Parshat Vayakhel-Pekudei: Living our common bond with God

We are blessed when our awareness leads to do what is needed to make goodness prevail in us and our surroundings. This is the real tikkun as the applied proper judgment we need to correct our wrong doings and the negative effects of our actions. Thus we understand king David when he asked for a judgment (lit. righteousness) coherent with justice followed by the righteous of heart (Psalms 94:15), who pursue goodness as the reason and finality of life.

“And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it as the Lord had commanded, such had they done it. And Moses blessed them.” (Exodus 39:43)

Thus we build the permanent bond and connection with our Creator to partner with Him in making life and the world a harmonic functional unity, in which the multidimensional diversity of human consciousness may manifest its powerful creative potentials under the inspiration and guidance of goodness for the sake of it.

This is the encompassing principle of the Tabernacle as the transforming and rectifying means to leave behind the vanity and futility of ego’s materialistic fantasies and illusions and embrace the transcendence of love’s ways and attributes as our common bond with God’s love. Again the psalmist summarized it in one single verse.

“Turn from evil and do goodness, seek peace and pursue it.” (Psalms 34:14)

The first part of the verse is the encompassing principle we mentioned above, for through the Tabernacle the Creator assists us to transmute evil into goodness. Yet, we have to translate what this means in practical terms regarding the tikkun we referred to. We first have to realize that exercising our free will requires a sizable amount of learning about the choices we have and their consequences, which turn life into an unavoidable learning process.

The better educated and learned usually have advantage over the rest, for those have a properly informed judgment that enables them to make the right choice. Interestingly, most of this learning is based on empirical evidence that brings us to fully assimilate that goodness is the choice to make, and that evil exists as the constant reference to choose goodness.

The second part of the verse is the expected consequence of the first sentence, which is pursuing the resulting comprising wholeness, completion and totality of goodness we call peace. We must make this pursuing constant since the moment we establish and experience our permanent bond with God, represented by the Tabernacle.

“On the first day of the first month you shall erect the tabernacle of the tent of meeting.” (Exodus 40:1)

From the beginning of every year we have to maintain the permanent awareness of our connection with God for the rest of the months and years of our lives, while we dwell in the material world. The fact that this occurs in the month of Nissan is not fortuitous, for this is the time of our freedom from slavery in Egypt.

Thus we realize that our freedom takes place when we end our captivity under the inferior traits and trends triggered by feelings and beliefs of lack. Again we become aware that goodness is our true freedom, for in goodness there is no lack but only wholeness, completion and totality, as the peace we all must pursue.

“(…) So Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” (40:33-34)

Our highest knowledge of God’s ways and attributes is indeed the ideal judgment we must acquire to enable all levels and aspects of consciousness to finish the work of making goodness our common and eternal bond with the Creator, and let it walk with us all the days of our life.

“For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and there was fire therein by night in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.” (40:38)