by Jane Taves
This week’s parashah begins the detailed instructions for the building of the Mishkan, the portable tabernacle that the Israelite people carried with them through the desert. Early in the portion, we read God's familiar words, “And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” These are words that resonate, words that we hear frequently, words that are carved above the entrance of the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest.
While the rest of this parashah goes on to detail the form, the size, and the materials for constructing the Mishkan, these are the words that stay with me. On the surface, we might not see the parallel between ourselves and our ancestors, who carried their tabernacle with them from place to place. Our synagogues today tend to be stationary. And yet this speaks to me in a compelling way. As women of WRJ, communal Jewish leaders, how often have we created a holy space in a temporary location? Whenever we attend a WRJ District Convention, a WRJ Assembly, or a leadership training program, a meeting room that was ordinary the day before becomes a holy space because we are there. We bring certain furnishings with us, just as the Israelite people did to their Mishkan. We bring an ark of some fashion, we bring candle holders and Kiddush cups—some of the same items that are described in this parashah. But the generic meeting room becomes a holy space mostly because we bring a sacred community to it.
Throughout this parashah, acacia wood is prescribed for the building of the Ark and many other furnishings. Perhaps the most cherished experience I have in turning an ordinary location into a holy space involved acacia wood. In 2010, I attended the Beutel Seminar for Progressive Jewish Leadership in Israel. This leadership program brings together people from Progressive Jewish communities around the world. On Shabbat we were staying at Kibbutz Yahel, in the southern Arava desert. Rather than worship in the Kibbutz meeting room, our group’s leader, Rabbi Rich Kirschen, decided we would walk out into the desert that Shabbat morning. Carrying a small Torah and our siddurim, we headed out. After walking for some distance, Rich stopped under a tree. He told us it was an acacia tree and, for that reason, we would have our service here.
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Sitting on ground under that tree, the vast desert that surrounded us became a sacred space. We worshipped with our familiar prayers, but with nothing usual about them. I remember in particular, the chanting of the V’ahavta that morning. Coming from around the world, we each brought with us different customs and chants. In general, the group would follow along in the chant that the leader of the moment was using. But on that morning, without ever having planned it, each individual chanted the V’ahavta using his or her own familiar trope, and the sound of our chants blending in the quiet of the desert remains with me to this day.
We lingered over our service for so long that someone from the Kibbutz came out looking for us because we had missed lunch. Many animated words ensued in Hebrew, with much waving of arms, and then we settled back into our temporary sanctuary in the desert, enjoying the sacred space we had created.
Participating in the Beutel Seminar was transformative for me. I learned firsthand about Progressive Jewish communities around the world, communities which are in the vast minority and struggling for a Progressive foothold in the greater Jewish community. I think of this often lately, as we prepare for our first WRJ Wilkenfeld International Women’s Leadership Seminar, to be held in April 2016 in London. This seminar will bring together women from around the world, to learn leadership skills and to build an international network. I am thrilled to be part of the planning committee for this program. I expect that the experience will be transformative for the women who participate, just as my first international experience was for me.
T’rumah is translated at “gifts.” In WRJ, we have many gifts, including the gift of creating a holy place—our own portable Mishkan—wherever we assemble. May we continue to enjoy these gifts, and to spread these gifts among the women of the world.
Jane Taves has been a WRJ Board member since 2013. She is also a URJ North American Board member, and a Temple Beth El member in Madison, WI.
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