Torah Talk for Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei
March 5, 2018 by
In these parshiyot the Bnei Yisrael bring so many materials for the construction of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) that Moshe tells them to stop; Betzalel and Oholiav, gifted craftspeople, construct the elements of the Mishkan. The work of constructing the Mishkan is completed; Moshe receives the command to anoint its vessels and to anoint Aharon and the cohanim (priests).
The beginning of Parashat Vayakhel reminds the people just before the construction of the mishkan begins that they are not to build on Shabbat (35:2): “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a sabbath of solemn rest to Hashem.”
One of the things that Jews are bidden to do is to emulate Hashem, referred to as imitatio Dei in scholarly circles. When we build the mishkan, the Jews’ first house to Hashem, we are supposed to imitate God, working for six days and resting on the seventh, just as Hashem did when the world was created. Read more >
