Drash Cards for VaYakel (5765)

by Marc Mangel

• Remember the Santa Cruz County Mishpatim Movement (SCCMM) in which we should donate to the Hebrew Free Loan Association?

• This parsha gives us guidance on how to do such things.

• Regarding Ch 35, v 5, Rav Zelig Pliskin says “When giving a monetary donation, involve your heart”

• Rac Elizer Cohen teaches that giving Tzedakah is not like paying the electric bill — we should interrupt our lives when an opportunity to gives arises.

• In this parsha, Bezalel is selected by God to do the work of building the tabernacle (Ch 31, v2). He has divine spirit, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and mastery of all the crafts needed — and all give by God to do this Divine Service.

• How do we do Divine Service?

• In Letter 6 of The Light of Israel, Rav Israel Salanter wrote “The most difficult aspect of Divine service is to be scrupulously honest in one’s business transactions; this is the first thing for which a person is judged when he faces the Heavenly Court (Shabbat 31a)”