Mobile Sanctuary 2025
Today is a national boycott to protest corporate greed
Dear friends,
There’s another way to look at this period.
It’s true that everyone is anxious. It’s true that people are afraid, for good reason. But since September 11th, 2001 I don’t remember such a palpable, collective desire in this city to do something for the common good. Everyone I speak with seems obsessed with finding some meaningful way to respond to what they’re seeing happen in this country. This is a power that will be harnessed. And the current confusion will give birth to new modes of thinking that will seed the landscape of the coming years.
This week’s parashah finds our ancestors in the creative wilderness of Sinai. They’re in new territory, homeless, with only God to guide them, and only each other to trust in. If you think 2025 in America is scary, imagine most other places and most other times where our people have been. Imagine the desert, where out of the precarious reality a new way emerges that will endure for thousands of years.
The first step toward harnessing this incredible energy is to offer a channel to pour it into. Here’s what it looks like in the parashah:
“יהוה spoke to Moses, saying:
Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart is so moved.”
Our hearts are ready to give. If we thought it would make a difference, what would we not do or give? The Hebrew is even better than the translation. אִישׁ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר יִדְּבֶ֣נּוּ לִבּ֔וֹ literally means every person whose heart volunteers them. I think it’s safe to say that our hearts are volunteering us. We’re just not yet sure for what.
“These are the gifts that you shall accept from them,” the good book continues:
“gold, silver, and copper;
blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair;
tanned ram skins, cattle skins, and acacia wood;
oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the aromatic incense;
lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the priestly garments and for the breastpiece:”
In other words, bring what you got. There are infinite ways to contribute. We each have the issues that speak to our souls. We each have what to give, what to contribute. Even those who have nothing material to give are invited to find other ways to give.
“all the men and women whose hearts moved them to do the work that יהוה, through Moses, had commanded to be done, brought it as a freewill offering to יהוה.”
Finally, the divine charge concludes:
"They will make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.”
We are building the mobile sanctuary of holiness for our times. It is a creative endeavor that would have never come about if we were at home in what we know. Next week I hope to offer some thoughts on one avenue into which we can pour our concern and good will. For now, let’s turn our confused, despondent disbelief into a focused voice of creative resistance.
Tonight will be a great opportunity to practice, when we meet for Shabbat to celebrate an adult Bar Mitzvah, examine a historical moment of creative Jewish resistance, and take refuge in our great queen, Shabbat. Hope to see you there.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Misha