Drash Cards for Pekudei (5765)

by Marc Mangel

• All the commentators seek to explain ‘Pekudei’ = account

• The simple explanation: Leaders are responsible to account for how they spend public funds.

• Rav Shlomo Yosef Levin notes that we usually read together VaYakel/Pekudei — Gather/Account.

• Pekudei calls on us to count every detail separately and symbolizes the value of the individual.

•In Duties of the Heart , Ibn Ben Bachya writes in Section 8 ‘Gate of Self Accounting’ : Self accounting is earnest deliberation on one’s religious and secular concerns, in the privacy of one’s thoughts, to discover what one has accomplished and yet to accomplish of his obligations.

• Each and every one of us is obligated to make a personal accounting and Ibn Bachya gives 30 ways to do it!

• The benefit of such accounting is the effect on our spirit.

• Self accounting is obligatory for each of us and after the accounting appropriate action should follow.