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{"id":4170,"date":"2023-03-14T12:46:57","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T16:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/seventyfacesoftorah\/?p=4170"},"modified":"2023-03-21T16:15:07","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T20:15:07","slug":"the-role-of-the-wise-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/seventyfacesoftorah\/2023\/03\/the-role-of-the-wise-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"The Role of the Wise Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

By Emmanuel Cantor\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Parashat Vayak\u2019hel-Pekudei<\/em>\u00a0(Exodus 35:1-40:38<\/a><\/span>)<\/p>\n

I vividly remember being in my third-grade Jewish day school class and learning about the Omer<\/em>, the ritual counting of the days between Passover and Shavuot. Perhaps I had a contrarian impulse that day, as the first thing that I remember is rolling my eyes. I assumed that counting days would be a little boring. Then my teacher taught the class\u00a0a song to sing before we counted<\/a>, a tune set to the Torah verses describing the\u00a0omer<\/em>. I loved the drama of the melody and the rhythm of the chanting. Thanks to the song, I grew excited to count the\u00a0omer<\/em>\u00a0each morning.<\/p>\n

The power of art to transform the mundane into the magical\u2014 as it did for me in my third grade classroom\u2014is on full display in this week\u2019s double-parashah<\/em>,\u00a0Vayak\u2019hel-Pekudei<\/em>. The portion describes the building of the\u00a0mishkan<\/em>, or Tabernacle, and its stars are artists\u2014the architect Bezalel and his assistant Oholiab, and the unnamed women who weave blue, purple, and crimson yarn into the\u00a0mishkan<\/em>\u2018s vibrant curtains.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible,\u201d taught the Black Arts Movement writer and activist Toni Cade Bambara. Although rooted in her life and work, we can apply Cade Bambara\u2019s words to\u00a0Vayak\u2019hel-Pekudei<\/em>\u00a0as well. In the aftermath of last week\u2019s Golden Calf reading, the newly-liberated Israelites appear unable to get onboard with the spiritual revolution of Sinai. This week, the artists Bezalel, Oholiab, and the women who weave make that revolution irresistible.<\/p>\n

The Golden Calf provides a backdrop to the focus\u00a0Vayak\u2019hel-Pekudei<\/em>\u00a0places on art and artists. The artists are described seven times as\u00a0chacham lev<\/em>, or wise-hearted. Bezalel, in particular, is noted for his \u201cdivine spirit of skill, ability, and knowledge in every kind of craft\u201d\u00a0(Ex. 35:32<\/a><\/span>, NJPS). This emphasis on Bezalel\u2019s artistry is in contrast to Aaron\u2019s response to Moses when confronted over his role in fashioning the Golden Calf.<\/p>\n

They said to me, \u2018Make us a god to lead us; for that fellow Moses\u2014the man who brought us from the land of Egypt\u2014we do not know what has happened to him.\u2019 So I said to them, \u2018Whoever has gold, take it off!\u2019 They gave it to me and I hurled it into the fire and out came this calf!\u201d\u00a0(Ex. 32:23-24<\/a><\/span>, NJPS).<\/p>\n

Aaron\u2019s \u201cout came this calf\u201d line is often read as an attempt to exonerate himself, a \u201cdog ate my homework\u201d style excuse. Yet, Aaron\u2019s explanation also reflects a creative process that lacks proper time, space, skill, and intention. Rashi, the 11th century commentator, emphasizes an absence of artistic creativity in his commentary on the verse: \u201che (Aaron) took from them and cast in a mold, and made it into a molten calf\u201d\u00a0(Ex. 32:4<\/a><\/span>, NJPS). Citing an Aramaic translation by Onkelos, Rashi imagines Aaron using a mold that can make multiple copies of the same gold object, such as letters or small figurines. In this reading, the Golden Calf is not only a betrayal of God\u2019s covenant with the people. It is also easily-copied, unoriginal art.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps, not really art at all. In a 2002 piece for\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>, novelist and critic Jeanette Winterson distinguishes between art and the mass production of the market. She writes:<\/p>\n

Mass production is about cloned objects. Art is about individual vision. Individuals can work together, as they must in theater or opera, or where assistants work under a master, or they can work alone. However it happens, art is never a factory or a production line.<\/p>\n

In Winterson\u2019s model, the molded Golden Calf is not the art of individual vision but a \u201ccloned object\u201d of the production line, albeit an ancient one. By contrast, the\u00a0mishkan<\/em>\u00a0is the opposite: an original, creative work. To this point, a Midrash wonders why God did not command Moses to construct the\u00a0mishkan<\/em>\u00a0as a canvas tent with four poles\u2014an easy-to-copy model. In response, the rabbis imagine that on Sinai, God showed Moses fires in shades of red, green, black, and white. The following parable is then offered.<\/p>\n

This is like a king who had a splendid garment made of jewels. He said to his personal friend, \u2018Make me one just like it!\u2019 He answered, \u2018My lord the king, can I make one like it?\u2019 The king replied, \u2018I remain in my glory, but you have your materials.\u2019 Similarly, Moses said to God, \u2018My God, can I make anything like these fires?! God replied [by listing the materials for making the\u00a0mishkan<\/em>], \u2018Blue purple and crimson yarns, fine linen\u2026\u2019\u00a0(<\/span>Bamidbar Rabbah<\/a><\/em>\u00a012:10<\/a>, translated by Dr. Avivah Zornberg).<\/p>\n

In this Midrash (parable), the king, as a stand-in for God, urges an artistic friend to replicate a bejeweled garment. While the friend pleads that he is unable to duplicate such an exquisite work, the king insists that it is the friend\u2019s artistic creativity, or \u201cmaterials,\u201d that the king most desires.<\/p>\n

So too, Moses receives a model for the\u00a0mishkan<\/em>. Yet unlike the Golden Calf, it is a model impossible to copy. This is by God\u2019s design. Inspired by divine fires, Moses will have to creatively use \u201chis materials\u201d to make the\u00a0mishkan<\/em>. It will be a work of art. And this art will make the revolution of Sinai irresistible.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in her piece, Winterson speaks of art\u2019s invitation for us to slow down, thereby expanding our awareness.<\/p>\n

The time you spend on art is the time it spends with you; there are no shortcuts, no crash courses, no fast tracks. Only the experience. Art can\u2019t change your life; it is not a diet programme or the latest guru\u2014it offers no quick fixes. What art can do is prompt in us authentic desire. By that I mean it can waken us to truths about ourselves and our lives; truths that normally lie suffocated under the pressure of the 24-hour emergency zone called real life.<\/p>\n

Today, I still sing the song I was taught in third grade before I count the\u00a0omer<\/em>. The\u00a0omer<\/em>\u00a0blessing can be rattled off in a matter of seconds, but there is no shortcut to the song. The melody invites me to slow down, calling my awareness to the transition between Passover and Shavout, Egypt and Sinai. And while the golden calf pops out of the fire in only one short verse, the\u00a0mishkan<\/em>\u2014thanks to Bezalel, Oholiab, and the \u201cwise-hearted women\u201d\u2014is designed and built over hundreds of verses. There are no shortcuts, only real life.<\/p>\n

Emmanuel Cantor is a fourth-year rabbinical student at Hebrew College<\/a>. As a student rabbi, he has served a number of Jewish communities, most recently Congregation Dorshei Tzedek and the Slifka Center for Jewish life at Yale. Before rabbinical school, Emmanuel worked as a community organizer for Jews United for Justice and lived in an Avodah Bayit. He earned his BA at Yale, where he majored in Women\u2019s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and is an alum of Yeshivat Maale Gilboa in northern Israel.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Emmanuel Cantor\u00a0 Parashat Vayak\u2019hel-Pekudei\u00a0(Exodus 35:1-40:38) I vividly remember being in my third-grade Jewish day school class and learning about the Omer, the ritual counting of the days between Passover and Shavuot. Perhaps I had a contrarian impulse that day, as the first thing that I remember is rolling my eyes. I assumed that counting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3007,"featured_media":3841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,23,339,348,38,9,13,300,5,274],"class_list":["post-4170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-70-faces-of-torah","tag-bible","tag-biblical-commentary","tag-emmanuel-cantor","tag-exodus","tag-hebrew-college","tag-seventy-faces-of-torah","tag-text-commentary","tag-torah","tag-torah-commentary"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Role of the Wise Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Emmanuel Cantor\u00a0 Parashat Vayak\u2019hel-Pekudei\u00a0(Exodus 35:1-40:38) I vividly remember being in my third-grade Jewish day school class and learning about\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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