When we last left Moses, he was ascending Mount Sinai at the request of the people that he would be the exclusive representative of the people, and he would teach the laws to them. This week Moses receives the plans in rather interesting detail of the items found in the Mishkan, such as the ark and the altar, and ending with the Mishkan itself. In my professional life as a health inspector, this is part of the plan review process, the process before construction begins of laying out the blueprint and finding out if any changes are necessary. Of course in something designed by God, the architect of the universe, there is nothing to find wrong. But one of the important parts of a plan review is the review of the materials used and the sources for those materials. And it is here that I found an interesting note, in the second verse of our portion
Speak to the people of Israel, that they bring me an offering; from every man that gives it willingly with his heart you shall take my offering. (Ex. 25:2)
The Hebrew for gives it willingly of his heart is yidvenu libo. The word for heart is simple as it is said in such liturgy as the Shema. Yet the word for willingly, when I first looked at it made me think of another word, the Yiddish davvenen, the word we use for prayer, or more accurately a specific methodology for prayer. I saw the DVN in the Hebrew and thought it was the triliteral root, which might have a link to the Yiddish. I got all excited about writing a Drash about this connection and going on an on about how to davvenen. But it was not to be.
Those who know Hebrew grammar you might have caught my mistakes in thinking that. For those who don’t and for sleepy heads like me, it was Rashi who reminded me, and probably a lot of other people who made this mistake of the true grammar of this word. In Hebrew, there is a tendency for many words to be based on three-letter roots. BRCh, for example is the root for the word to bless. By adding letters and vowels to this root, one can make up various verbs and nouns such as Baruch which is to bless in the present tense and brachah, a noun which means blessing. You can also add letters at the end to indicate possession or object pronouns like his or him. The difference between libo, his heart in our verse and levavecha, your heart is an example of suffixes on lev. Yet some words have problems with pronunciation with this system, and these include roots that that begin with the letter N. These words drop off the offending letter. Rashi reminded everyone in his commentary that this was such a word that started with a N. The root is really NDV, and added to the end of the word is the pronoun NU, it. There goes my poetic beginning of a Drash.
But since Rashi had to make a comment about grammar, it might mean there was more than a little confusion here, and there might still be some link between davvenen and yidvenu. However, it’s pretty clear, even on authority on YIVO, the organization dedicated to the study of Yiddish culture and language; no one has a definite clue on the etymology of davvenen. If you search the internet there are whole mailing lists doing nothing but arguing over the etymology of the word. No luck there.
But the general idea of the NDV root, to freely give of ones own will, still struck me as interesting. After Moses comes down from Sinai, and deals with the golden calf mess, he then begins to teach the people, starting with the directions for building the Mishkan, and repeats much of this he was told by God in Exodus 25 to the people in Exodus 35. Here too, he uses some version of the phrase Nadvat ha lev willing heart. Also he uses another phrase, Hochmat ha lev meaning wise heart. Exodus 25 differentiates between the willing, who supply resources, and the wise, who provide skills and labor. Our portion, at the beginning of the ascent of Sinai mentions resources. It is not till the end of the forty days, in Exodus 31 that Moses is told there will be people of wisdom of heart, led by Betzalel, to put the whole thing together. And interestingly right after that is the commandment for Shabbat, and the imposition of the death penalty for its desecration. In Exodus 35, Moses starts his first major lesson to the people with Shabbat and the prohibition of lighting a fire, and then mentions the donations of the Wise of Heart and the Willing of Heart.
It is from the Specific case of lighting a fire following the general case in Exodus 35 that the Rabbis of the Mishnah identified the 39 Shabbat prohibitions, essentially taking the argument that any thing that was required work to build the Mishkan was prohibited work. This is also paralleled, in the case of Exodus 31, where God assigns workers then starts the longest explanation of Shabbat in the Torah, including its punishment. The wise of heart, the skilled worker, is not allowed to apply their skill on Shabbat.
But what of the willing of heart? One word that comes from our root is the word NDVH for the freewill offering. And while the Halakah of the freewill offering is a difficult halakah to get through, I think it is two verses in Psalms which provides one answer:
119:108. Accept, I beseech you, the freewill offerings of my mouth,
O Lord, and teach me your ordinances.
54:8. I will sacrifice a free will offering to you;
I will praise your name, O Lord; for it is good.
In Hebrew poetry there is something called synonymous parallelism. This means that the first part of the verse means the same as the second. IN these verses, we can then interpret praising the name of God, and learning Torah, to be the freewill offering. The original freewill offering was a sacrificed animal in the Temple. Without a Temple, we can no longer do that. But we can speak and sing and teach without the Temple. We can pray, we can davvenen.
While I can’t etymologically link davvenen and yidbenu, I can functionally believe they are the same. Prayer and study is our freewill offering. But it is not a route effort, but one with something special, a deep willingness to pray and study. Yet as I wrote this, the difference between hochmat ha-lev and nadvat ha-lev has been an issue I have been grappling with. I am very much the type not to just freely give of my self and my skills but do it so enthusiastically the effort totally wipes me out. As I recently quipped, I am the type of guy who jumps in with all three feet, not caring that I only have two until it is too late.
As I wrote two weeks ago, I’m wiped out, and I also know it’s my own fault. There are so many things I got myself into that I completely sympathize with a recent cartoon about life balance. You have time in your life for three things say the cartoon, and work and holidays are two -- pick one more. After reading this, I quipped to someone the one I haven’t picked is sleep, that the spiritual and communal things I get myself into - my freewill offerings of my skills - are more important than sleep. I really didn’t need to complete a project I’ve been working on for five years this week, but given the use of that project at an upcoming retreat I did anyway.
In not mentioning hochmat ha lev in this week’s portion, and waiting for forty days on Sinai to describe Betzalel and the other craftspeople of the Mishkan, God is sending a very important message. Freewill offerings of our skills cannot be constantly intense, like prayer or study should be. Like every other type of work we do need to take Shabbat off or die trying to Do It All. Prayer on the other hand we should do every day and it should be our intention to learn and to praise the Name.
Without raw materials and plans, a craftsman is worthless. Our portion this week is about raw material and plans, not actual construction. Our raw material is praising the Name, our plans are Torah. But until we have sufficient enough of both, construction of our own spirituality cannot begin. One cannot lay any foundation of a building without cement and a set of dimensions. And when we do, like the golden calf we will read about shortly, the result is a disaster. While there is no Temple any more, and we do not give sacrifices, the objects of the Temple may give us plans to ourselves and to the Temple we should be. These plans in Terumah start in the most inner chamber, and build out from there. So too we should plan and build ourselves, from our own “arks” to the curtains on the outside.
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