I almost wasn’t going to write anything for this week’s parsha (weekly Torah portion) because I didn’t have any new ideas coming to me as I was reading. Then, in the morning, haShem (god/dess) blessed me with a clue as to one thing that last week and this week’s parshas, together, might be trying to teach us.
This week’s parsha is filled mostly with laws, actions and consequences, so it is a very practical one. And why not? After all the Torah is a guide as to how to live. But a guide for how to live needs to be more than just a bunch of rules; otherwise, we would be automatons. By looking beyond the rules, and even an individual parsha, we can see a bigger picture.
We, humans, have free will. We can do anything we want. We could just sit and follow rules. We can also be creative. We can dream and bring these dreams to fruition. This is what makes us godlike. And haShem (god/dess), in these two parshas, is showing us how to do that. First off, one has to step away from the trees, from the rules, to see the big picture…and find a simple way to describe it so that everybody can understand it.
Once upon a time I took a project management course. The first thing they taught was that you need to make a simple statement defining what you want to do; a statement that everybody that works on the project can read and understand and agree to. The example given was JFK saying “In the next 10 years, America is gong to put a man on the moon and bring him home safely.” Everybody, down to the janitors knew that what they were doing was helping to make this happen.
This we saw two weeks ago when haShem told the people they were to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. The people responded by saying they would do whatever was asked of them.
The second part of project management is defining general steps needed to fulfill the mission statement. These are the 10 utterances (often mistranslated as the 10 commandments). The people heard these directly from haShem.
The next step in managing a project is to detail how the steps are to be accomplished. These are the rules that we find in this week’s parsha. If you look at each rule, you can categorize it under one of the 10 sayings. And again, this is brought to the people who respond with “We will do and we will hear,” meaning that once again the people are buying into the task at hand.
Now, it is up to the people to execute. How well they do that is not to be found here at the beginning of the project, but at the end. This week’s parsha is only about how to set up a project so it is most likely to be successful. I personally find it fascinating how something so work-place oriented can be found here in the torah.
I hope this discussion helps you-all plan whatever future dreams you wish to bring into this world, so that they can be brought into the world effectively and joyously.
Many blessings,
Shmuel Shalom/Geoffrey
About the Author
Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.