Jewish Quest

122 - Pekudei with Rabbi Shimon Felix

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Rabbi Shimon Felix discusses the importance of sacred space in Judaism. 

Rabbi Shimon Felix is the Executive Director Emeritus of the program. He was born in New York, and has lived in Jerusalem since 1973. Rabbi Felix has been associated with The Bronfman Fellowship since 1991. He received his rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Hamivtar, where he served as educational director. Rabbi Felix has worked in a wide variety of educational programs including Michelelet Bruria, the Israeli school system and Yakar. He headed The Jewish Agency’s Bureau for Cultural Services to Communities and also served as assistant to Dr. Jonathan Sachs, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain. He is the Director of Re: IL Regarding Israel.
 

Speaker 1:

Welcome everybody to Between the Lines, a podcast produced by the Louis Jacobs Foundation and committed to Rabbi Jacobs' belief that the quest for Torah is itself Torah. My name is Simon Eder and each week I am joined by a special guest to help us deconstruct that week's Pasha and as we come to the conclusion of the book of Shemot. It was wonderful to be joined once again by Rabbi Shimon Felix, who is not new to us and has spoken before. Rabbi Felix also happens to have received rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva Hamifta, where once upon a time I also once studied. We have that in common.

Speaker 1:

He has worked very widely in a whole host of educational programs, including Breweria within the Israeli school system and also at Yaka. He headed the Jewish Agency's Bureau for Cultural Services to Communities and also did serve for a time as assistant to the late Rabbi, lord Jonathan Sacks. He is currently today the director of REI, if I've got that, regarding Israel, which is a formative program welcoming education and tourism to Israel. So really wonderful to have you back with us and as we explore Pukhudei today, maybe to begin with I wonder if you might share your thoughts around the significance that the completion of the Mishkan has for really the narrative of the Israelites journey.

Speaker 2:

Simon, hi, nice to be here. It's always nice to be in London, virtually in London. My voice is in London, I'm throwing my voice to London. Anyone who's paid attention or not, actually to the parishes of the last weeks has certainly noticed the Mishkan, the tabernacle. It is famously a bit of a long slog, to be frank, from Pashat Shumah, immediately after Parshinai and the Ten Commandments and that sort of very exciting thunder and lightning, and the Ten Commandments and a whole long slew of very important and dramatic and interesting Mitzvot are arrayed for us all through the following Parshah Mishpatim.

Speaker 2:

We then immediately go to the building of the Mishkan, which is literally nuts and bolts. That's really what it is. It's a lot of technical description and instruction of furniture and poles and beams and curtains not great for people who are not technically minded and wonderful for people who are. They make models of the tabernacle and they draw diagrams and it's terrific Because of the sheer weight of the material. And it continues, by the way, next week when we start Leviticus, when we start Vayikra, we move more to the sacrifices that took place in the Tabernacle. But it's Tabernacle, it's still Mishkan, and so one can't help but feel that this is crucial, that this is somehow important. And the opening verses back in Truma, not in this week's Paisya. This week's Paisya we conclude the most basic description of the physical Mishkan with a tally of everything that was donated the gold and all the materials and the cloth and everything that was donated silver and gold, etc. And brass for the various components of the Mishkan.

Speaker 2:

But at the very beginning God commands Moses to tell the Jewish people Asule M'gdash v'shachanti betocham, make for me a temple and I will dwell among them. And that certainly sounds like an important thing, that the actual, the perceived presence of God is what hangs in the balance. And if we successfully and the question of success or failure was real, apparently it wasn't. My late father was, among other things, a carpenter and I think he always knew at the end he finished the bookshelf I don't think there was a lot of drama about whether he would finish the bookshelf, but here there does seem and maybe we'll get to that a little later there does seem to be some drama about it succeeding Because, unlike a bookshelf, it something has to happen when it's built.

Speaker 2:

And what has to happen is that God has to dwell somehow in around the Mishkan, among the Jewish people. And there's this nervousness will we succeed? We, you know it's hard, engineering wise, I guess it's tricky. They're on, they're in a desert, can't be too easy to build something of this difficulty, exactitude. You got to get it, but then it has to work, something has to happen and that's something is the ongoing presence of God.

Speaker 2:

And I say ongoing because Nachmanides, the 1200s, lived in the 1200s, the Ramban Ramosh of Anachman, spain, israel. He really stresses how the purpose of the Mishkan is to be an ongoing Mount Sinai, an ongoing experience of God instructing the Jewish people through Moshe. And this goes with the notion that the entire Torah was not given on Mount Sinai, because, if it was, the subsequent 40 years would be pretty boring because everyone could just read in the Torah what they were going to do. But the notion is that the Torah was given on Mount Sinai only up to that point and subsequently the Torah was completed over the 40 years, the transmission to Moshe was completed over the 40 years and that happened in the Mishkan. So there's an ongoing interaction with God.

Speaker 2:

The presence of God is palpable, it's there and that's an important task. And its success means that the Jewish people live a very different reality than the reality we live in now. They lived at a constant low temperature. Mount Sinai, not that much thunder and lightning, but a cloud and a pillar of fire, and so making that happen is nerve-wracking and dramatic and important, and it apparently succeeds. The end of this week's Pasha, the end of the book of Shbot, we are told that the edifice is constructed and that the presence of God is there. The presence of God is there.

Speaker 1:

Let's maybe, if we may, turn to some of those meticulous details that have been provided throughout these last few Pashaot, and the reference to your father constructing a bookshelf is perhaps resonant. I know that if I were following a manual to construct a bookshelf it would not happen, at least not happen the way it should. But I really wonder, as we look at these very meticulous details that are provided, really the importance of those for understanding the precision and nature of our dedication in worship.

Speaker 2:

That's a great question and it connects really to what I would call the tensions. I mentioned a moment ago that there's a nervousness Are we going to get this right? Are we going to do this? Will we succeed? Will God bless our endeavors with His presence? And there is also a concomitant nervousness about getting it exactly right, and I think I'd like to spend a moment talking about those tensions the Nachmanides that I mentioned earlier.

Speaker 2:

In his preface to the book of Exodus, he talks about what the goal of this structure is. The goal seems to be, as I said, the presence of God. In succeeding, it makes the Jews my monad Nachmanides was a capitalist it turns the Jews into the Merkava, the chariot of God on earth. In other words, they are the way God can be in the world by having this bishkan. And the tension that introduces for Nachmanides and for all of us is wait a minute. If you succeed in doing that, what's wrong with staying in the desert? If you've, as you said, follow the plan meticulously and get it right? And precision is important, and hopefully you have time to talk a bit more about that. Precision is important and it works, and God's presence is felt by the people. He's in the world somehow. Why then do we have to continue to the land of Israel? Why then do we have to do more? Haven't we succeeded already? And this tension between a spiritual success and a spiritual home because once you have a tabernacle, you have your spiritual place, a place of holiness, of sanctity, a sacred space has been accomplished why do you have to now continue through the desert? And this tension is there in Nachmanides, and I think it's there all through Jewish history. If you think about for a moment, do we need to be more concerned with our relationship with God, which could happen in a synagogue or Batemadrash, anywhere, or do we need that to be in some sort of national center, in a place that God chooses as a national center, as he will subsequently with Jerusalem? So that's a tension, a kind of tension that coexist.

Speaker 2:

It's parallels, the tension that you just brought up, I think, of the nervousness about getting exactly right, and the climax of that, the absolute apex of that nervousness, is the death of Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aaron, who get it wrong, who, on their own, decide to let's bring a sacrifice that doesn't seem to be mandated, something that's not in the manual, and they die, they are killed by God and the warnings are all over these parishes that if you do it wrong, motumat, that if the Cohen does something wrong in the ritual in the tabernacle, death is what's going to happen to him. So there is a nervousness, as you point out. It's gotta be done exactly right or it won't work and, worse, it becomes dangerous. And that, I think, stands in tension with a very not only normal and perhaps universal. But I think it was a very healthy tendency to wanna do it my way, to wanna contribute, to wanna volunteer to. I have an idea why don't we do it this way? And Nadav and Avihu apparently had that notion. Let's do it this way.

Speaker 2:

You also see a little bit of that in some of the Medrashim about the actual construction of the tabernacle, where it wasn't clear to Moses or to Bitsaleh, the chief architect, how to get it exactly right, and sometimes they seem to figure things out on their own. So there is this, doing things on your own, which is a positive thing. We think we want our kids to be creative. We want our kids to oh wow, you thought of that yourself. What a good idea. You did it so nicely all on your own. That's a positive thing, and we do see that.

Speaker 2:

We're gonna see that later in the book of Bamidbar when the Nisiim, the heads of the tribes, voluntarily bring sacrifices that were not mandated as an inaugural kind of ceremony beyond the mandated inaugural ceremony for the Mishkan, the altar, and then also bring other physical contributions, oxen and wagons to help schlep the stuff through the desert, all on their own, nobody, they were not commanded to do so you could ask how come that works and that's seen as a positive thing. And Nadeva, navi, who were killed for bringing, are not asked for carbon, are not asked for sacrifice, and I think the answer might be process no-transcript. We have a real respect for following the rules, for doing exactly right, and there are no pouches in the Torah more doing exactly right or oriented than these, as you correctly pointed out. But on the other hand, if you come and say, wait a minute, I have an idea, which is the way the Nisim, the heads of the tribes, did it, we have an idea. We'll ask Moshe, we'll bring to Moshe our notion of what might be a good additional set of sacrifices to bring or some additional material to bring to the tabernacle and see what he says, and Moshe in fact asks God, he's not sure himself.

Speaker 2:

So I think there is in Judaism in general. There is, yes, a real, almost a nervousness. I hate to say we don't want anybody to get OCD over anything, but it's been known to happen. There is a nervousness about getting it exactly right, but a path to innovation if one follows some sort of process. Now, in the modern world, when there's no Moshe to ask it's been a long time since there's been a Moshe to ask. One who innovates never knows. Am I following the process correctly? Am I ticking off the boxes, talking to the right rabbis and checking the right books and going step by step in my and there has Baruch Hashem been tremendous amount of innovation in Judaism and one of the most conservative movements in Judaism today, chassidut.

Speaker 2:

Chassidism was a tremendous innovation. It was a total invention in the 1700s and a lot of people didn't like it and would have liked them to meet the fate of Nadav and Aviv. They would have liked for that to happen, but somehow it worked itself out and became that universally. There's still people who don't like chassidim, not just specific chassidim but chassidut in general. But it worked itself out. It went through some sort of process of acceptance of integration.

Speaker 2:

So I think, the tabernacle being the holiest and in that way the scariest which is a whole other topic, why holy is scary, but place in the world is behalza, a place where there's room for and I'll from the parishes right now of someone to be a Nadiv laith, to be generous, to feel I feel I wanna donate. That's how the whole thing begins. The whole thing begins, moshe. See who's generous, see who's feeling, whose heart is feeling generous. Ask them to donate. And they brought. And they, the people with chokhmat laith, with wise hearts, they sowed and they wove and they worked with metal.

Speaker 2:

One has to believe there was some personal, artistic element to it. But they didn't have diagrams, one or two things with diagram, the mahtzitashekil, famously, and the menorah, famously. Moshe couldn't figure out exactly what it means, so God had to show him. But the rest of the stuff, I think there was room for a woman embroidering or a man doing metalwork to come and wow, I think it should look like this. And Bitsaleel and Moshe and Arun, wow, that looks beautiful. I guess that's right, because all you have in the instructions are measurements. Art is art, and exactly the measurement of the da Vinci, the canvas is X by Y doesn't explain the da Vinci and it's a portrait of a woman. Doesn't explain the Mona Lisa Built in. If I just built in, there was some creativity, some artistic license, even perhaps in the making of a Mishkan.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much. You've painted a fantastic picture and also pointed ahead to what we encounter, I think, in Shemini in a few weeks time, with Nadav and Avi Hu and so on. Maybe just to dwell a little bit on the tabernacle's construction and really its emphasis within Judaism, or has Judaism yeah, within Judaism around this concept of sacred space so often, and we've spoken to this before and, of course, the importance of sacred time, and perhaps there's more an emphasis of sacred time than sacred space, at least as we've come to know within Jewish tradition. It depends where you live at, very conscious of that, a very good point. But, yeah, what does the tabernacle's construction really mean for our understanding of sacred space?

Speaker 2:

That's a great question. Of course we all know that the wonderful Heschel which I think really it has staying power and people quote her all the time his book about Shabbat and the notion of a temple in time, it's really just wonderful and it's so right. Certainly when you live in Poland or in New Jersey or in Finchley, the sacred space isn't yours. It's Westminster Abbey or it's the Tower of London or Buckingham Palace, whatever it is, it's not yours exactly. Whereas here in Israel and in other places there are places all over the world where Jews feel this is a holy synagogue or holy big military assure Cemetery's perhaps, whatever. But so my short answer to this very important question is although Jews have been denied a lot of real sacred space over 2000 years, when the space wasn't really ours and we were moving from space to space and we had a little schmooze, yeah, like a little bit, a little shul, which either we had to leave or was burnt or, if we were lucky, we stuck around for a while, but still it was just a shul and now the opportunity to live in or visit or spend time in Israel, where we are, I have not been. I have not been bringing groups down to the south. I don't know the area that I'm. I mean you show me. I have been down south and I did bring groups down south before the war, to the Gaza border, but let other people do it and yet that's becoming sacred space. I do work with missions and groups who are here now, not down there, but they tell me about their experience. I had some great Christian groups, jewish groups, and I have been working with them for a long time. I had some great Christian groups, jewish groups, and the experience is a holy one, is a sacred one, a tragic sacred one. But that's not new to us. We know about that.

Speaker 2:

I am a big believer in sacred space. It might be why I ended up leaving New York a long time ago and living in Israel, because it spoke to me, it resonates with me. I have to be honest with you. Non-jewish sacred spaces resonate with me. I mentioned the Tower of London, tower of London and I was talking to my grandson today about Twinings. We had some Twinings. Earl Gray in the house and I talked to him about the shop and apparently the tea that they threw overboard in the Boston Tea Party came from the shop on Fleet Street the same shop, and that is real sacred space. So there you go and I get. I'm that kind of guy. I get a hergish, an emargish mashehu when I am in old, important, beautiful, helps places. And I think many people do respond.

Speaker 2:

Even though Judaism is in theory, more abstract and don't make Kropesel v'chotmuna we still like having stuff and the Mishkan allows us, encourages us, demands of us the temple does to have holy, not just space, but stuff, the Aaron and the Shulchan, and the sacrifices and eating the sacrifices. Pesach is right around the corner, reminding all of us. Pesach is right. Porm is right around the corner and there is sacred stuff, the Megillah I love taking my Megillah to Shul and the foods we eat. And people are people of things and physicality. We are beings in the physical world and I think seeing our physical world as capable of holding sanctity, of expressing sanctity, of encouraging in us feelings of sanctity, starting from the land of Israel, jerusalem, sfat I love sfat and down to things chachkas things.

Speaker 1:

You're really saying that the Mishkan is the kind of supreme example of something sacred.

Speaker 2:

I think so, and I think it's also. It enables the idea to be acceptable. And the Jews have run with it, the Jews have run with it, and you have the Rebbe, the Lubab Terebbi's grave in Brooklyn Queens.

Speaker 1:

In Queens, yeah, in Queens, 770 in Brooklyn, and you have.

Speaker 2:

Mayrone here, and you have synagogues that are seen as very special and graves that are seen as very special, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think the notion of temple, the notion of holy space and holy things within the temple, opens the door to other ones as well. That's what I think. I've been descriptive here, what Jews seem to like as non-Jews do as well pilgrimage places and places that somehow, again, their physical beauty might help the notion. Wow. I'm laughing.

Speaker 2:

When I heard that Richard the Lionhearted never got to Jerusalem, he got to Akko, I think in the Crusades, he got to the Holy Land, it broke my heart because I used to say how cool Richard the Lionhearted walked these streets. It's enough for me. The Ramban walked these streets, wow. And a year ago I was lucky enough to be in Barcelona with my wife and some grandchildren, some children. We all went together and we stood where the Ramban stood during his disputation with the Christians and boy was I moved, boy was I was moved to tears, I was moved to tears. And then we went to the old synagogue in Barcelona, which is just a little slice of the synagogue. They haven't really developed it and I was moved again. And wow, the people who were here and that we've shown him, and the people whose books we study and whose wisdom we try to crack and understand and which inspires us, and they stood in this spot.

Speaker 1:

They stood in this spot is important for people, powerful and and I think, if I'm right and understanding, really you're saying that Sacred space is what we attribute as being sacred because of the meaning, the history, the meaning attached to it, as opposed to anything intrinsic. If I read correctly.

Speaker 2:

I didn't say that, but it sounds great to me. I think you're absolutely right. Look, in intrinsic Holiness is something we might be a little afraid of I'm happier with. Places and objects are imbued with sanctity Over time and because of the memories that they evoke and the feelings that those wow the heroism or the sacrifice or the wisdom Wonderful individual who I think so much of was here and and saw this vista that I'm looking at now, and or sat on this tree's not the tree stump by a tree stump if it's old enough, but Look, I imagine there are people for whom this doesn't ring bells. But I think creating a holy space in a temple Tells us that the Torah understands that we live in physical space, with physical things, and they help us. Look, I'll let me.

Speaker 2:

I don't think we have much time. I Want to squeeze in a great rev nachman. Very short. He says visit Israel. And he says that before he got there he was given the impression by the holy books and by Jews before him that Israel is some kind of fairyland. It's, it's just not in this world at all, it's like other worldly. And when he got here he saw that no, it's just like every other country, and even the dirt is dirty. He goes a little more into detail, but I'll summarize the dirt is dirty, it's just like the dirt back in Europe. The dirt is dirty, but even it is very home.

Speaker 2:

So I think he's saying, as you said, simon, it's not something about Physically or intrinsically in Israel, but because of what Israel means and what it perhaps holds out as a possibility for us the possibility of Greatness, of sanctity, of unity of all who knows what a temple holds out for us. Possibilities and the fact that we're in a place where these possibilities hopefully can be made more real. That makes it a holy place. The possibility of Some sort of interaction with God, the possibility of a better interaction with our fellow human beings, a better interaction with our tradition, a Better interaction with right and wrong, all these things that were a place where we focus on that and not just doing the laundry and doing the shopping. That's a holy place. That's a holy place. That's why sports stadiums can feel like holy places, because they hold out the possibility of of supreme human effort and dramatic success and dramatic failure, and Right being rewarded and evil being punished if your team wins possibilities that just don't exist at the office and in the kitchen, and so I I don't. I'm fine with those places being called sacred. It's okay If they invoke in us great emotions and great ideas and great feelings, hopefully. And Then there are unholy places that perhaps can invoke Unholy emotions and unholy actions.

Speaker 2:

Ultimately, one thinks of those films Lenny Rice I don't know how to pronounce her last name made for the Nazis. Rice and thul we fence I can't, I don't know how our name is pronounced reason German woman who made films for Hitler. And you saw the rallies and and they were in the throws of some sort of religious Ecstasy of the supporters of the Nazi regime. But it was a Thanatos rather than an eros. It was a drive to death rather than a drive to life. That now and much of the jihadist Muslim world, where people are very religious About a drive to death as opposed to a drive to life.

Speaker 1:

So this holy and unholy, we know we, we've talked on, we've touched on some hugely important themes and Perhaps actually, what you point to is maybe some of what Nadev and Avi who Encounter, that we will. That we will learn, we will read in a few weeks time. Rabbi Felix, thank you so much for exploring today, as we come to the conclusion of the book of Exodus, and what a journey that has been, yes, and and plenty that you've already planted as we embark from next week with Viacra, we look forward to meeting again, also next week, as we explore the Megillah Miguel at Esther before poem. We look forward to meeting then. Rabbi Felix, thank you so much for joining. Thank you, son Pleasure. Thank you everybody for listening and if you enjoyed this podcast, please do remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can find out more information about all of our work on our sites Louis, jacobsorg and also Jewish quest. Do tune in again next week as we continue our quest together.