Drash on P’kudei (Shabbat HaChodesh) 2025

Rabbi Dr Aviva Kipen

Progressive Judaism Victoria

Sefer Shemot ends with Pekudei. Exodus has unfolded a narrative with a cast of hundreds of thousands, beginning (Ex 1: 1-7) with the names of the sons of Israel who came down to Egypt and the disquiet of the new pharaoh who knew not Yoseph, “va’yakom melekh chadash”, which foreshadows Pesach each year. Exodus has been a book about movement: to and fro, slavery and freedom, captivity and escape, flight from pagan Egypt to witness at Sinai. These movements are about to be replaced with daily observances whose rituals will establish new daily rhythms for the people.

Pekudei concludes the tafkid: sourcing materials necessary for the spiritual enactment of freedom, gathering artisans and craftspeople, smelting, forging, weaving, jewellery, tanning, dying, rope making and woodworking. Without infrastructure, without computerised warehousing control systems, the Mishkan was finally assembled on the first day of the first month of the second year since the Exodus. Only when the functionaries in their sacred liveries, the tent and its equipment, the ritual food items, oil, water and incense are ready and the Priests and vessels consecrated, when every item is ticked off the list, does God show approval.

Preparing the Ohel Mo’ed has been detail, task and process focussed. The great manufacturing done, the greater undertaking now begins. In Maftir Pekudei, as silent as the mist that floated into the vacant space, “kvod Adonai malei et haMishkan.” There are no rumblings of the earth, loud blasts of horns, thunder or lightning. The weighty significance of Divine Presence appears as the wispy tendrils of vapour, as a floating cloud. With the collective outbreath of a job well done, all those who contributed – rich and poor alike – had nothing more to do than embrace a reality that was visible, right there, silent, reassuring. Cloud by day, Fire by night, were the forms of God’s indwelling. When The Cloud lifted, the people moved with it.

We stand in anticipation. Excitedly we acknowledge the end of this second volume as a marker towards ending the Torah cycle, so that it may begin again. We usually cry out the corporate reassurance, “Chazak, Chazak, ve’nitchazeik”, a cry that has been employed in a range of applications. But in a world where it becomes more difficult to identify the visible presence of either Cloud or Fire, let us pause in a deep, contemplative silence this year, in the silence that Moshe himself experienced at the moment of The Indwelling. Let us feel the palpable and yet intangible awareness of our God, in what seems to many, to be a godless world. Then our sense of communal solidarity will speak gently, deeply, reassuringly to us and between us, as a plea to be heard by the Holy One. This year we need a courage that will mirror that of our ancestors, movable and responsive, flexible and swift, as we realign with the visible reminders of the holy, by night and day. “Chazak, Chazak, ve’nitchazeik.” Let us be strong enough to be strong for ourselves and to strengthen each other.