Years before he became famous, Brian Selznick, the author and illustrator of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which was turned into the Academy Award winning movie “Hugo” worked at a children’s bookstore in New York near the apartment where I grew up. Selznick was a “window painter” – he decorated the bookstore’s windows with seasonal decorations and illustrations from children’s books. When I was ten, I was a frequent visitor to the bookstore and Brian and I became friends. He helped me select books to read, and he told me about his own progress publishing his first book called “The Houdini Box.” I was invited to the book-party when it finally was published and as a birthday present, when I turned eleven, Brian presented me with an original illustration from his book. I still have it, framed all these years alter – which I had thought was a sign of how much I appreciated the gift.
But, I’m not so certain anymore that saving the drawing for more than two decades is the truest sign of appreciation.
Maurice Sendak, the children’s author who died in 2012 wrote about an encounter with a young fan:
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”
“He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.” What a wonderful way to express passion. A young child cannot write a poem. A young child will not buy you flowers. But a child is capable of loving with a fierceness that rivals anything that an adult can produce. A young child cannot appreciate the monetary or social value of an “original Maurice Sendak” drawing, but understands that when you love a wild thing…you eat it up.
The experience of consuming, or being consumed and surrounded by the object of one’s devotion was central to the experience of the mishkan, the tabernacle, of the mikdash – the Temple. These were buildings focused on the experience of being in the presence of the Divine.
The Talmud tell us, in Ketuvot 62b how Rabbi Hiyya arranged a marriage for his son to the daughter of Rabbi Yossi ben Zimra. Rabbi Hiyya was able to negotiate twelve years of Torah study for his son, funded by his future father in law, prior to the marriage. Rabbi Yossi’s daughter then passed before Rabbi Hiyya’s son. After he saw her, he thought a moment and he said, “I only want to sit and learn for 6 years before I get married.” She then passed before him a second time and he thought some more and then said, “actually I want to marry her first before I go and study.” Rabbi Hiyya’s son was embarrassed to report to his father that he had negated this great deal that had been negotiated on his behalf but his father, Rabbi Hiyya, was actually quite supportive. He said to his son, “My child, you have within you something of the mind of your creator. For, at first we are told, (Exodus 15): “I will bring them and I will plant them” and later (Exodus 25), “make for me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst.”
First
תְבִאֵ֗מו וְתִטָעֵ֙מו֙ בְהַ֣ר נַחֲלָֽתְָ֔ מָכ֧ון לְשִבְתְָ֛ פָעַ֖לְתָ ה׳ מִקְד֕ש אֲד-נָ֖י כונְנ֥ו יָדֽיָ׃
and then
וְעָ֥שו לִ֖י מִקדָ֑ש וְשָכַנְתִ֖י בְתוכָֽם׃
God first thinks that the mikdash, and God’s presence among the Jewish people will follow the Jewish people entering the Land of Israel and settling there. And this is what we are told earlier in Sefer Shemot, in the Book of Exodus. But in this week’s parsha, the plan changes. God tells us that now, while we are still in the desert, standing in the shadow of Mt. Sinai, we are to build a mishkan, a sanctuary, that will facilitate God’s presence resting among the people.
The Mishkan was a place of visceral encounter with God. We could walk in sacred space and eat sacred foods. God’s desire to dwell amongst a sacred community could not wait. Passion for intimacy, emanating, as it were from God, caused the command to build a mishkan at the beginning of our people’s journey with God. We weren’t left to our own devices – to merely receive the Torah at Sinai, and then make our way through the desert without the opportunity for intimacy and passion to animate our relationship with God.
Centuries later, has anything changed? Is a religious life without passion any more sustainable today than it was in the wilderness of Sinai? I suspect that God’s availability for that sort of relationship has not changed. And I suspect that passion remains indispensable for a living and breathing Judaism that can be sustained throughout our lives and transmitted to our children.
-When another person needs our help- are we generous with our time and attention? God calls on us to be a supportive presence for one another and when we respond as we should, we bring Godliness to our interpersonal interactions. A friendly gesture, act of help, or intervention on behalf of justice can be motivated by humanism – by valuing humanity and the integrity of human beings and our freedom and flourishing. But it can also be motivated by religious passion. And when religious passion fuels humanist impulses, our community becomes kinder and holier at the same time. We grow in fellowship with one another, even as God’s presence fills the community.
-Can we sense God’s presence in this building when we gather for tefilah or Torah study opportunities? Hopefully everyone enjoys themselves when they come here. Hopefully everyone enjoys nice davening. Of course I always want everyone to enjoy the sermons that I share with the community. But there is a difference between detached enjoyment and an intense need.
Can we imagine our lives with passion for God and an almost physical thirst for Torah? Everything would be transformed with that injection of passion. I imagine a shul where we didn’t have to wait for a minyan to begin praying on Friday afternoon because we were all so eager for the sanctity of Shabbat. I imagine a shul where the seats were filled before Torah reading because we couldn’t contemplate missing even one word.
I imagine husbands and wives, friends and colleagues, parents and grandparents, trading favors and rearranging their schedules to enable minyan attendance during the week.
Can you imagine reciting the amidah with so much passion and intensity that you needed to stand in quiet contemplation during hazarat ha’shatz, the repetition of the amidah, and wouldn’t think of reading or chatting with a neighbor?
A mitzvah is not just a good dead. I mitzvah is not just a routine obligation, a box to check, or an item to cross off a list. A mitzvah can be an opportunity for a rendezvous with God. It is a rendezvous that God desires. God’s desire for God’s presence to dwell in the midst of our community could not be delayed. The mikdash was a physical address for those seeking God’s presence. This building and this community can be the same.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 