Rabbi Sara led us in our concluding reading of Exodus (Sh’mot), 40:33-40:38. She reminded us that the mishkan was built from the inside to the outside, the opposite order of most building projects. We discussed the cloud covering the Tent of Meeting and YHVH’s kavod filling the mishkan. We noted that Moses could not enter the mishkan because it was full of YHVH’s kavod; that when the cloud would lift off the mishkan, the Israelites would go on various journeys, and when it was on the mishkan, they would stay at home; and that there was a cloud by day and a fire, which could be seen by the Israelites in all their journeys, by night.

We discussed kavod which can be translated as honor, dignity, weight, or glory and suggests weightiness both physical and moral. Marilyn W. brought in the Jewish kabbalistic idea of tzimtzum or contraction. Sara suggested God was filling the mishkan and then would contract himself. Shay mentioned the masculine taking up space and the feminine, the Shechinah, spreading out and being accessible everywhere. R. Sara mentioned the mishkan becoming the container or vessel that enables communing with God.

Looking ahead to changes in Leviticus, R. Sara pointed out that we have not learned how the various items that have been made are to be used. We tend to read back into Exodus the uses that actually only come later in the text.

Laura commented on the Jewish Study Bible’s emphasis on the fact that God’s presence in the mishkan—filling the mishkan—signifies the complete end of the rupture between God and the Israelites at the beginning of Exodus. At the end of Exodus, there is repair between God and the people. Exodus goes from absence to presence. R. Sara added, God makes himself imminent.

Sara asked us, what is the purpose of the mishkan. She suggested a place to contain God while Chris mentioned a place to apprehend God. Marilyn mentioned that it is a place for God and R. Sara added that it is a physical presence of God. She asked what, that we haven’t discussed for a while, is inside the mishkan. Matthew stated that it is the ark of the covenant with the complete and broken tablets inside. That indicates that ethics is required for God to be present. The presence of God, I said, requires ethical being.

With R. Sara pointing out that Leviticus coming up, Shay noted there are a lot of problematic things in it. Referring to Yom Kippur liturgy, Shay mentioned the sin of sexual immorality. R. Sara pointed out that the Hebrew really means the misuse of sexuality, which is less problematically called a sin. For example, she said, it could mean sexual manipulation of people or sexual abuse. We discussed Jewish marriage strictures–which, in Torah, R. Sara stated, are much worse than those in the surrounding area. Moving to the present, R. Sara stated that Jewish law has not yet figured out what to do with women’s equality, has not come to a consensus about it. We pretend, she said, that everyone gets to be a boy now, that is, that women’s equality means women get to do what only boys used to do.

I mentioned that it parallels different waves of feminism in the U.S. First, women got to do what was previously only allowed to males but, then, what about female practices? Aren’t they good? So a new wave of feminism focused on valorizing activities that had been considered exclusively female such as child-rearing and other care practices.

We discussed the European idea that Jewish men are sissies. R. Sara pointed out that Jewish men are in the feminine position in relation to God. Shay mentioned that women are allowed to be male (e.g., tomboys) but men are not allowed to be female. Chris pointed out that male roles have been redefined recently to try to deal with some of these problems.

Sara stated that the current consensus is that Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers are the oldest of the five books and that they are in order, and stated that we are about to jump into something entirely different. We ended with: Chazak chazak v’nitchazek! Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened together! That statement is traditionally read when coming to the end of a reading of one of the books of Torah.