Dvar Torah given at KH/SZ March 2025
אלא פקודי- “These are the records of the Tabernacle, the Mishkan Haeydut, which were drawn up at Moses’ bidding—the work of the Levites under the direction of Ithamar son of Aaron the priest. Now Bezalel, son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, had made all that ה had commanded Moses; at his side was Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, carver and designer, and embroiderer in blue, purple, and crimson yarns and in fine linen.”
Parshat Pekudei opens as you might expect from a parshah describing how the Mishkan was built, by lifting up the names of the men who directed and led the project: Ithamar ben Aharon the priest, and the two master craftsmen, Bezalel ben Uri ben Hur, and Oholiav ben Ahisamach.
But in Vayakhel, which we read last week – and is often appended to Pekudei as a double parshah – there was a different account of how this project was approached, here’s an abridged summary:
Take from among you gifts to God; everyone whose heart is so moved shall bring them… And let all among you who are skilled come and make all that God has commanded.
וְכׇל־חֲכַם־לֵ֖ב בָּכֶ֑ם יָבֹ֣אוּ וְיַעֲשׂ֔וּ אֵ֛ת כׇּל־אֲשֶׁ֥ר צִוָּ֖ה ה’
What follows is a very long list of all the parts of the Mishkan and the tools and clothing needed for it to function. And then the text says:
And everyone who excelled in ability and everyone whose spirit was moved came, bringing to God an offering for the work of the Tent of Meeting and for all its service and for the sacral vestments… Men and women, all whose hearts moved them, all who would make an elevation offering of gold to God… everyone who would make gifts of silver or copper brought them as gifts for God; and everyone who possessed acacia wood for any work of the service brought that. And all the skilled women spun with their own hands, and brought what they had spun, in blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and in fine linen. And all the women who excelled in that skill spun the goats’ hair. And the chieftains brought lapis lazuli and other stones for setting…
This represents a very early description of what today we call a crowdsourced project.
These two descriptions stand in tension, to some extent. Was it that Itamar and Betzalel and Oholiav had extensive expertise and they were the driving force? Or did everyone contribute?
The modern version of this tension is described by Jeremy Heimans as Old power and New power.
Old power values include institutionalism, exclusivity, discretion, expertise, professionalism, specialization, long term affiliations. Old power is folks in suits in closed door meetings making decisions that impact plenty of people who are not represented.
New power values are more informal, self-organized, collaborative, open sourced, transparent, short term. An example of New power, if you remember, was the coordinated effort in Houston after hurricane Harvey when volunteers with boats, radios, and google docs stepped up to rescue the stranded.
We might think of these two approaches as a dichotomy. But, as Heimans points out, there are good contexts for both Old and New power. While the benefits of New power systems might be more obvious to us, we still need professionals with experience and the power of institutions behind them to accomplish those things that individuals likely can’t accomplish alone. For just one example the creation and testing of safe vaccines.
This brings us back to the two models found in Vayakhel/Pekudei, which can teach that we need both types of leadership, Old power and New, in our community. We need “professionals” like Itamar, Betzalel and Oholiav who have expertise and the power of institutional support behind them–the Miskhan benefited from their know-how and their leadership. AND we also need the enthusiasm and generosity of all of the people of Israel, who donated supplies and their skills to make the Mishkan project happen.
New power and Old power don’t even have to be in tension. There is space, even necessity, in our communities for both types of leadership. And when they work together towards one goal, community is at its best.
Our community, and the Jewish community at large benefit from both the expertise of professionals and the generosity and skill of community members. I encourage each of us, as we find reasons to be skeptical of both crowdsourcing and institutionalism, to consider the message of the building of the miskhan: That there is utility in each of these models of leadership, and it is in their combination that community comes together to achieve greatness and perhaps even holiness.