I recently watched a group of women go through a process of naming their painful experiences in the Jewish community, and then acknowledging the places in their personal histories that were touched by these experiences. The women recognized that not all of the pain was someone else s fault, and that community members had sometimes acted out of their own limitation and woundedness. In the midst of this exploration, the women began to recognize how holding on to the old familiar bitterness prevented them from letting in the richness of deep involvement in Jewish community in the present. One commentator notes another nuance in the first verse of our parashah. The words Vayakhel Moshe, Moshe gathered the people, are immediately followed by the words, These are the things which God commanded you to do.
Communities can be a source of wisdom, inspiration and unity.
Or they can generate pain, alienation, and divisiveness. May our communal gatherings be for the sake of heaven, for the sake of Torah, for the sake of justice and healing. And may we each do the work that is ours to do in order that it be so.