This week’s double parsha is Vayakhel-Pekudei which concludes the book of Shemot.   The parsha begins with the commandment of shabbat.  But if we view these parshiot about the mishkan from 30000 feet an interesting pattern emerges.   The point is made by Avivah Zornberg that the story of Moshe on the mountain learning about the Mishkan, then the golden calf and then Moshe telling the jewish people about the mishkan forms a chiastic structure of ABCBA.  The (A) Mishkan, (B) Shabbat, the (C) Golden calf, (B) Shabbat and the (A) Mishkan.

What is the message?   Generally such a structure draws our attention to the center around which the other themes revolve, in this case the sinful worship of the golden calf.  This worship was certainly a violation of the second of the ten commandments, but at the same time it was an attempt to find God and Moshe, as the verse states:   “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him. (Leviticus 32:1)”  The worship of the calf involved passion, music, dancing, laughter, unity and purpose.  Not bad things, but when assembled in the wrong way they produced a great sin.

The tabernacle is somewhat reminiscent of the calf,  the people’s charitable giving of gifts for the effort, lots of gold, worship, and a pathway to find God.  In the text Shabbat acts as bookends to the golden calf episode.  What prevents the tabernacle from becoming a dyonicean self-serving revelry of gold and self directed worship?  The answer is Shabbat.  Shabbat, in Jewish law, is defined as the not-building of the tabernacle.   All of the 39 categories of labor which are forbidden on shabbat are derived from the categories of labor performed in order to build the Tabernacle.   Shabbat reminds us not to jettison the passion of the golden calf but to curb it, to modulate it, that there are limits.  Shabbat reminds us to calm down and reflect, even in the midst of building a holy house for God.  This reflection is so important because a mishkan can easily become a golden calf, an end in itself instead of being about its true purpose, a central point of unity for the Jewish people and a way of living their covenant with God.

The same is true of everything we do.  Every shul which builds a building, every person who does something in their life, we can easily fail to remember the “why” of doing what we do, and quickly things such as money, houses, fame, or objects, can become an end in themselves.  In this way it is Shabbat which helps us to put into perspective every other part of our life and of our Jewish living.   Without shabbat there can be nothing else.