The deleterious and disintegrating effect that modern American life has had upon both Jews and Judaism is best demonstrated by the unfortunate schism that has been introduced by us into what was once an organic, integral, unified and complete Jewish way of life. That schism or break is the dualism we have developed between “Judaism” and “Jewishness.” From two different sources was this dichotomy encouraged and propagated, and both tended to contribute to the breakup of all Jewish life as a result. The division of Jewish life into the purely religious and devotional on the one hand, and the religion-less, content-less complex of folkways, mannerisms, associations, social contacts, customs, sentiments and the sense of Jewish solidarity on the other, has proven extremely damaging to both. And I believe it most fitting to discuss with you, briefly, this very topic on this, the last Friday night late service of this year, and one which is dedicated to Bnai Brith.

It is with a profound sense of regret, sorrow, apprehension and embarrassment that I rise this morning to express to you feelings which you no doubt share with me. The sorrow and the apprehension refer to the precarious and critical situation… Israel. The regret and the embarrassment in that I, a loyal and devoted citizen of America, must publicly acknowledge that my beloved country has, in its diplomacy, veered from its traditional path of morality, principle and decency, and has become immoral and cynical as it has never been before. It is easy for someone who does not love his country to say those words of condemnation. It is painful, embarrassing, heart-rending and excruciating for me to say them and for you to hear them.I speak about the Middle East crisis today because many of you, my congregants, have requested it. I speak about it because it is a period of great and terrible emergency, an “If not now, when then?” I speak about it, despite my customary dislike for using the pulpit for topics that some might interpret as encroaching upon politics, because of late there has been a terrific barrage of pro-Arab propaganda in Springfield that is subtly beginning to mold public opinion. I speak as I do because, unfortunately, despite the multiplicity of organizations in our community, there is not one single one which makes any attempt to counteract this evil propaganda and educate the public to our point of view, and, let alone the non-Jewish public, even the Jewish public.I recognize the fact that it is completely unnecessary for me to have to convince you of the urgency of the situation precipitated by the Egyptian-Russian arms deal, fostered by the spinelessness, narrow-mindedness and, as we shall see, immorality, of those who guide our foreign policy. But allow me to summarize, very briefly, some of the essential facts with which you might not be overly well acquainted.Our administration, speaking as it does with so much self-righteousness and sham piety, of …

The Sidra today is primarily an accounting that Moses gives of how he spent the moneys donated by the people, in the form of shkalim, for construction of the Mishkan. It is a prosaic matter, dealing with costs and construction. And yet, the Midrash thought it important enough to quote an oral tradition dealing with this era and particularly this episode. It is prosaic, yes, but illuminating too—of importance to every Jewish community in the USA, and perhaps especially to Springfield. Midrash: Moses overlooks 1,775 *shkalim*. Misplaced appropriation.**Hischil yosheiv umasmi’ach, amar: ach shav Yisrael motzi’in y’deihem leimor Mosheh natalan… hei’ir haKadosh Baruch Hu et einav ve’ra’ah otam asuyin vavim la’amudim. Otoh sha’ah nispaisu Yisrael al melechet haMishkan...**To understand why Tradition recorded this big issue over the *vavim* (or hooks used in construction of this portable Temple), we must first understand that Judaism has always taken the Mishkan and its appurtenances as being symbols—sometimes of the universe, or man—but usually of the congregation of Israel, *Knesset Yisrael*, the Jewish community. And to understand this episode of the Missing Hooks, we must first know what the *hook* may symbolize in the total structure of a typical Jewish community. And we must understand that if the Mishkan is a valid symbol of Israel, then it must apply today too. What, then, does the hook stand for?It does not require great imagination to see how our Mishkan—our Jewish community—can be represented in the form of the Mishkan. Pillars (*amudim*) represent the physical survival of Jews vs. anti-Semitism, whether in Europe, Egypt, or the USA. The altar (*mizbeach*) is the State of Israel, where people have sacrificed so much in order to survive as an independent state. The roof shelters the impoverished—social services. The ark represents the synagogue. The ornaments represent recreational institutions supported by the *shkalim* of the Jewish community. All are necessar…

The focus of significance in any synagogue is the Ark containing the Torah. That this is so we learn, according to Maimonides, from a verse in this morning’s Sidra. When the building of the Tabernacle was concluded, Moses performed a final act: ויקח ויתן את העדות אל הארון, and he took and he put the testimony into the Ark. The word edut, “testimony,” refers to the two stone tablets, the luhot, upon which were inscribed the revelation of God. And, Maimonides teaches us at the end of his Laws of Sefer Torah, just as the tablets were placed in the Ark in the Tabernacle, so are we commanded to place the Scroll of the Law in the Ark in the synagogue: מצוה לייחד לס”ת מקום ולכבדו ולהדיר יותר מדאי…דברים שבלוחות הברית הן הן שבכל ספר וספר “It is a commandment to designate a special place for a Sefer Torah, and to honor it and to embellish it even more than one thinks adequate. The words on the tablets of the covenant are the same words which we have on our Scrolls.”However, this tracing of the institutions of the Sefer Torah in the aron in the synagogues to the luhot in the aron in the Tabernacle, presents certain difficulties. One of the commentaries on Maimonides’ famous Code, the author of הגהות מיימוניות, records a question asked of his teacher: If indeed the scrolls in the Ark in the synagogue are of the same nature as the tablets in the Ark in the Tabernacle, then why is that the luhot in the Tabernacle were placed in the aron in a prone position, lying down, whereas the Sefer Torah that we place in the Ark in the synagogue stands upright? If the source is the tablets in the Tabernacle, then why do we not store the scrolls in our synagogues too lying down?There is compelling logic to this question. In fact, the author of this commentary records a responsum by the famous Rabbi Jacob Tam who said that had he had realized this point earlier, when they were building his synagogue, he would have ordered a much broader and wider ark in order that he might have the scrolls ly…

In our traditional Jewish literature, especially our Kabbalistic literature, all of life, experience, and existence are conceived of as consisting of three dimensions: Olam, Shanah, and Nefesh. Literally, these mean: world, year, and soul; actually what is intended by these terms is: Space, Time and Man. One of the distinguished Rabbis of the State of Israel, Rabbi Shelomoh Yosef Zevin, sees this triadic structure in the opening verses of today’s Sidra. We read va-yakhel Mosheh et kol adat benei yisrael, that Moses assembled the entire congregation of Israel, and there he taught them the commandments of the Shabbat and Mishkan, the construction of the Tabernacle. The act of assembling all of Israel represents the element of Nefesh of Man. The mishkan is that which occupies a specific place. And Shabbat recurs every week, and hence represents the dimension of time. It should be understood that this is not merely a way of describing the world or experience. It is a framework that has high spiritual significance, for it means that Judaism considers that these three elements interpenetrate each other and are interdependent. This view teaches that, on the one hand, man needs the awareness of time and space; that is, he needs the spiritual implications, and the consciousness of the spiritual potentialities, of both history and geography, the realms of Shanah and Olam. Thus, Judaism speaks of kedushat ha-zeman, the sanctity of time, as in the celebration of Shabbat and the various festivals. And Judaism speaks too of kedushat ha-makom, the holiness of place, as, for instance, the mishkan or, today the synagogue. On the other hand, both time and space are significant in the divine economy only because of man, because of nefesh. Thus, Shabbat, which is a symbol of time, requires the participation of man (Nefesh) in order to make it meaningful. According to the Torah, on the seventh day of creation, God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; nevertheless man was commande…