05.03.2011                      29.Adar l, 5771

Judentum:

Pekudey: God is in the details

God of the Earth: The slogan of environmental movement – “Think globally, act locally” – was first found in the Torah.

Pekudey is the parsha of details. This short, seemingly redundant parsha does little more than sum up the information presented already twice in the preceding chapters. In Terumah and Tetzaveh, Moshe (Moses) receives from God the instructions for building the Mishkan, including its utensils and the priestly garments. Vayakhel describes the actual construction of these items. Whereas Pekudey begins with an accounting of all the material that went into the project, and concludes with a further recounting of the Mishkan’s parts as they are finally erected into a single structure by Moshe. 
Considering how incredibly sparing the Torah is with words, it seems strange that this parsha should spend so much time simply summing up what was said before. Why wasn’t it enough for the Torah to simply state: “And the people did all that Moshe commanded, and Moshe assembled the Mishkan.” Perhaps the answer lies in the nature and purpose of the Mishkan, and its relationship to the creation….