Our Torah portion this week, Pekudei, begins this way:
אֵ֣לֶּה פְקוּדֵ֤י הַמִּשְׁכָּן֙ מִשְׁכַּ֣ן הָעֵדֻ֔ת אֲשֶׁ֥ר פֻּקַּ֖ד עַל־פִּ֣י מֹשֶׁ֑ה
“These are the records of the building of the mishkan, the Tent of Witness, which were drawn up at Moshe’s bidding....”
And thus begins our third foray into the details of the mishkan, this time looking back at the work of the mishkan after it was completed. I love that we have this and what this says about the universality of massive projects, whether it’s the building of the mishkan or a synagogue or some other massive public project. First there are the instructions. Then there is the execution. And finally the accounting and the recounting of it all.
We got the instructions, the blueprints, a few weeks ago in the Torah portion called Terumah. Then we witnessed the donations of goods and materials, and the organizing of the project last week in the parashah called Vayakhel. And now, this week, the work is done, and we have the proud, congratulatory retelling of how it all went!
These pekudim – these records, they are the souvenir book of the mishkan. What happens in these next verses is an accounting and recounting of who did the work. How much silver and gold was contributed. What elements the silver and gold went toward. Again describing all the elements – fabrics, jewels, metals, woods. Describing the forms and the artisanry required. It’s the catalog of the mishkan, so that when you as a pilgrim or a tourist went to the mishkan, which you couldn’t enter, you could at least go to the souvenir stand and get the pekudim – the catalog – and marvel over the achievement of it for many dinners to come.
The new element in this final episode of the making of the mishkan is that it is now done. There is a sense of completeness. The sound of hammers on precious metals still ringing in the air; the fingertips of weavers and embroiderers still tingling and throbbing. Supervisors standing with clipboards limp at their sides. Even the cooking staff leaning quietly, hands on ladles. I picture everyone backing away from their work in surprise, in wonder, breathless. It’s done.
The completed work is all brought to Moshe, or more likely him to it, and he inspects. He looks it all up and down. I imagine him fingering the curtains and running his hands over the cool gold of the cherubim. And he sees, maybe tearfully, that indeed it was all done according to plan.
I’d like to take a moment right now with that rare feeling of something being to plan, because we so seldom get to feel that. The feeling that the important work has been done and it has been done right. So take a moment to look at the world of your life and just notice what it is that you’ve completed, something you’ve done to your actual satisfaction. That career or that relationship or that garden or that poem or that special day at the beach or that perfect omelet that came out so much better than you’d hoped for. Look at whatever it is and let yourself feel some pride, some satisfaction, some wistfulness – whatever it is you feel. You are Moshe looking at the mishkan. All done. All done according to plan. Or maybe not according to plan, but improvised in ways that came through you and that worked.
What is the blessing you would offer yourself for having managed whatever that project was? Because it deserves a blessing. The work of your hands was blessed.
Moshe knew that too. The completion of the mishkan was a moment requiring blessing. Torah tells us:
וַיַּ֨רְא מֹשֶׁ֜ה אֶת־כׇּל־הַמְּלָאכָ֗ה וְהִנֵּה֙ עָשׂ֣וּ אֹתָ֔הּ כַּאֲשֶׁ֛ר צִוָּ֥ה יְהֹוָ֖ה כֵּ֣ן עָשׂ֑וּ וַיְבָ֥רֶךְ אֹתָ֖ם מֹשֶֽׁה׃
“And Moshe saw all the work and behold it was all done just as God had commanded it. And Moshe blessed them.”
Moshe blessed them. How, one wonders. The words of the blessing are not given in Torah. Maybe Moshe improvised them and they were so in the moment that people couldn’t remember them afterwards. Or maybe the blessing he gave was not only from the heart but in the heart, and no audible words crossed his lips.
But our sages of old hated a vacuum in Torah: a character without a name, an angel without a function, a blessing without known words. So the rabbis of the midrash set about to discover the exact blessing Moshe gave. They reached into the Book of Psalms, and looked at Psalm 90, a psalm that opens with the caption Tefilah l’Moshe ish Elohim, “a prayer of Moshe, man of God,” making it an attractive source of what might have been Moshe’s lost words. In this psalm, they chose the particularly elegant last verse – a dozen words long, half of which rhyme. It goes like this:
וִיהִ֤י ׀ נֹ֤עַם אֲדֹנָ֥י אֱלֹהֵ֗ינוּ עָ֫לֵ֥ינוּ וּמַעֲשֵׂ֣ה יָ֭דֵינוּ כּוֹנְנָ֥ה עָלֵ֑ינוּ וּֽמַעֲשֵׂ֥ה יָ֝דֵ֗ינוּ כּוֹנְנֵֽהוּ׃
Vihi Noam Adonai Eloheynu aleynu uma’aseh yadeynu kon’nah aleynu uma’aseh yadeynu kon’nehu.
“May the favor of Adonai, our God, be upon us; let the work of our hands prosper, O prosper the work of our hands!”
And this verse is the blessing that our sages of old said that Moshe gave the people upon the completion of the mishkan.
This line of Psalm 90 has not been sitting idle since Torah times; it has been in continuous use over the ages. In the 9th Century siddur of Amram Gaon and the 10th Century siddur of Saadia Gaon, we see that it was already their custom and the custom of their communities in Egypt and Babylonia to recite this verse in prayer on Saturday night as they entered into the new week. O prosper the work of our hands!
For some this Vihi Noam verse is considered to be a source of great protection magic, a prayer through which danger and suffering may be turned aside. There is an old custom of reciting it seven times each night of Chanukah, after lighting the candles. Another old custom is to write it on clean parchment and tuck it behind the door of your house, to keep your home safe from accidents.
The great 16th Century kabbalist, Rabbi Isaac Luria, called the Ari, said that in a time of general emergency or advancing plague, the Vihi Noam prayer should be prayed seven times every day. And then, after praying it, one should read the verses of Exodus that describe the Israelites in Egypt applying lamb’s blood to their doorposts to avert the Angel of Death from their houses during that tenth plague. The Ari’s practice suggests that reading the story of the protective doorpost magic can have the same effect as actually doing it.
We are in a time of general emergency, it seems to me. A time in which we need our hands to be especially skillful. We need our hands to be busy in the work of peacemaking, tending, healing. We need our hands to be writing checks and welcoming refugees and healing wounds and posting information on line and writing poetry. We need our hands to be holding other hands around the globe, firmly, keeping each other upright, supported, companioned.
And for this work, that it might be completed, with holy, flawless result, we might offer Moshe’s blessing:
וִיהִ֤י ׀ נֹ֤עַם אֲדֹנָ֥י אֱלֹהֵ֗ינוּ עָ֫לֵ֥ינוּ וּמַעֲשֵׂ֣ה יָ֭דֵינוּ כּוֹנְנָ֥ה עָלֵ֑ינוּ וּֽמַעֲשֵׂ֥ה יָ֝דֵ֗ינוּ כּוֹנְנֵֽהוּ׃
Vihi Noam Adonai Eloheynu aleynu
uma’aseh yadeynu kon’nah aleynu
uma’aseh yadeynu kon’nehu.
May Adonai Eloheynu’s favor be upon us.
And make the work of our hands endure,
Uphold – prosper – the work of our hands.
Someday, G-d willing, they will write the pekudim on this time – the annals, the catalogue, the souvenir book. It will include how things were and how they became; who gave what and who embroidered and how the work was done. What will history say? We don’t know. But may it be said that the work that Adonai commanded was done; that it was completed exactly to plan; that we all stepped away and looked with wonder at what we had wrought. May it be said that in our time, the hands of peacemakers were blessed. The hands of peacemakers, healers, earth defenders, artists, handy people, loving doers of every sort – may it be written that the work of their hands, the work of our hands, prospered.