Vayakhel D'var Torah

Vayakhel

Moses gave the Israelites the instructions for building the Tabernacle, and they started working. One of the leaders of the process was a man named Betzalel.

Fun fact: Vayakhel and Pekudei are very similar to Terumah and Tetzaveh (which we read two weeks ago), as those portions were God explaining how to make the Tabernacle and these portions are the people actually making the Tabernacle. One main difference, however, is the use of the word ויעש (Vayaas, he made) since this portion describes the actions taken to make the Tabernacle.

Ki Tissa D'var Torah

Ki Tissa Summary:

God started by giving instructions for taking a census, which involved every Israelite paying for an offering to God to make sure they were counted. God then gave people special skills so they would be able to successfully build the Tabernacle. He also told Moses to tell the Israelites that they still must keep Shabbat, and not work on the Tabernacle on Shabbat. 

While Moses was on Mount Sinai, Aaron and the Israelites made a golden calf to idolize God. When Moses came down, he saw this and was so mad that he broke the tablets God had given him. He then burned the golden calf, put the powder in water, and made the Israelites drink it. Moses then said “Whoever is for the Lord, come here!” and all of the Levites came to him. He then instructed them to kill the other Israelites. They did so, and over 3,000 died that day. Moses met with God again, and God brought a plague upon the people as additional punishment. Next, God said to Moses to “Set out from here, you and the people you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying ‘To your offspring I will give it’,” and God also said he would drive away other people and allow the Israelites to go to “a land flowing with milk and honey.” God also agreed to let Moses see his back (but he would die if he saw God’s face). Moses then made two new tablets and went back up to Mount Sinai, where he made a covenant with God. The covenant ordered the Israelites to always worship God, to never join with other groups of people because they would want to follow other gods, to observe Passover, and to observe Shabbat, among other things. In return, God would help lead them to Israel. Moses stayed and fasted on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights, and he wrote those commandments down and went down the mountain. 

Commentary:

In this portion, God gets very angry at the Israelites. When God sees that the Israelites were bad by making a golden calf to worship, he initially wants to kill all of the Israelites and start the people over with Moses. But, Moses doesn’t like this idea, so he convinces God not to kill the Israelites. He reminds God about his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he helps God realize that freeing the people from Egypt only to kill them in the mountains would be tyrannical. So, God hears this reasoning and decides to renounce his original punishment idea. However, when Moses comes down the mountain, he decides that the people do need to be punished for their actions once he sees what they actually did, and he makes the Levites kill thousands of the other Israelites along with making everyone drink water with the ashes of the golden calf in it. He is also disappointed in Aaron for leading the people in making the calf, and God casts a plague upon the Israelites. So, although the Israelites survived complete annihilation by God for creating the golden calf, many still died and the group was punished severely.

February SATO Snap

         The winter Olympic Games are currently going on, but I’m sure you don’t know the extent of the impact it has on the environment. The Olympics have a history of contributing to climate change, deforestation, and water pollution. The 2016 Rio Games produced over 17,000 tons of waste, used over 29,000 gigawatts of electricity mostly from non-renewable resources, and has used up over 23,000 liters of fuel. The Rio Games emitted 3.6 million tons of carbon into the air, even when Brazil claimed to use energy efficient and low carbon strategies. The Tokyo Games in 2020 have been considered the most environmentally conscious Olympics in history however. Energy used in the athletes village was 100% renewable, and it was actually considered carbon negative. It wasn’t perfect however, as the plywood used in sitting areas for the audience sourced from tropical forest caused tons of trees to get cut down. Since there was such an absence of an audience, the forests that were cut, were cut for no reason. So what's going on with the winter Olympics right now? Two words: Fake Snow. Sure you may be aware that fake snow is impacting athletes' ability to perform at the top of their game, but the environmental impact is much worse. This year is the first ever winter Olympics with all fake snow, and although China has claimed the Games will be powered by all green energy, the way they make their fake snow is still an issue. They use over 350 snow guns and reservoirs or water that China claims not to be pulling from drinking water. Maintaining the supply of snow uses 49 million gallons of water, which makes up 4% of the water supply in Yanqing, China and 2.6% in Zhangjiakou, an area of 14,000 square miles. When the Paralympic Games take place, snow production is likely to increase. One scary thing is that researchers haven’t examined what could happen with 100% fake snow melting rapidly over a huge area, plus, it is impossible to save all the water that was used. Previous research suggests that this can cause sediment erosion, loss of plant life, and changes to the arrangement of plant species, impacting their local wildlife. 

Tetzaveh D'var Torah

Tetzaveh Summary:

God told Moses to make Aaron and his sons priests, and then told Moses how to make the special clothes that the priests would wear. He then told Moses how to ordain Aaron and his sons, which involved a sacrifice at the altar. He also gave instructions to regularly slaughter two lambs every day. Finally, he told Moses how to build and use an altar for burning incense.

Commentary:

Two fun facts- first of all, God instructed Moses about how to make special clothes for Aaron and his sons (the priests) because if they didn’t wear the clothing while going into the Tabernacle, they would be instantly killed by God. Also, the Israelites had to sacrifice two lambs every day, one in the morning and one at night to please God!

Terumah D'var Torah

Terumah

(Note: Starting with this portion, the Torah portions become a lot more dense, explaining lots of specific rules and instructions rather than telling a story like most of the previous portions. Due to this, in these dvarim, I am not doing to explain every single detail of these portions in as much depth as the previous portions, instead I will give a short summary of what the overall topics of the portions are. There also may not be commentary for every portion (like this one) because it’s hard to find interesting things to write about in some of these portions.)

While Moses was on Mount Sinai, God told Moses to have the Israelites bring gifts for God. These gifts would be used for building the Tabernacle, a sanctuary to God. The rest of the portion is God explaining many specific instructions on how to build the Tabernacle.