From Crowd to Community
In this week's parasha, Vayakhel-Pekudei, Moses assembles the Israelites and they spring into action on a giant community project: the construction and assembly of the Mishkan (also known as the Tabernacle, the portable sanctuary they used during their 40 years in the wilderness). As Exodus 35:21 reads, "And everyone who excelled in ability and everyone whose spirit was moved came, bringing to God an offering for the work of the Tent of Meeting and for all its service and for the sacral vestments." The next many verses detail the kinds of gifts and unique contributions that the Israelites bring: brooches and other gold jewelry; colorfully dyed yarns, fabric and skins; silver and copper. Skilled women begin spinning and trained artisans begin to cut stones, carve wood, and assemble tapestries. Piece by piece, a sacred structure emerges from the efforts of ALL the people, regardless of gender or status or even ability-level.
In his book The Home We Build Together, the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks argues that this shared project is what turns the crowd of Israelites into a community. He writes: "A nation -- at least, the kind of the nation the Israelites were called on to become -- is created through the act of creation itself. Not all the miracles of Exodus combined, not the plagues, the division of the sea, manna from heaven or water from a rock, not even the revelation at Sinai itself, turned the Israelites into a nation. In commanding Moshe to get the people to make the Tabernacle, God was in effect saying: To turn a group of individuals into a covenantal nation, they must build something together."
I love this piece of Torah from Rabbi Sacks, because here at Kavana, this idea of creating -- of "building something together," of tackling shared projects together -- is one of the go-to plays in our playbook. Week in and week out, we bring together individuals from our community with a shared purpose or project. Not only do we accomplish a lot in terms of outputs, but we also manage to forge community in powerful, connective ways!
Over the past week alone, we've had so many examples -- here are but a few:
1) Feeding Hungry Neighbors: Kavana volunteers Alex, Aviva, Danny, Diane, Isaac, Julie, Karling, Robin and Ronnie teamed up last weekend to provide a meal to the residents of the Low Income Housing Institute's Othello Village. Each person prepared a single pot of soup, a loaf of bread, or a dozen cookies at home... but together, this added up to a full meal prepared and delivered with love! As an added bonus, this project has been a partnership between Kavana and Minyan Ohr Chadash (a Modern Orthodox community in Seward Park), which means in addition to connecting our chefs with one another and with our low-income neighbors, it's also been a beautiful way to build ties across the Seattle Jewish community. (Huge thanks to everyone who has participated so far! The next opportunity to participate will be on April 23 -- menu details coming soon.)
2) Taking a Stand about Israel: Braving cold weather and an early wake-up the morning after springing our clocks ahead, many Kavana folks turned out in Bellevue last Sunday to protest Israel's new ultra-right coalition and to call for democracy there. This, too, was an opportunity for us to connect with a broader Jewish community (and a sense of peoplehood), as the UnXeptable rallies are grassroots endeavors being organized by Israeli expats living around the world. Everyone is welcome to join us this Sunday again, at 10am on the north side of Bellevue Downtown Park!
3) Teen In-Service: Last weekend, the young adults in Kavana's High School Program had the opportunity to dig into some important Jewish texts and grapple with our tradition's take on responsibilities to community and on tzedakah priorities. Their boisterous beit midrash-style conversations were accompanied by action; here are the students, holding some of the 60 wound-care kits (complete with bandaids, gauze, sterile gloves, antibiotic ointment, etc.) that they assembled for Aurora Commons. Of course, along the way, these wonderful teens are creating strong bonds of friendship with one another!
4) Kavana's Caring Committee: Across multiple house parties, Kavana cooks and bakers teamed up to prepare soups, stews, lasagnas, and baked goods with fresh ingredients. We purposefully chose meals that would freeze beautifully so that we can keep a great stash of food on hand and have meals ready to go whenever a need arises in our community. Our volunteers also had a blast together and forged new ties as they worked side-by-side in the kitchen! Best of all, now we have delicious food ready for you... so please don't hesitate to be in touch (email Avital) if you or someone you know would appreciate a home-cooked meal and the warm community hug it represents (because of an illness, surgery, loss, new baby, or for any other reason at all!)
I can't help but notice that all of these examples I just shared from the past week were about putting our values into action through community service or advocacy. Of course, at Kavana, we also bring people together for many other purposes as well... for example, ritual groups for prayer, the singing circle, learning and discussion groups, social gatherings, and infrastructural committees. Today, our staff is even at an off-site together, tackling the shared project of reflecting on this year's programming and beginning to imagine what we could do together in the coming year, while at the same time continuing to gel into a great professional team.
At Kavana, we manage to produce lots of things together: from meals and wound kits to music and teachings. Ultimately, though, the single most important outcome of our shared endeavors aren't any of these, but rather, the community itself: a covenantal community, bound together by our shared values, our collective sense of purpose, and our strong relationships with one another. This is the essence of the parasha's title of "Vayakhel," which comes from the Hebrew root k-h-l meaning community.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum
