Judaism
Parashah of the week: Pekudei
“And when Moses saw that they had performed all the tasks — as the Lord had commanded, so they had done —Moses blessed them” Exodus 39:43
March 3, 2022 10:52
“And when Moses saw that they had performed all the tasks — as the Lord had commanded, so they had done —Moses blessed them” Exodus 39:43
March 3, 2022 10:52What word best describes the work that you do? Earlier in this same chapter, the work of the Tabernacle is referred to as avodah, from the same root as the word eved, or “slave”. Yet at the end of the process, what Moses sees is that the people have completed all of the melachah, or “creative labour”, that they had been commanded. These words have different connotations and cast the workers in different roles.
The word melachah evokes God’s creation of the world at the very beginning of the Torah. Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz, who published his Torah commentary, the Kli Yakar, at the very beginning of the 17th century, says that avodah describes the labour of a servant for their master, while the craft that a worker does for themselves is called melachah.
Furthermore, Rabbi Luntschitz explains that sometimes, people accomplish many small tasks and each individual element is good, but when viewed as a whole, the accomplishment is disjointed.
What was amazing about the creation of the world was that God created different elements, day after day, and the final whole was tov me’od, “extremely good” (Genesis 1:31).
In the case of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, there were multiple artisans and so the risk of uneven work was greater. At first, each person was simply completing their own work, their avodah, the kind of work that simply checks the box next to each individual task assigned by a boss. Ultimately, incredibly, the work came together into a harmonious and beautiful space, and could be celebrated as melachah, a complete creative accomplishment.
Like God at the completion of the world’s creation, Moses is moved to bless. He blesses the people that God commanded, the people who create a space for God. What exactly was the blessing? The midrash in the Sifra steps in to answer this question: “Moses said to them: May it be God’s will that the Divine presence should inhabit the work of your hands” (Sifra, Shemini, Mechilta d’Miluim 2:15)
It is easy to get lost in the details no matter what kind of work you do and modern life has brought with it more kinds of work than ever before. This passage, and the blessing Moses offers, remind us to pay attention to the larger impact of our projects. Whatever avodah we do, the labour of our lives is to contribute positively to our communities and to society.