Overlapping Concurrencies: A Universal Shalach Manot

There are some good mystic energies circulating through the constellation of this week's Torah/Jewish calendar grid. The Rebbe taught us to pay close attention to overlapping Jewish concurrencies. The crux of his thinking discloses layers of meaning concealed beneath the veneer of seemingly low-value meta anomalies. The axiom of this thinking is the result of noticing how the Jewish spiritual generator runs most vigorously when powered by these clusters.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I suppose I should try and explain. This week is a perfect example. The Torah portion is called Teruma, and it centers around G-d's instructions to Moses regarding the construction of the Mishkan, the traveling prototype of what would later become the design and blueprints for The First Temple in Jerusalem.

OK, so big deal, right? Wrong. There’s more. It coincides with the lead-up to Purim! But it gets better. The Shabbat before Purim is also when we read one of the EXTRA special Torah readings, in this case the chapter that recalls the negative interaction with the nation of Amalek, right in the aftermath of the Exodus. Which loops back to Purim and Haman, who is, that’s right, you guessed it, a descendant of Amalek!

So you might be saying... “whoopee doo.” Like, really, settle down Rabbi …You are right. But you are also wrong. This way of thinking is like anything else on the spectrum of spirituality. My point is this: there has to be a buy-in at some point in order to start feeling this as the truly exquisite source of sacred adrenalin that it was designed to be.

“OK, but Rabbi Yossi, honestly, what can this really do for you or me?” Fair question. Here’s one way this can poke its way, energetically, into our CURRENT lives.

Does not this week's Torah portion, centered around the Tabernacle, the precursor, not only to the Temple in Jerusalem, but also the model for our modern-day diaspora synagogue as well (you know, the ones we HAVEN'T been in for FAR too long now), address us DIRECTLY where we are at? Does not the annual discussion of the sanctity of the ancient Wilderness Shul coming almost a year to the day that we evacuated our Shuls and began OUR wandering in the treacherous Covid wilderness, resonate in entirely different and new ways?

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out what this is NOT. I don’t think it's a “signal” to jump right back into the communal rhythms that predated the lingering sense of gaping void that seems to be so prevalent. To the contrary! I think it's now more than ever that we need to be MOST vigilant. But at the same time I refuse to ignore this. I refuse to live in a world where the universe “no longer reaches out to us,” a universe that has nothing left to tell us, or worse yet a world where we have chosen to no longer listen. I'm thinking that the handwriting is on the wall, and I like what it looks like, even if I will never be able to decipher these particular hieroglyphics. I know the Rebbe would have seen it and decoded it for us. Right now that knowledge warms me, and it will have to be enough for me… but suffice it to say I'm feeling like this week's energy is a heralding of better times ahead. A week that brings a universal Shalach Manot gift. We might still have to be unwrapping this one for a while longer, but there is no crime in us feeling “constructively” hopeful about all this.