Pekuday: Forgiveness and Zeal

This is the day after.

The sun had set on the Day of Atonement. Like the almost palpable quiet after a tumultuous and crowded gathering of desperate clawing towards a single ray of salvation, it was over. It was not just a new day but a new beginning. Is that not the purpose of life? "Though your sins be as red as scarlet I will make then white as snow," said Isaiah. The eleventh of Tishray is the first day of life renewed.

The initial language of this new life describes the Ark. It is called the Mishkan Edut, the Ark of Testimony. To what did the Ark testify? Absolute forgiveness and the opportunity for a new start.

Torah teaches a profound lesson about forgiveness here: forgiveness is not contingent. It is absolute. God does not remind the people of their past behavior. He does not say they are forgiven yet act in such a way as to undermine that. We are taught that when we forgive it needs to be a complete forgiveness, not one when we still harbor the bitterness of that past.

This confession is found in the Mahzor for the High Holy Days:
I hereby forgive all who have hurt me, all who have done me wrong, who deliberately or by accident, whether by word or by deed. May no one be punished on my account. As I forgive and pardon fully those who have done me wrong, may those whom I have harmed forgive and pardon me, whether I acted deliberately or by accident, whether by word or deed. I am now ready to fulfill the commandment of "to love my neighbor as myself.

What is the point to saying these words if they do not speak the entire truth? If we are still bearing resentments? That is why the way of Judaism provides three steps to true forgiveness:

1. We say we forgive the person/deed. Then we proceed to act upon that forgiveness by praying for their well-being.

2. We remove the filaments of anger that still dance around the edge of our psyche.

3. We reestablish our relationship with them. That is why the Talmud speaks of anger as a donkey lying on its back. The donkey cannot right itself. It seems impossible to forgive when we do not allow ourselves to first get up. Baba Metsia 33

Maimonides offered this insight:
We should be slow to anger and easily appeased. And when our forgiveness is requested, we should grant it with a whole heart; not bearing grudges even for a grave injury. This is the way of the upright Jew.

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The stone tablets had been delivered to the Israelite nation. Moshe Rabbenu gathers the people to fully explain the import of the gift. This was not a time for any division. Moshe speaks deliberately to "all the community of Israel." No one of any age, gender or vocation was excluded.

In this vast gathering of the Israelite nation the people build the Mishkan.

What was the antidote to the Golden Calf? The Mishkan. What does the idolatrous cow have to do with the Ark? The earlier actions of the people betrayed that they needed a specific place where they could access God. It was not enough to have manna rain from heaven or wells appear from the desert floor. The people needed a space that was sacrosanct. That is why the word mishkan means dwelling. The mishkan became the dwelling place where the people could point and say, our God is here!

Further, the aspect of God that inhabited that sacred space was the Shechina.

D'var acher: Mishkan is related to mishkon, pledge. The Ark housed the gift of God to the people, the hewn stones of the Word of God. They were a pledge. If the people kept the commandments they would be deserving of the gift. If they did not, the pledge could be withdrawn.

When we read Torah we look for novelty, excitement, character failings and impossible growth. These are the things that make the holy Torah come alive in the imagination. Instead what we find here are detailed descriptions about planks, strips of wood. Rabbi Elie Munk notes this bland narrative along with the sonorous repetition of the minute details of the Mishkan. The long stretches of narrative are even more surprising because such passages are usually terse in Torah. Munk reminds us that where the Torah repeats an idea there is a nuance that it wants us to notice. Baba Kama 64b.

Imagine love. It is not hard to do. Imagine then what you would do to show that love, to display the full force of those inner emotions. What would be the limitations? Why not the same for the Holy One? Why not buy the best pair of tefilin? The grandest tallit? The most beautiful kiddush cup? Why not build an edifice to God that correlates to a supreme brimming love? Such was the Mishkan.

Perhaps then the lesson of the tedious narrative to to adopt the stance of Betzalel, the architect of the Tabernacle, whose enthusiasm was so intense it could be barely contained. Every plank, each fabric was carefully chosen, sorted and crafted to reflect the love of the artist. Would it not be the same for our shul, our sacred spaces? It is holy work and the work of the holy.

The Talmud goes so far as to equate the wellspring of love that arises from the study of the laws of the sacrifices to the building of the Mishkan and offering the sacrifices. Taanit 27b. In other words, just the simple joy of reconstructing in our minds how it appeared for the glory of God is equivalent to having built it.