Here's something that is probably impossible to fathom and even a little hard to swallow. Imagine working for a non-profit and making a desperate pitch for funds to build your organization or to keep it afloat. The money and materials start coming in...and do not stop. At a certain point you simply cannot handle the intake and realize you could never use it all. What do you do? Tell people to stop, right?
Wait, really? Would you do that?
I ask this because I read two verses in this week's parsha that not only gave me pause, but were actually almost painful to digest.
As the nitty-gritty of building the mishkan (portable desert tabernacle) ensues, Moses gets word from his skilled workers.
"'The people are bringing more than is needed for the tasks entailed in the work that the Lord has commanded to be done.' Moses then proclaims, 'Let no man or woman make further effort toward gifts for the sanctuary!'" (Exodus 36:5-6)
My first reaction is ...Wow, what a position to be in! God and Moses have truly inspired the people to mine from within themselves, responding with sheer effort and material bounty. They offer so much that there is no place available to create a stockpile, as the famous commentator Abarbanel (1437 - 1508, Portugal) points out. Even though the Israelites were experiencing their first taste of freedom and were moved to remarkable levels of generosity for their communal holy spaces, how does Moses stop the giving, regardless of their desire to give? This necessity seems pretty far from the world we live in today--a world in which there is simply not enough to meet the needs. The bottom line no longer exists, let alone a surplus! These verses, as their plain meaning suggests, only heighten the intensity and rawness many of us feel in the current economic climate.
Incidentally, a different paradigm of giving is read publicly from the Torah this same week. This Shabbat marks the fourth of four special Shabbatot leading up to the upcoming festival, Passover. It is called Parashat Ha-Hodesh, as it precedes (or coincides with) the beginning of the month of Nissan. Its practical function is to begin to prepare us for the details of the Passover commandments by reading the relevant section from the Torah. In describing the preparing of the lamb for the Passover Sacrifice, the Torah states:
"But if the household is too small for a lamb, let him share one with a neighbor who dwells nearby, in proportion to the number of persons: you shall contribute for the lamb according to what each household will eat." (Exodus, 12:4)
According to Rashi (1040-1105, France), a household that is too small is one that does not have enough people to consume the entire animal. In such a case, the smaller family that ended up with a surplus of food would offer to share their Passover Sacrifice with another family.
This model of giving feels different, and may even shed light on the troubling section we first read together: while the sharing of the extra food feels like a "material" gift, something more meaningful inevitably happens. The festivities of the family meal, in this case a religious meal, have now been expanded to include others, possibly even a larger family who could not afford a lamb large enough to feed them. Giving becomes not only a gift of money, but one of spirit too. By sharing our Seder table we share community, conversation, words of Torah and laughter. These are all gifts that anyone can give - whether or not they have money.
Though not thematically or historically connected, these verses on the Passover sacrifice lure me to revisit the first verse. Moses did not say, "stop giving everything". Rather, this moment in time demands that we need to bring something different, something that will draw us closer together and help us to connect in our shared experience of the world as Jews and as human beings. If this Tabernacle is to serve its real purpose in the world, we need our hearts to move us to give just that - our hearts.
That is what it means to give in a world when there is (seemingly) nothing available to give. We give what we can. Passover is coming and the Seder is approaching. What will we give? Who will we invite? How will we nourish them?
Shabbat Shalom