Vayakhel 5782
If you frequent a gym, you know that January is the busiest month of the year. According the International Health, Racquet, and Sporstclub Association (IHRSA), 12% of all new gym memberships take place in January. Which is not surprising. High on the list of most commonly adopted new year’s resolutions is some version of losing weight or getting in shape. As the new year rolls in, gym’s enjoy a surge of new members looking to make good on the promises they made to themselves.
And not surprisingly, it often doesn’t work. Also according to the IHRSA, most gyms lose about 50% of new members within the first six months. The initial inspiration or determination that we feel when the goal is first articulated can soon dissipate. There is a huge difference between adopting a goal and achieving it.
Which perhaps is why Parshas Vayakhel exists, despite its feeling very much like a re-run. The earlier parshios of Terumah and Tetzaveh have already provided detailed instruction as to how the Mishkan, its furnishings, and the bigdei Kehunah were to be fashioned. Yet all this information is given a second screening as the Torah describes in Parshas Vayakhel and Pekudei how the Jewish People actually went about constructing it all, followed by a full reckoning of all the funds and materials raised and spent on the project.
To be sure, the Mishkan was a seminal achievement in the annals of Jewish history. But it is striking how the Torah—so economical in its word count—opts to fully rehash every design element as it was dutifully implemented. Surely a simple, “They did all they were commanded to do” would have sufficed.
But, of course, it would not have. Simply because an item is on the agenda does not mean that it gets done. Though the commandments received in Terumah and Tetzaveh surely shaped the Mishkan’s construction into a national goal, a goal is not accomplished as easily as it is written. The spike and decrease in gym memberships over the first six months of the year tells us all we need to know about the unlikelihood of making good on one’s ambitions. That the Mishkan is constructed in full, no corners cut, is an astounding triumph in the people overcoming themselves. In place of the lethargy that typically sets in not long after a project is first launched, the Jewish People developed steadfast resolve. Every detail is emphasized because no single one was sure to happen. That it did is remarkable and deserves to be recorded.
In this light, perhaps we can gain new understanding into the opening of the very name of parsha: “Vayakhel—And he gathered.” Moshe Rabbeinu gathered the people to inform them that Shabbos would need to serve as a day off from the work of building the Mishkan, and to then charge them with the amassing of the materials needed to begin the work. The commentators are puzzled by the nature of Moshe’s gathering the people. Whereas a chain of command was usually employed to get the word out to the masses about any given mitzvah, here specifically, we find that Moshe addressed the nation as one.
In another enlightening statistic from the IHRSA’s 2018 report, those who attended classes rather than working out on their own were 56% less likely to cancel their membership. Transforming a personal ambition into a collective undertaking can be a game changer. We gain from the built-in accountability and social pressure that can help us think twice before we ditch our goal. We are also less likely to doubt the virtue of our goals after the initial novelty wears off when we are surrounded by others dedicated to the cause. Finally, the activity itself can become more enjoyable when joined with a social component.
If Parshas Vayakhel is about telling the triumph of keeping to one’s goals and seeing them through, the word Vayakhel may describe how to get there. Sticking to our goals can be challenging, doing so as a cohesive group can help to remove many of the inherent hurdles.
If you’ve struggled with keeping to goals in general, or to a specific goal in particular, the answer may not be persevering through brute force alone. While accomplishing a meaningful goal will never be easy, there’s much we can do to help grease the wheels and make the process more enjoyable.
Is there a means of transforming the private goal to a communal one? If you can’t stay motivated towards your goals, consider creating a group or chaburah that works on them together. Consider finding an accountability partner who you can share your goals with and vice-versa, even if your goals are substantially different from one another. The encouragement you’ll receive and even that bit of embarrassment you’ll feel if you can’t report positive results will help keep you on target.
The Jewish People achieved their goals because of Vayakhel—they formed a group around their collective ambition. Partnering together and forming groups of our own can go a long way in allowing us to do the same.