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Parshat Vayakhel/Shekalim/Shabbat Mevarchim February 26, 2022 25 Adar I, 5782
TORAH Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on Parshat Vayakhel
ARTSCROLL 516
HERTZ 373 How do you remotivate a and so become a laughingstock heights of a mountain but in
demoralized people? How to their enemies.” The verb the midst of the camp. He
MAFTIR do you put the pieces of ,ערפlike the similar ,ארפmeans appeals to the same sense
ARTSCROLL 484 a broken nation back “loose, unbridled, of generosity that made
HERTZ 352 together again? That was unrestrained.” There is an them offer up their gold
HAFTORAH the challenge faced by assembly that is disciplined, ornaments. The difference is
ARTSCROLL 1212 Moses in this week’s task-oriented and purposeful. that they are now acting in
HERTZ 992 parsha. The key word And there is an assembly that accordance with God’s
here is vayakhel, “Moses is a mob. It has a will of its command, not their own
Shabbat Mevarchim gathered.” Kehillah own. People in crowds lose spontaneous feelings. He
means community. A
Rosh Chodesh their sense of self-restraint. asks the Israelites to make
Adar Sheini kehillah or kahal is a They get carried along in a voluntary contributions to
group of people wave of emotion. Normal the construction of the
Molad: Thurs. March 3
@ 3:51:17 am assembled for a given deliberative thought-processes Tabernacle, the Sanctuary,
purpose. That purpose become bypassed by the more the Mikdash. They do so
Rosh Chodesh: can be positive or primitive feelings or the group. with such generosity that
Thurs. & Fri. March 3-4 negative, constructive or There is, as neuroscientists put Moses has to order them to
destructive. The same it, an “amygdala hijack.” stop. If you want to bond
Times word that appears at the Passions run wild. There have human beings so that they
beginning of this week’s been famous studies of this: act for the common good,
Weekly Times
parsha as the beginning Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary get them to build something
Shacharit: Sun. 7:30/8:30 am of the solution, appeared Popular Delusions and the together. Get them to
Mon. 6:35/7:45 am in last week’s parsha as Madness of Crowds (1841), undertake a task that they
Tues. & Wed. 6:45/7:45 am the start of the problem: Gustave Le Bon’s The Crowd: a can only achieve together,
Thurs. & Fri. RC 6:30/7:45 am “When the people saw study of the popular mind that none can do alone.
Mincha 5:25 pm that Moses was so long in (1895), and Wilfred Trotter’s The power of this principle
coming down from the Instincts of the Herd in Peace
Shabbat Times mountain, they gathered and War (1914). One of the was demonstrated in a

Candle Lighting 5:23 pm [vayikahel] around Aaron most haunting works on the famous social-scientific
research exercise carried
and said, ‘Make us a god subject is Jewish Nobel prize-
Friday Mincha 5:25 pm out in 1954 by Muzafer
to lead us. As for this winner Elias Canetti’s Crowds
Hashkama 8:00 am man Moses who brought and Power (1960, English Sherif and others from the
us up out of Egypt, we translation 1962). University of Oklahoma,
Parsha Shiur 8:30 am known as the Robbers’ Cave
don’t know what has
Main Sanctuary 9:00 am happened to him.’” Vayakhel is Moses’ response to experiment. Sherif wanted
Youth Minyan 9:00 am the wild abandon of the crowd to understand the dynamics
The difference between that gathered around Aaron of group conflict and
Beit Midrash 9:15 am the two kinds of kehillah and made the golden calf. He prejudice. To do so, he and
is that one results in does something fascinating. He his fellow researchers
Gemara Shiur 4:45 pm
order, the other in chaos. does not oppose the people, as selected a group of 22
Mincha/SS 5:15 pm Coming down the he did initially when he saw the white, eleven-year-old boys,
Shabbat Ends 6:32 pm mountain to see the golden calf. Instead, he uses none of whom had met one
golden calf, we read that the same motivation that drove another before. They were
Latest Times for “Moses saw that the taken to a remote summer
Shema/Shemoneh Esrei them in the first place. They
people were running wild wanted to create something camp in Robbers Cave State
February 26 9:20/10:16 am and that Aaron had let that would be a sign that God Park, Oklahoma. They were
March 5 9:14/10:12 am them get out of control was among them: not on the randomly allocated into two
Next Shabbat
Pekudei Kiddush is sponsored by
Candle Lighting 5:31 pm Michael Aryeh
Mincha 5:35 pm in memory of Morris Schultz z”l