Vayakhel Dvar Torah

The title of this week’s parsha, Vayakhel, draws a clear connection to the word Vayakhel used in last week’s parsha and challenges readers to take a deeper dive into the contexts of these words to understand to understand its lessons.

In last week’s parsha, Parshat Ki Tisa, we see Bnei Yisrael gather, or vaykahel, and ask Aharon to make them a golden calf to worship after they miscalculate the day that Moshe would return from on top of the mountain. Aharon complies and builds the nation a calf, which quickly devolves into a major scene of avodah zara, until Moshe ultimately descends the mountain and smashes the luchot.

By contrast, the word “vayakhel” in this week’s parsha couldn’t have been used in a more opposite setting. Here, this word is invoked to begin the “cleanup” from the egel hazahav episode. At the beginning of Parshat Vayakhel, Moshe calls the entire nation together and instructs them to donate some of their possessions in order to begin the process of building the Mishkan. Calling the nation together inspires a national fervor to contribute towards a collective positive mission.

Clearly, Moshe understands the power of the kehillah, both for good and bad. He sees that all of Bnei Yisrael is united in doing something terrible, and redirects that unity into something incredibly positive. Moshe taps into their intense emotion in the moment by instructing them to donate to the mishkan, ״כל נדיב לבו״, or “whatever his heart desires.” As expected, Moshe’s efforts majorly succeed to the point that Moshe has to ask the people to stop donating because the sheer quantity of donations becomes excessive.

There is an important lesson in leadership here that we can all take back to our campuses – the power and strength of the kehillah and the ability to use it for the right things. We often face situations on campus where an influential character is convincing others to check out of the community or there’s a mass push against certain events. It is our duty in these moments to take a lesson out of Moshe’s playbook and spin that negative unity into a driving force for positive change.

Moshe also hid an even more relevant lesson for us in the first few pesukim of this week’s parsha. Before commanding the nation to bring donations for the Mishkan, Moshe spends two short pesukim reminding Bnei Yisrael of the commandment of Shabbos. It is certainly not an accident that Moshe begins his unifying message with this before diving into an appeal for Mishkan donations. He is reminding us about the power of Shabbos to bring a community together. It doesn’t matter what was going on around campus for the past 6 days. Right now, it’s Shabbos and we are going to come together as a community to make the next 25 hours special. Moshe is giving us a tool to keep in our toolbox when things are going south; we always have Shabbos.

With that and Moshe’s other lesson about the power of the kehillah in mind, I charge you all with a mission this Shabbos to bring your community together and to turn any unity for bad into unity for good.

Have a great Shabbos!