and conventions in Vayechi, we see how the end of a matter can be better than the beginning. Genesis, however, is not the end of the matter; it is just the beginning.
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It has been said that blood is thicker than water. This proverbial wisdom would suggest that family ties, though frequently tried, are stronger than any other relational bonds. After all, no judge would allow the sibling of a defendant to sit on the jury empowered to impartially try him or her.
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Who can you trust these days? As a rabbi and counselor I talk with people every day who’ve been let down, disappointed, or even betrayed by others. On the public level, trust is rapidly eroding everywhere. Who is credible in our age of distrust?
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