Taste of Torah
​​A Bima-Ready D'var Torah
19 Adar 5785 / March 19, 2025

Parashat Vayak’heil / Shabbat Parah
Suitable Appointments
Torah Portion: Exodus Numbers 19:1-22
Maftir Portion: Deuteronomy 25:17-19
Haftarah Portion: Ezekiel 36:16-38[i]

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Shalom!

After hearing about the mishkan – the portable desert sanctuary – for several weeks, in this week’s Torah portion we finally witness the beginning of its actual construction. Moses even tells the people the names of the craftsmen who will carry out the building, proclaiming:

See, God has singled out by name Bezalel, son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, endowing him with a divine spirit of skill, ability, and knowledge in every kind of craft … and to give directions. He and Oholiab son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan have been endowed with the skill to do any work … as workers in all crafts and as makers of designs. (Exodus 35:30-31, 34-35)

This is not the first time we hear these names; God first informs Moses of them in last week’s portion, Ki Tisa, using almost the exact same language (Exodus 31:1-11), designating them as the chief artisans and supervisors of the project. But this is the first time the people are hearing about the appointment. Our rabbis ascribe great significance to this moment. They teach in the Talmud that we are to learn from this event that one should not appoint a communal leader without first seeking counsel with the people.

We learn: “With regard to Bezalel’s appointment, Rabbi Yitzḥak said: One may only appoint a leader over a community if he consults with the community and they agree to the appointment …”[ii]

Of course, the mandate for this consultation does not actually appear in the Torah text quoted above, so it’s up to the rabbis to supply it. As is typical of the rabbinic genre, what is not explicit in the Torah is made so in the Talmud. In our sages’ eyes, there must be a reason for the separation of the announcement of the head artisans from God to Moses, and then from Moses to the people.

Using one of our verses as a starting point, the Talmudic text imagines a back-and-forth between God, Moses, and the Israelites:

The Lord said to Moses: Moses, is Bezalel a suitable appointment in your eyes? Moses said to the Lord: Master of the universe, if he is a suitable appointment in Your eyes, then all the more so in my eyes. The Holy One, Blessed be God, said to him: Nevertheless, go and tell Israel and ask their opinion. Moses went and said to Israel: Is Bezalel suitable in your eyes? They said to him: If he is suitable in the eyes of the Holy One, Blessed be God, and in your eyes, all the more so he is suitable in our eyes.[iii]

This Talmudic story is remarkable, for it details several levels of consultation. God checks in with Moses, and then Moses checks in with the people. That is, God models for Moses the kind of consultation that he is to request of the people.
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This process as envisioned by the Talmud goes impossibly smoothly: Any of us who have served on rabbinic search committees are probably crying with laughter. Would that all of our communal leadership decisions were as easy as the one that sets Bezalel and Oholiab in charge of the mishkan! But we do, in this Torah portion, get several small clues as to what makes their choice so simple for Moses and the people.

For one, we learn that Bezalel and Oholiab will not be doing their work alone. In fact, they will be accompanied by a cadre of other experts, “every skilled person whom God had endowed with skill, everyone who excelled in ability, to undertake the task and carry it out” (Exodus 36:2). What’s more, we learn that Bezalel and Oholiab are particularly good at instructing others. The verses specify that they are the two who will “give directions” (Exodus 35:34). The medieval Spanish commentator Ibn Ezra says, with no small amount of understatement, that “there are many scholars who are incapable of teaching.”[iv] Bezalel and Oholiab, it seems, do not number among them.

The leadership modeled for us in this week’s portion is quite instructive. We learn that leaders derive their authority from the consent of the people, and that that consent is more easily obtained when the leaders work well with others. This Shabbat and always, may we empower leaders in our communities with these essential qualities.

Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Salem Pearce
Director of Spirituality
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[i] This Shabbat is known as Shabbat Parah, “the Sabbath of the Red Heifer,” so called after the special maftir (“additional”) Torah reading for the day, which tells the story of the “red cow” (Numbers 19:2), brought to the priest for ritual slaughter in the Tent of Meeting; its ashes are used in certain purification rituals. We also have a special haftarah for the day. This Shabbat is the second of four special Shabbatot – each with its own assigned readings – leading up to the holiday of Passover, which begins next month.
[ii] Babylonian Talmud, B’rachot 55a.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibn Ezra on Exodus 35:34.

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