This sheet on Exodus 31 was written by Rachel Jacoby Rosenfield for 929 and can also be found here
Sitting in shul on Shabbat my eyes wander from the familiar mosaic of stained glass -- white doves against a techelet-blue background. I critique the paint color, which has never landed quite right on my eyes and admire the parochet, ark curtain, which with the signs of the 12 tribes embroidered in shimmering golden thread against a royal purple background. The visual familiarity of the sanctuary, this haven, mingles with the familiar words of liturgy, the sounds of voices I know so well, so that the sanctuary is not merely a space but a holding place for a sacred community that looks, sounds and feels holy week after week.
The aesthetics of our Jewish spaces, whether our sanctuaries or our homes are expressions, our own embodied interpretations, of how Jewish life should look, feel and be lived. When Bezalel is appointed to build the Tabernacle, the Torah tells us that God chooses him because he is endowed with “a divine spirit of skill, ability, and knowledge in every kind of craft,” remarkable in and of itself as Bezalel, like the rest of the Israelites, has just escaped slavery in Egypt. Despite living under conditions that may have deadened the creative spirit, Bezalel bears a unique gift that prepares him to be the architect and builder of the first Jewish building. And maybe more impressive, he is endowed with ability to create a place and objects of holy significance in the context of a text that is extremely vigilant about the danger of graven images. One need only read Exodus 32 to understand why.
What makes Bezalel so special? A midrash in Brachot 55a parses the difference between the commandment that God gives to Moses to tell Bezalel to make “a tabernacle, ark and furnishings” (in that order, v. 7ff) and the order Moses tells Bezalel to do the work, first the ark, then the furnishings, then the tabernacle (as described in chapters 25-26). The midrash tells us that Bezalal objected to the order that Moses presented saying, “If I do so in the order you have commanded, the furnishing that I make, where shall I put them?” Bezalel, guided by his sense of design, his visual-spatial intuition, recognizes that the instructions Moses conveys could not have been God’s intention. Moses, impressed, responds “you must have been in the shadow of God” in Hebrew, b’tzel el (hence his name) because you got it just right. In other words, you must have overheard God.
What Moses misses here, is that Bezalal’s ability to understand is not a matter of overhearing. It’s an act of artistic intuition. He has an ability to instinctively understand how the physical world can be reshaped to mediate a sacred relationship between the congregation and God. He is in God’s shadow not as a conduit of God’s word, but as a creative interpreter of it. The ability to fashion the created world into structures, however imperfect, in which the Divine feels proximate and family and community are uplifted and inspired is a sacred one. In some sense, we can all strive to be artists in the spirit of Bezalel, imbued with the sensibility to design homes, synagogues and other Jewish spaces as physical manifestations of our spiritual aspirations.
The aesthetics of our Jewish spaces, whether our sanctuaries or our homes are expressions, our own embodied interpretations, of how Jewish life should look, feel and be lived. When Bezalel is appointed to build the Tabernacle, the Torah tells us that God chooses him because he is endowed with “a divine spirit of skill, ability, and knowledge in every kind of craft,” remarkable in and of itself as Bezalel, like the rest of the Israelites, has just escaped slavery in Egypt. Despite living under conditions that may have deadened the creative spirit, Bezalel bears a unique gift that prepares him to be the architect and builder of the first Jewish building. And maybe more impressive, he is endowed with ability to create a place and objects of holy significance in the context of a text that is extremely vigilant about the danger of graven images. One need only read Exodus 32 to understand why.
What makes Bezalel so special? A midrash in Brachot 55a parses the difference between the commandment that God gives to Moses to tell Bezalel to make “a tabernacle, ark and furnishings” (in that order, v. 7ff) and the order Moses tells Bezalel to do the work, first the ark, then the furnishings, then the tabernacle (as described in chapters 25-26). The midrash tells us that Bezalal objected to the order that Moses presented saying, “If I do so in the order you have commanded, the furnishing that I make, where shall I put them?” Bezalel, guided by his sense of design, his visual-spatial intuition, recognizes that the instructions Moses conveys could not have been God’s intention. Moses, impressed, responds “you must have been in the shadow of God” in Hebrew, b’tzel el (hence his name) because you got it just right. In other words, you must have overheard God.
What Moses misses here, is that Bezalal’s ability to understand is not a matter of overhearing. It’s an act of artistic intuition. He has an ability to instinctively understand how the physical world can be reshaped to mediate a sacred relationship between the congregation and God. He is in God’s shadow not as a conduit of God’s word, but as a creative interpreter of it. The ability to fashion the created world into structures, however imperfect, in which the Divine feels proximate and family and community are uplifted and inspired is a sacred one. In some sense, we can all strive to be artists in the spirit of Bezalel, imbued with the sensibility to design homes, synagogues and other Jewish spaces as physical manifestations of our spiritual aspirations.
(ב) רְאֵ֖ה קָרָ֣אתִֽי בְשֵׁ֑ם בְּצַלְאֵ֛ל בֶּן־אוּרִ֥י בֶן־ח֖וּר לְמַטֵּ֥ה יְהוּדָֽה׃
(2) See, I have singled out by name Bezalel son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah.
Rachel Jacoby Rosenfield is Executive Vice President at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America.
929 is the number of chapters in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, the formative text of the Jewish heritage. It is also the name of a cutting-edge project dedicated to creating a global Jewish conversation anchored in the Hebrew Bible. 929 English invites Jews everywhere to read and study Tanakh, one chapter a day, Sunday through Thursday together with a website with creative readings and pluralistic interpretations, including audio and video, by a wide range of writers, artists, rabbis, educators, scholars, students and more. As an outgrowth of the web-based platform, 929 English also offers classes, pop-up lectures, events and across North America. We invite you to learn along with us and be part of our dynamic community.
To join 929's listserv for new and dynamic content each week click here
To join 929's listserv for new and dynamic content each week click here
