Groups: from Orgy to Construction

Written by Sender Rozesz. Sender Rozesz is a practicing attorney with a background in Jewish pluralistic education for adults. Sender Rozesz is Jewrotica’s resident Double Mitzvah columnist. The views reflected in his writing represent his own personal views, and are not intended to reflect the views of any organizations, institutes or associations with whom he may be affiliated.

This week’s Parshah, Vayahel-Pikudei, begins with the words: “And Moses assembled the whole community of the children of Israel.”

On its face, there is nothing particularly noteworthy about this verse, as it introduces Moses’ instruction to the Jewish people regarding the construction of the Tabernacle. However, there are two words that I would like to focus on, that lend hidden significance to this verse:

“Assembled” — “Vayakhel” (ויקהל): Assembling the Jews before speaking to them sounds reasonable, but is in fact not something that Moses has ever done before — at least not with the same verb. When Moses first arrive sin Egypt with the mission to liberate the Israelites. He “gathers” the “elders of the children of Israel,” and the verse there uses the Hebrew word ויאספו.^[1]

Often, when Moses has instructions from G-d to relay to the Jewish people, it doesn’t say anything about the logistics of how he brought them together; G-d says “tell them,” and the Torah assumes or confirms that he did.^[2]

At the foot of Mount Sinai, at the greatest gathering of the Jewish people of all, it says nothing about the Jewish people being assembled.^[3]

So, assembling the Jews is unusual. Convinced?

“Community” — “Adat” (עדת): The use of this word in conjunction with he Children of Israel appears only 8 times prior to this one.^[4] So, it’s not unheard of, but it’s still rare enough to be significant. Why was it used here?

The Zohar teaches that the purpose of this assembly was not merely to give the Jewish people instructions; that could have been more easily accomplished by instructing the elders, who would then hand out specific tasks to their constituents. Rather, the purpose here was to have an assembly, to undo the negative spiritual affects of a previous assembly.

In last week’s Torah portion, it states that “the people assembled against Aaron, and they said to him: ‘Come on! Make us gods that will go before us, because this man Moses, who brought us up from the land of Egypt we don’t know what has become of him.’”^[5] The result was the Golden Calf.

It was an odd phenomenon. Usually, an assembly suggests a focus; a group of people who assemble with a meaningful and particular purpose. It is why the Freedom of Assembly is enshrined in the United States Constitution; not because of a preoccupation with groups, but because the purposes achieved by a focused assembly are so meaningful and powerful.

The assembly against Aaron, however, quickly lost its shape. It started with a legitimate concern that Moses was gone, and a formal request of Aaron that a substitute for Moses be found to lead them. Somehow, however, that led to a sexual and idolatrous orgy, as we touched upon here. How did it get so far?

The answer is that the assembly never really enjoyed a true and constructive focus. It was driven — not by a measured and mature long view of who Moses, was, what he had done for them, and why he ascended Mount Sinai 40 days prior — but rather, by panic, fear, and the human desires ever lurking beneath the surface, clamoring to be released.

There is nothing wrong with these, of course; they are part of who we are. But when we come together, when we assemble, our focus should not be on scratching our personal itch, but rather, on the much loftier goals that we can only together achieve. Our personal temptations are very diverse, one from another, and we all sin differently. Our base desires fragment us, rather than unite us; so it is not on that plane that we achieve the power of unity and the focus needed to collectively achieve greatness.

So, following the Golden Calf debacle, Moses wanted to assemble us, to show us what a true assembly, with common purpose and focus, would achieve. He wanted us all together, all involved, planning for the construction and creation of something magnificent and transcendent.

According to the Zohar, this is why the Torah uses the word “Adat” as an adjective for the Children of Israel. Adat has the same letters as the Hebrew word Da’at, which means “knowledge.” But it actually means so much more than knowledge. As we discussed here, throughout the Torah, true sexual intimacy is referred to as knowledge; e.g., “Adam knew his wife Eve.”^[6]

In the Book of Tanya, by R’ Schneur Zalman of Liadi, this kind of Da’at is described as the focus that one brings to bear to ensure that one’s thoughts and ideas do not remain in the world of intellect, but that they are actualized into positive emotions; and, conversely, Da’at is the focus that keeps our wild  and unpredictable emotions tethered to a positive intellectual mandate, so that our feelings serve good decision-making, rather than being the cause of bad judgment.

The purpose of Moses’ assembly was to teach the Jewish people focus – reflected in the anagram of Adat; to teach us how to restrain our instincts and urges, to set aside our transient worries, fears and impulses, and to commit our minds and hearts to a course that would elevate us to something much higher.

The Zohar also notes that the word Adat has the same numerical evaluation as “Erev Rav” — the Hebrew name for the “mixed multitude” that accompanied the Israelites during their exodus from Egypt. The Erev Rav was largely perceived as second class citizens, with all of the habits,  mannerisms and culture of pagan Egypt. In fact, it was they who were largely blamed for instigating the episode with the Golden Calf in the first place.^[7]

Nevertheless, they too are represented in Moses’ assembly, as the assembly was not intended only for our loftier selves, while leaving our baser elements behind. Our humanity — both the good and the ugly — is a part of us, and is not to be left behind. Moses thus sought to teach us how to reach deep within, and assemble and elevate all of ourselves to focus on the unequaled purpose of bringing light into the world around us.

Shabbat Shalom!

^[1] See Exodus, 4:29.

^[2] See, e.g., Exodus, 12:3, 21.

^[3] See Exodus, 19:7, 15, 17, 25.

^[4] See Exodus, 12:3, 6, 47; 16:1, 2, 9, 10; 17:1.

^[5] Exodus, 32:1.

^[6] Genesis, 4:1.

^[7] The commentaries note that the Torah’s description of those who assembled against Aaron was simply “the people,” as opposed to the more common Children of Israel. They also referred to their having been “brought up from the land of Egypt,” whereas the Children of Israel, having been liberated from slavery in Egypt, would likely have used a different expression. They attributed departure from Egypt to Moses, whereas the Children of Israel would likely have understood that Moses was simply a human messenger of G-d. Finally, once the Golden Calf was formed, the verse states: “They said: ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who have brought you up from the land of Egypt!’” Exodus, 32:4. The “they” in this verse, and the fact that “they” announced these are “your gods, O Israel,” rather than “our gods,” also suggests that there were members of the Erev Rav.