Two Minute Torah Podcast

Vayakhel 5771 by Rabbi Elyse Winick

Shalom! This is Rabbi Elyse Winick, Associate Director of KOACH, the Center for Conservative Judaism on Campus in the Department of Youth and Young Adult Services of The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.  Welcome to KOACH's Two Minute Torah.

Dvarim hayotzim min halev, nichnasim balev.  Words which come from the heart, enter the heart.  Rabbi Pinchas HaLevi Horovitz, the Panim Yafot, uses this phrase to discuss the placement of the shel yad, the armpiece of tefillin, on the left arm, close to the heart.  The heart, in Judaism, stands for more than love.  It stands for wisdom and understanding, as the psalmist says, Limnot yameinu keyn hoda, vnavi levav hokhmah — teach us to number our days, that we may attain a heart of wisdom.

We read this week from Parashat Vayakhel, which is truly serendipitous. This Shabbat, college students from all across the continent will gather, will form a kehillah, a community.  Just as Moshe enjoins bnei yisrael in Vayakhel, they will experience Shabbat, in its richest and most sacred form, by sharing it in the community they will create at the twenty second annual KOACH Kallah.

I often refer to the Kallah as Brigadoon.  Like the mysterious Scottish village, it appears in all its glory for a brief and wondrous time, only to disappear again when its time is done.

Following the enjoinder to the community to observe Shabbat, Moshe calls upon them to bring gifts to aid in the construction of the mishkan, of the portable sanctuary in the desert.  In that context, the word lev, or heart, appears fourteen times. Its usage breaks down into two distinct categories, nediv lev, gifts of the heart and hokhmat lev, the wisdom of the heart.  God's holy dwelling is dependent upon both, on both the generosity of spirit and on the skill to craft the sacred space.

Aviva Zornberg reflects on that inspiration-filled heart as a manifestation of, in her words, unaccountable courage.  It defies logic that we should be so inspired, so filled with generosity, so compelled to build in the face of uncertainty.  And yet, we do.  And that building takes place both without and within.  The kabbalistic poet Elazar Azikri tells us, bilvavi mishkan evneh — in my heart I will build a mishkan, a place for God to dwell.

The mishkan of the heart has ultimate portability.  You can take it with you wherever you go, nurture its flames, share its warmth, feel suffused by its glow.

While Brigadoon, by its very nature, can only appear for one day every hundred years, it turns out that there is one thing which can wake its villagers from their hundred year slumber.  Love.  The power of the heart can pull an entire world into being.

Which makes the KOACH Kallah still more like Brigadoon.  When our students depart at the program's end, their hearts will be full to overflowing.  They'll bring those gifts back to campus and, in an act of unaccountable courage, will share the glow of the mishkan, transforming their own communities into kehillot kedoshot, communities of holiness.  The words of their hearts will enter the hearts of others, bringing the Kallah back each and every time.