Parashat Pekudei: Honoring the Completion

This week the people finish building the Mishkan (Tabernacle). They bring all of the parts they have built to Moshe and he looks at all of it and blesses them.

As the Sefat Emet and others point out, this act of finishing and then looking at the product and blessing parallels the creation of the world. Indeed, the same verb, a rather uncommon one, is used for finishing in both cases – vayikhal. In both cases, work was done and then proclaimed to be finished and blessed. In the creation of the world, what follows this first completion of work is Shabbat.

I think there is something important to be learned here about marking the finishing of things. I don’t think we do this often enough. I know for myself there is a tendency to consider it an unimportant, almost conceited act to celebrate an act of completion. And also a waste of time -- there are other tasks yet to be accomplished and we are always rushing on to the next project.

Not taking the time to note a completion is a form of greed and grasping, I now realize. It is as if we are saying “this is not enough.” It is never enough for us. We always have to do more, accomplish more. It is like eating one food while thinking about what food comes next, never taking the time to appreciate what you have, always looking for more. Yes, ambition is helpful, and striving is a positive thing, but the lesson of completion is the lesson of Shabbat – there is also a time to be done and to notice that we are done and celebrate it.

At the heart of the celebration of completion is not pride but appreciation, appreciation for the beautiful entirety of a thing like the Mishkan, and gratitude that God has granted us the strength and time to reach this completion. We don’t want to just throw out our work and move on, but to honor it.

This week I will finish my first masekhet (tractate) of gemara ever in my life, through the Daf Yomi program. I feel excited by it, but I had been pushing those feelings down, telling myself it is just ego that makes me want to celebrate. The fact is, though, that the tradition does celebrate such completions formally with a siyum and there is a lesson in these celebrations. We need to stop and honor the completion, as an act not of conceit but on the contrary, of humility and gratitude – how thankful we are to have, with God’s help, reached this day. May we all celebrate many such completions!