Parashat Ki Tisa

In Parashat Ki Tisa, we are introduced to Betzalel, son of Uri, son of Chur, of the tribe of Yehudah. The Torah tells us that God has filled Betzalel with God’s spirit and endowed Betzalel with skill, ability, and knowledge in working with gold, silver, copper, cut stones, and wood. Betzalel will translate all of this – God’s spirit and all of these skills – into designs for the Ohel Moed, the Tent of Meeting, and for all of the various ritual items and ritual clothing that will be used in this sanctuary that Bnai Yisrael have been commanded to build.

 

Reading the parashah in preparation for Shabbat, I got caught on one word – design. God has filled Betzalel with God’s spirit, and that will yield directly into these designs. But is that also the way the world works?

 

The question brought me back to a week ago when I was standing with several of our seniors on the grounds of the former Nazi death camp of Treblinka, a place designed expressly to murder Jews and where the remains of 900,000 remain buried to this day. The students asked a variation on this same question that was unavoidable given where we were standing: If God has a plan for the world, how did the Shoah fit into that plan? If God is the master designer, why was the Shoah part of the design?

 

Then and there, we discussed different Jewish theological approaches to understanding when human beings cause great suffering to other human beings. Some Jews take comfort in believing there is a master plan, God’s design, and that everything happens for a reason, even if they may never understand the reasons. Other Jews believe that God gives us all free will, hoping that we will use it for good, but knowing that if the will is truly free, some will use it for ill, and even for horrible things like the Shoah.

 

And all of this in turn led me to think about Purim. One of my favorite moments in Megilat Esther comes in Chapter Four when Mordechai and Esther are exchanging notes in light of the genocidal sentence hanging over the Jewish community. Mordechai sends a note to Esther, asking aloud:

 

 

 

…and who knows, perhaps it was for a moment like 

this that you were elevated to become royalty.

 

What was Mordechai really saying? Was Mordechai implying that God had a master plan, which involved Esther being chosen to become queen so that she would be in the right place at the right time to save the Jewish people? Or was Mordechai saying something different: it was random and happenstance that you were chosen to become queen, Esther, but you have been handed a moment in which you can channel that randomness into salvation for the Jewish people – what are you going to do?

 

On the one hand, Mordechai seems convinced that the Jewish people will be saved, regardless. On the other hand, he seems to be trying desperately to get Esther to take action. 

 

Either way, Esther does take action; she saves the Jews, and the rest is history. But was it all part of a grand design, like the designs that God will inspire in Betzalel in this week’s parashah? Obviously, we can never know with certainty exactly how God’s world operates or how God operates within this world, but I will say this:

 

When I think of our students going out into the world, I hope they see themselves like Mordechai and Esther in Chapter Four. I hope they see themselves as able to take action to address the realities they see developing around them. I hope we have designed a school experience whose graduates look at the events in their lives, echo Mordechai’s question, and wonder if it was for a moment like this that they have arrived, and who then take action as Esther did and change the world.

 

Shabbat Shalom.