Of Sabbaticals, a Peripatetic Mishkan, and Bottomless Hunger (Behar/Behukotai)

Parshat Behar opens with the issue of Shemittah, the Sabbatical year about which I have written before and of which I will write again  ( http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/parshat-behar-adding-sanity-to-the-idea-of-success/ ).

Our world is hurtling ever-more rapidly into 24/7-ism, whereby no day of rest is sacrosanct, and in which a sabbatical year is both unthinkable and yet has never been more necessary. Hopefully, I will soon be able to focus on reviving and updating the idea of Shemittah as a way of restoring a measure of sanity to a world that is driving at full speed with no brakes.

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On to Parshat Behukotai.

Recently I have been arguing that the there is no indication or evidence anywhere in the Torah that the Mishkan (Tabernacle) was ever meant to be only a temporary sanctuary. Nor is there any indication that, once the Israelites settled in the Land of Israel, the Mishkan would become a fixed base operation.

The great care and precision that went into the Mishkan’s design – both esthetically and structurally – should make it clear that it was not ephemeral. It was intended to both permanent and peripatetic, to circulate throughout the tribes and settlements in the Promised Land, bringing God literally to His subjects: ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתכם  They shall make me a Sanctuary and I will dwell among them (Shemot/Exodus 25:8) with the emphasis on בתכם (lit: among them).

That the Mishkan was stuck for two centuries in Shiloh was surely a tragic – and strategic – error.

Shiloh was a location of no particular or lasting significance. By allowing the Mishkan to languish in a single place for so long, the majority of the tribes grea, inevitably, disenfranchised from the nation’s ritual and spiritual center.

This could only have fostered a feeling of inferiority, and a lack of relevance and connectivity, among the more distant communities.

After all, the kohanim – charged with maintaining the People’s spiritual energy and education, regulating the observance of Torah law and providing expiation of sins, celebrating the festivals and glorifying God’s name, were nowhere to be seen. One had to travel great distances to connect with God. And even in our era of superhighways and airplanes we know that it is the nature of most people to never venture very far from their homes.

By contrast, for those who lived in close proximity to the Mishkan, it was inevitable that they would get jaded. When you see something every day you end up taking it for granted. It’s just something that’s there. Like the Statue of Liberty or the Eiffel Tower. They may be magnets for tourists but, really, for real New Yorkers and Parisians? Yawn.

By comparison (and להבדיל) think of a circus. A circus travels from city to city, from state to state. In each location it erects the big top for a few days or weeks.  Prior to its arrival, posters are plastered all over town in order to build anticipation.

When the circus finally arrives, the entire community follows its parade of acrobats, jugglers, clowns and elephants right into the temporary arena for “the greatest show on earth”.

Now imagine if the circus would, instead of moving its caravan from one destination to the next, build for itself a permanent circus palace, in a single location. Two things would inevitably happen – few people would come from afar to enjoy its spectacle, and the locals would quickly become jaded and utterly indifferent.

What is true for the circus is true a fortiori ( קל וחומר )for the Mishkan/Beit Hamikdash. The far-flung communities would become disconnected. The local community would become jaded. And the sanctuary would inevitably become a hotbed of corruption.

When Shlomo Hamelekh built the first Bayit he was building it for himself not for the people, and certainly not for God. He had chosen to live an extravagant, lavish an lascivious lifestyle that flew in the face of everything the Torah required of a king ( a human king being something the Torah did not desire in the first place).

God did not need the glory of a Holy Temple. He wanted to be among his people. His Mishkan was just beautiful enough without becoming pointlessly extravagant. Indeed, its very modesty was a model for the people to follow, the very opposite of endless wealth and boundless material ambition.

Who could, therefore, be surprised when a single generation after the construction of the first Beit HaMikdash, the Nation of Israel lost ten out of twelve tribes forever? Who could blame those lost tribes from feeling they had no stake in the Sanctuary? Who among the Temple’s neighbors wouldn’t grow jaded and take for granted the ‘circus’ in their midst? And who can possibly be surprised if a corrupt cronyism developed between the priesthood and the monarchy thereby only further alienating the People from the goings-on within?

In Parshat Behukotai we get the clearest indication, if not outright proof that the Mishkan was meant to be a permanent institution with no fixed location:

וְנָתַתִּ֥י מִשְׁכָּנִ֖י בְּתוֹכְכֶ֑ם וְלֹֽא־תִגְעַ֥ל נַפְשִׁ֖י אֶתְכֶֽם׃

I will place My abode among you, and I will not be repulsed by you.

וְהִתְהַלַּכְתִּי֙ בְּת֣וֹכְכֶ֔ם וְהָיִ֥יתִי לָכֶ֖ם לֵֽאלֹהִ֑ים וְאַתֶּ֖ם תִּהְיוּ־לִ֥י לְעָֽם׃

I will wander among you: I will be your God, and you shall be a nation for Me.

(Vayikra/Leviticus 26:11-12)

In the very same chapter 26 (not coincidentally the gematria of יה-וה) we have all the curses that will befall the Jewish People should they stray from the path.

I have written about this before, but it’s worth bringing up yet again.

The most puzzling of these curses is:

בְּשִׁבְרִ֣י לָכֶם֮ מַטֵּה־לֶ֒חֶם֒ וְ֠אָפ֠וּ עֶ֣שֶׂר נָשִׁ֤ים לַחְמְכֶם֙ בְּתַנּ֣וּר אֶחָ֔ד וְהֵשִׁ֥יבוּ לַחְמְכֶ֖ם בַּמִּשְׁקָ֑ל וַאֲכַלְתֶּ֖ם וְלֹ֥א תִשְׂבָּֽעוּ׃ {ס}

         This is conventionally understood as:

When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven; they shall dole out your bread by weight, and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.

(Vayikra 26:26)

Of course the absence of sufficient ovens, and a resulting bread shortage are nothing to celebrate.

Nevertheless, after such curses as  panic, wasting disease, fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache, being struck down before one’s enemies, making our heavens like iron and our earth like bronze, letting loose the wild beasts against us, bereaving us of our children, bringing a sword upon us, sending a pestilence among us, and delivering us in the hand of our enemy …(26:16-25) a bread shortage seems a bit . . . anticlimactic.

I believe a radical re-reading of verse 26 would make a great deal more sense:

“As I provision you with the staff of bread, and ten women will bake your loaves in a single oven and your bread shall be returned in its (proper) measure, yet you shall eat and still not be sated.”

Torah is telling us is that there will come a time when a single oven can produce tenfold, i.e. we will have ten times as much as we can possibly eat, and still we will have that empty feeling of want. We will remain hungry for more.

Such hunger is indeed the worst of all possible afflictions.

When we are attacked by beasts, or driven from our homes, or put to the sword, or beset by pestilence, or – Heaven forbid – bereft of our children, at least we are conscious of what the problem is. The affliction is objective, quantifiable, it has a name.

But when we have everything we could possibly want – indeed tenfold – and are still constantly hungry for more, perpetually dissatisfied, then we are truly in deep trouble. We have no clue as to what ails us. We have no comprehension of why we feel so empty. And, indeed, rather than settle for less in order to achieve some balance and coherence, we up the ante and strive to get even “more, more more”.

Is there a more apt description of the times in which we live?  Our bakeries produce ten times as many breads as we need. We have more toys and gadgets than we can possibly use. There are three Lexuses in the driveway. Pessah has become Fressah – an 8 day food orgy at a five star resort – and all we want is even more.

We are indeed in BIG trouble. Because we can’t even put our finger on the problem! We actually think this is normal! And our children grow up with a bottomless sense of entitlement that allows no room for natural ambitions, nurturing of creativity, genuine fulfilment, and meaningful vocations rather than meaningless vacations.