We
were sitting around the table at Friday night dinner, eating up a storm. My
step-grandmother Sandra made a scrumptious feast of home-baked challah, sweet
and sour meatballs, delicious chicken and more. My twelve-year-old sister Mira finished
her dinner quickly (since meatballs are her favorite). Sandra remarked, “I
spent days preparing this meal, and it’s gone in five minutes!”
What
a depressing thought! In the subsequent weeks, Sandra’s statement haunted me.
While cooking on Fridays, I’d feel disheartened. Why am I spending the day
making a nice meal that will quickly disappear?
In
this week’s parasha, the Israelite tribes bring an offering to celebrate the completed tabernacle. The leader of each
tribe brings the same present each day for a twelve day period. Members of the
tribes surely spent many hours making the silver dish and bowl and golden spoon
of exactly the correct weight, filling them with flour and oil for the meal
offering, and choosing the choicest animals. I wonder how each tribe felt after
their offering day was complete. Were they disappointed that the gift they had
worked so long to prepare was past?
Whereas
they may have thought their gift only lasted one day, their story is read now,
thousands of years later, and will continue to be read long into the future.
The offerings lasted far longer than they thought.
This
idea reminds me of a midrash about the ram in the story of the binding of
Isaac. In Genesis, when Abraham nearly sacrifices his son Isaac, at the last
moment he sees a ram caught in a thicket which he offers instead. In the
biblical account, the ram’s part is fleeting. He appears on the scene and is
immediately killed and consumed in flames. Yet, in Pirkei de Rabi
Eliezer,
the rabbis argue that the ram’s role was not over. Rabbi Hanina taught that no
part of the ram went to waste. Its dust became the foundation of the altar in
the Temple. Its tendons became the ten strings on the harp of King David, and
its skin became the girdle that the Prophet Elijah wore. The horns of the ram
became shofars, one of which was blown at Mount Sinai and the other of which
will be blown in the future at the messianic time of the ingathering of the
exiles.
I’m
unsure how the mechanics of this miraculous preservation of the ram’s parts
works. Nonetheless, this fanciful midrash makes an important spiritual point –
that our efforts may last longer than we think.
What
is true of the offerings of the ram and at the dedication ceremony can also be
said about dinner. I once cooked a brisket when my sister Mira was at my house.
Mira told me, “You’re a good cook, so am I. We come from a long line of good
cooks.” Mira inherited confidence in cooking from her grandmother Sandra to her
mother Melissa to her and she will hopefully transmit that skill to her
children as well.
Whereas
Sandra thought the food she made was gone in minutes, it actually lasted far
longer. The love and confidence contained therein persists.
So
Sandra, I beg to differ with you. I don’t think the meal was gone momentarily.
Like the ram, your cooking endures – perhaps even until the time of the
Messiah.