D’var Torah: VaYakhel/Pekudei 2026/5786 ויקהל/פקודי
Rabbi Raysh Weiss, Temple Israel of Natick, Schechter Parent
This year marks just one year short of the 30th anniversary of my bat mitzvah. Growing up Orthodox in a tight-knit community just outside of Chicago, not only did I have no idea women could become rabbis, I had never heard women chant from the Torah…until one fateful experience which changed everything for me:
Our family was friends with just one family who wasn’t Orthodox. They were Conservative.
The first-ever egalitarian service I attended was the bat mitzvah of their middle-daughter at
one of the first independent minyanim. I was instantly mesmerized by the
families that sat together and delighted in critical inquiry and spirited singing. The
most spiritually meaningful Torah reading I had ever experienced was when
Elisheva, the bat mitzvah --who is deaf-- chanted from the Torah, pronouncing
every word perfectly and singing on key, using throat vibrations. Elisheva was the
first female and deaf person I heard chant Torah. I then spent
many subsequent Shabbatot with their family and learned from them that women could be rabbis, lead services, and so much more. All three of their children attended the local Schechter school, which to me, back then, was a totally exotic and utterly intriguing abstraction—a school where girls could—and were expected to—chant Torah and help lead services.
This experience inspired me to learn how to chant Torah and secretly plan my own bat mitzvah service across the country, where, at the time, my two older sisters where in school, at the Harvard Hillel Egal minyan. I committed to chant the entire Torah portion and haftarah. But when asked by the gabbai’im, I refused to deliver the d’var Torah. The Torah portion was VaYakhel, and I feared I would have nothing worth sharing on this very technical portion.
Perhaps as karmic payback, I have more or less since spent nearly every year delivering words of Torah on Parashat VaYakhel, and so many other Torah portions. But this year, in reflecting both on my own Jewish journey and as a parent thinking about our kids’ Jewish education and spiritual development, I am struck by one absolutely essential feature of the building of the mishkan, as chronicled by our Torah portion: the mishkan was to be build by nedivei lev -- by people whose hearts moved them; by the generosity of volunteers.
In other words, what makes the mishkan a special and distinct spiritual project is that it is not a product of coercion, like so many other grand edifices be. Instead of the result of exploitation, the mishkan, and by extension, all Jewish sacred spaces that are authentically sacred, must, necessarily, be of our own volition -- labours of love.
What made my bat mitzvah experience so special was that no one forced me to do it – in fact, no one ever expected me to assume any ritually significant role. In intentionally crafting my own bat mitzvah experience, I assumed ownership and embraced with joy the task at hand.
Now, as a parent of children approaching the age at which I experienced the transformation I describe above, I think about the ways in which we as parents and as a school community can create space for them to stake out their own, unique Jewish identities on their own terms, as nedivei lev – with willingness and joy. What our children may choose for themselves may look very different than what we as parents have chosen, and I am grateful for a supportive community that fosters a sense of both exploration and choice in helping our kids find their own Jewish voices.
This winter, as my spouse and I kvelled listening to our 5th grader chant Torah along with her peers at Schechter, this year as we approach parashat VaYakhel, I marveled over how, to our kids, learning Torah is simply a fact of the curriculum.
