Parashat Vayakhel: On Work and Presence

Lately I have the feeling that the world is zooming by on an acela train, and I am running alongside huffing, trying desperately to keep up.

But there is no way . There is always more to do than can be done. And I don’t really want to spend my life running. The scenery is going by way too quickly. Every once in a while, as I am thinking about something I need to get done, I pause suddenly, and notice that my youngest son is saying something to me. I look down at him, and his big beautiful brown trusting eyes are looking up at me, just waiting for me to look at him, to look him in the eye, to hear him and be present.

How does one manage to “get thngs done” in the world and yet also achieve some level of presence? We are in the midst of the parshiyyot detailing the great human “work” of the Torah – the creation of a mishkan, a dwelling place for God on earth. It takes 2 parshiyyot to describe its instructions and 2 to describe its actualization. This project is a lot of work. Indeed, the work involved here is considered the definition of creative work, melakhah, in the Torah, the very actions that are prohibited on Shabbat.

Two things strike me about the Torah’s “work.” First, it is entirely about “Presence.” The whole point of every piece of this work is to bring down God’s presence to earth. I’m not sure how one achieves such presence in the actual weaving and carpentry of the work, but surely this goal of presence must have seeped into the way the work was approached, a sense of sacredness surrounding each act in itself so that there is no sense of rushing on to keep on schedule.

Second, the Torah emphasizes in this parsha and in the last that all this Mishkan work stops on Shabbat. Even a person involved in this most sacred work of building God’s palace is obligated to refrain from such work on Shabbat. No work is so important that it cannot be stopped, because work/production is not the point. The point is Presence, and refraining from work on one day makes it clear that Presence is the goal the rest of the week.. The sacred pause on Shabbat -- like my son's searching eyes -- stops us in our tracks for a moment in order to remind us to be present, then, and always.

I’m still not sure how this works on a practical level. How do we infuse our work with a sense of Presence? So much of what we do involves preparations. Somehow even these preparations must be done with a sense of Presence, of the sacredness of this moment, and this individual activity.