Vayakhel / And He Assembled
Exodus 35:1-38:20
HafTorah Portion 1 Kings 7:13-26
Brit Chadasha 2 Corinthians 9:6-11
And He Convoked is another meaning for Vayakhel: to convoke, to call to order, to summon. This was a call to order to reinstall unity within the children of Israel who were present at the time of Sinai before the incident of the golden calf – which brought about divisiveness.
Moshe gathers the people together to restore unity so that the Tabernacle can reside with oneness which strengthens the prayers and unity of the community.
Immediately after the people are summoned, Moshe reiterates the Shabbat. Exodus 35:1-3 ‘Then Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said to them, “These are the words which the Lord has commanded you to do: 2 Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. 3 You shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings on the Sabbath day.” This shows how important the Shabbat is to our walk with Elohim and the oneness we create with Him.
By assembling the people together, Moses performs a tikkun, a mending of the past, which was caused by the sin of the Golden Calf. The word k-h-l is used at the beginning of both episodes. It eventually became a key word in Jewish spirituality: k-h-l, “to gather, assemble, congregate.” From it we get the words kahal and kehillah, meaning “community”.
The episode of the Golden Calf began with these words: “Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together (vayakhel) around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Exodus 32:1.
God’s forgiveness and mercy is abundant as a second set of tablets is constructed, and Moses brings the people together. “Moses assembled (vayakhel) all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said to them, “These are the words which the Lord has commanded you to do…’Exodus 35:1.
They had sinned as a community. Now they were about to be reconstituted as a community. Hebrew spirituality should not only be an individual form of spirituality, but also a communal spirituality. Moshe directs their attention to the two great centers of community in Torah: one in time and the other in physical space. The one in time is Shabbat. The one in space was the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, which led eventually to the Temple and later to the synagogue. These are where kehillah lives most powerfully: on Shabbat when we lay aside our private devices and desires and come together as a community and the synagogue where community has its home.
This way of life, between the Shabbat and the Tabernacle (us as the living Tabernacle) and now the community of a Synagogue, is ever evolving but ever constant. As we change, the dynamics of the Kahal will change, but in the dynamics of God within the Kahal remains.
Ephesians 4:13 ‘…until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Mashiach.’
1 Corinthians 1:10 ‘Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Yeshua, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.’
Romans 12:4 ‘For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function…’
John 17:23 ‘I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.
Psalms 133:1 ‘A Song of Ascents, of David. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!’
The Shabbat is the time that we dwell together in unity; the synagogue is the physical space that we dwell together in unity. It is the Sabbath, His Walk, and Yeshua that brings us together in unity.
The glory of God was the Tabernacle. Exodus 40:34 states that the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the Mishkan. 'For the cloud of the Lord was upon the Mishkan by day, and there was fire within it at night, before the eyes of the entire house of Israel in all their journeys.' Exodus 40:38.
Deuteronomy 5:24 states: 'You said, 'Behold, the LORD our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives.'
Romans 8:18 explains that our present sufferings pale to the glory that will be revealed within us.
Isaiah 42:8 declares: 'I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.' Anything we do that is contrary to Him is a graven image. It is not just a material idol that we have made, a graven image is a direct opposite of His will.
When we deviate from Him, the teachings, His ways, how does that bring glory to Him? Since God is love, shouldn't we walk in His love? God's sign and day that He designed is the Sabbath, shouldn't that be the day we honor? Hate and gossip destroys, so would that bring honor and glory to God? If synchronizing brings in false religions, shouldn't we not participate in any other holiday?
1Corinthians 10:31 'So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…'
Isaiah 60:1 ‘Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.’
וַיַּקְהֵל
Vayakhel / And He Assembled
Exodus 35:1-38:20
1 Kings 7:13-26
2 Corinthians 9:6-11
This Torah portion begins with assembling the people, and Moshe going over the importance of the Sabbath. Exodus 35:1-3 ‘Then Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said to them, “These are the words which the Lord has commanded you to do: 2 Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. 3 You shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings on the Sabbath day.”
It continues with the offerings and articles for the Tabernacle. The offerings are presented in Exodus 35:20-29, and the Artisans are called directly by God in Exodus 35:30-35.
Exodus 36 continues with the building of the Tabernacle and the offerings that continue until Moshe requests that the people stop bringing their gifts. Exodus 36:6-7 ‘So Moses gave a commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, “Let neither man nor woman do any more work for the offering of the sanctuary.” And the people were restrained from bringing, 7 for the material they had was sufficient for all the work to be done—indeed too much.’
The making of the Ark, the table, the altar, the oil, the lampstand, the garments, the bronze laver, the court, the material, the ephod, and the breastplate is continued in Exodus 37, 38 continuing into the next Torah portion, P’kudei.
Vaykhel comes right after the golden calf incident. Vayakhel means ‘And He Assembled’. This is exactly what Moses had to do after the Golden Calf - Vayakhel – assemble the Israelites into a kehillah, a community. He did this by restoring order. When Moses came down the mountain and saw the calf, the Torah says the people were pru’ah, meaning wild, disorderly, chaotic, unruly, and tumultuous. He “saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies” Exodus 32:25. This group of people, the community had turned into a chaotic, unruly gang.
How did he begin to restore order? He began by reminding the people of the laws of Shabbat. Then he instructed them to build the Mishkan, the Sanctuary, as a symbolic home for God.
But why these two commands rather than any others? Because Shabbat and the Mishkan are the two most powerful ways of building community. The best way of turning a disconnected group into a team is to get them to build something together. Hence the Mishkan. It is taught that The best way of strengthening relationships is to set aside dedicated time when we focus not on the pursuit of individual self-interest but on the things we share, by praying together, studying Torah together, and celebrating together - in other words, Shabbat. Shabbat and the Mishkan were the two great community-building experiences of the Israelites in the desert.
What happens when someone in the community goes rogue? We are experiencing this today,;the ability to spread like wildfire, like cancer. We will also read this in the Torah portion, Korach. It is an idea, a thought rendering only to oneself, instead of the love for the whole. The love for oneself and the hate for the instructions, as explained in Exodus 32:25, outweighs the love and commitment for the community. Someone had to initiate the forming of the golden calf, someone came up with the idea, and Aaron stayed silent.
The Book of Judges describes one of the longest, bleakest times in the history of Israel. It covers a 450-year time frame extending from Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land until the time of Samuel. That time is one of the horrific acts of evil, bloody conflicts, and tales of human misery. It was an age of absolute moral chaos.
The people of Israel would become desperate and cry out to God. He would implement another system to conquer whatever enemy was oppressing them, known as judges. These people weren’t necessarily perfect models of spiritual virtue, but God empowered them to deliver His people from disaster. However, as soon as peace was restored, the nation would fall right back into sin and apostasy. It happened every time and was repeated again and again as we read in: Judges 17:6 states ‘In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.’ And Judges 21:25 ‘Everyone did what was right in his own eye’. Judges 21:25.
In Vayakhel, Moshe performed a tikkun, a mending of the past regarding the sin of the Golden Calf assembling the people. The same word is used at the beginning of both episodes: k-h-l “to gather, assemble, congregate.” From it we get the words kahal and kehillah, meaning “community”.
Moshe directs the people to the two great centers of community in Torah: one is in time, Shabbat, and the other is physical which was the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, which led to the Temple and later to the synagogues. This is where kehillah lives most powerfully: on Shabbat when we lay aside our private desires and come together.
The very beginning of this parsha gives an insight into the important role that women played in making the Mishkan, Exodus 35:22, 35:25-26 and Exodus 35:29. This is even more striking as it is taught that the Torah implies that the women refused to contribute to the making of the Golden Calf, Exodus 32:2. Did the women have a sense of judgment in the religious life – what is true worship, and what false.
In the Brit Chadasha, we see women ministering to Yeshua. In Luke 8:1-3 certain women followed Yeshua and the twelve, ministering to them. At the time of His death, Mark 15:41 mentions the ministering women. In Luke 7:36-50 and John 12:1-8 it is Miriam who washed Yeshua’s feet. And it is the two sisters, one at His feet and one preparing meals that ministered to Him in different ways, Luke 10:38-42.
To minister to Yeshua, to minister to the community, and to minister to one another is the foundation of our faith. Alone, we would be that – alone. But it is within the community that we discover our weaknesses and our strengths and learn to serve one another thus we serve God: 1 Corinthians 1:10, Hebrews 10:24-25, Romans 12:4-5, Romans 14:1, Romans 16:17, Ephesians 4:3and 1 Peter 3:8.
