Chevre, this week’s parsha is Vayakel (ויקהל) and it’s Parshat Parah. The parsha starts off with Shabbat. This is a reminder that even for the work of the Mishkan (The Tabernacle), Shabbat overrides the construction. Therefore, all the more so, anything we may be building in our days.

The parsha then goes through the construction where it’s reiterated what was already described in the last few parshiot. This is to tell us that the building went exactly to plan. Now, I’ve worked on all kinds of projects in my career and even the simplest script to do 1 task NEVER goes 100% to plan. But, here, where it is a divine plan, it did go 100% to plan. Not only that, but the design of the Mishkan was later adapted (we can call it scaled up) for the semi-permanent placement in Shiloh and then the permanent Temples in Jerusalem.

Switching topics, as the winter winds down and spring is about to come upon us, we have Parshat Parah. This reminds us that for Pesach (Passover) and to eat the Korban Pesach (The Paschal Sacrifice) we need to be ritually pure, which includes getting sprinkled by the ashes Parah Adumah (the Red Heffer). Given the long and cold winter days and nights this is a “light at the end of the tunnel” that spring is just around the corner and a reminder of another thing we would need to do prepare ourselves for the coming holiday.

Now honestly, my family has already been spring cleaning for weeks. Weeding through the book shelves and asking hard questions, do I really need this piece of clothing or these bed sheets in the linen closet that we haven’t used in 5+ years. There are times amongst the piles of keep, donate and toss that I truly wonder if I could write a script or get a lifecycle policy to help me with this cleanup. Shabbat Shalom.