Parshat P’kudei

SHORT SERMON    Parashat P’kudei 6TH AND 7TH Grade Class Service    

March 28, 2025

Rabbi David Edleson    Temple Sinai   South Burlington, Vermont

This week,  Jews around the world finish reading the Book of Exodus,  one of the greatest works of humanity, a book that has inspired the Jewish people and so many other groups of people with its story of oppression and enslavement followed by liberation and purpose in creating a new society.  Exodus is a master combination of story telling and law, and both are needed.  The story is needed to remind us of our history, of what it is like to oppressed, but also to inspire us to remember that liberation is possible.   The laws are needed because leaving slavery is not enough;  our people were determined to create a new society centered on justice, on law, on creating a sacred community.  

The book of Exodus ends with the inauguration of the Mishkan, the very elaborate tent that served as a temple while our people were still in the desert.  God commands us to build the Mishkan, a sanctuary, so that God can be in our midst.  

The Mishkan is also important because everyone contributed and the entire community was part of creating it.  Craftsman, artists, builders -  everyone helped out in this project and I think that it might have been everyone helping out and being part of creating the Mishkan that made it a place where God would come and dwell among us.

The Israelites are very proud of what they created, this little sanctuary.  For a small brand new desert group to come together, form a community centered on law, and then to build this elaborate tent together is something to be very proud of.

Indeed,  my hope for you all tonight is that you not only be aware of your Jewishness, but that you will find a deep sense of pride in being Jewish.  

We have so much to be proud of.  

Against all odds, and in the face of much oppression, we have not only survived, we have thrived.

As we’ve been talking about in 7th Grade, even after an event like the Holocaust in which 1/3 of our people were murdered, we did not give up, but came back stronger.   We built two of the greatest Jewish communities history has known with half of us here and half of us in Israel.   Even if we don’t agree with everything Israel does, that our people rebounded from the Holocaust by building a country, an economy, revived our language and even created one of the most powerful militaries in the world -   this is something to be very proud of.

And of course,  Jews make up a ridiculously high number of Nobel Prize winners, and it is hard to imagine American culture without Jewish creations like Hollywood, or composers like Bernstein, Hammerstein, Copland and Barber, or without writers like  Henry Roth, Cynthia Ozick, Saul Bellow and so many others.  

And Israel has been key in developing much of the technology that makes our cellphones possible, as well as amazing advances in medicine and agriculture. 

It can feel like we are under attack these days, and we are, but don’t every let that get in your way of being proud of who you are and what your people have done from Egypt until now.  You are the inheritors of one of the great traditions and civilizations in human history and never, never let anyone make you feel less than or ashamed. 

Before services and after, the 7th Graders have done Jewish Pride Projects to focus on a Jewish person that inspires them.   Please walk around and look at them, and let them inspire you to feel pride and maybe even more, to feel pride in this young generation that is growing up with some difficult headwinds, but are showing resilience, strength and growth despite it all. 

There is a Jewish tradition that when we finish reading a book of the Torah, we say   hazak hazak v’nitchazek.   It is a hard thing to translate into English, but it means something like,  “Strong, Strong and may we be strengthened.”   Let us lean in to those words to remember that we are strong, and the strength each of you show also gives strength to others who might be hurting.  We have always survived by sharing our strength together so let us say, “Hazak Hazak v’Nitchazek.”    

Shabbat Shalom,

David