March 13, 2024

​It’s a busy time for rabbis right now, with Purim on the horizon and Pesaḥ coming up right behind. And in my other role at Krieger Schechter, it’s absolutely my most packed time of the year. Among the flurry of special programs and projects that mark this time of year is guiding our 7th graders to write funny (and moderately appropriate) Purim shpiels.

I’ve spent more than a few extra periods this week reading 7th grade shpiel scripts, offering feedback and guidance to the students as they create scenes to tell the story of the Megillah. While this is something I do each year, it never gets old and I always notice something new about the story or the process. This year, I’ve been noticing how eager the students are to be finished with creating their scenes and have been thinking about why this might be. 

The assignment is not a simple one. Students are put into small groups, with each group randomly selecting a section of the story to tell and a genre through which they have to tell it. Their job is to transform the book of Esther into, along with other genres, a sci-fi film, a children’s show, a documentary, a TikTok thread. And they’re supposed to make it funny, too. One can understand their desire just to be finished already. 

In an age of immediate gratification, Purim shpiels have not been that. By the end of the first day, about half the groups came to me saying that they were done and asked me to check their work. Some captured all the major parts of their sections of Esther, some had nailed their genres, some were funny - but none of them was remotely done. All of them needed to keep working and revising. 

Over the last week and a half, this has happened several more times: at every step along the way, each group had finished something, but there was always more to do. And the process continues - now that the scripts are in, it’s time to turn their attention to staging, memorizing lines, and gathering costumes and props. They’re still not finished. 

I couldn’t help but see a parallel this week as I was reading Parashat Pekudei. Over the past 4 weeks, we’ve laid out the steps for planning and constructing the Mishkan. Along the way, there have been several seeming endpoints. We’ve read the conclusion of the materials list and building instructions, the full ritual of consecrating Aharon and his sons as Kohanim, the completion of the labor, the creation of all of the Mishkan’s parts and pieces by Betzalel and his team of artisans. 

Pekudei gives us several more non-endings. After all of the pieces are assembled, we read: “וַתֵּכֶל כׇּל־עֲבֹדַת מִשְׁכַּן,” “Thus was completed all of the work of the Tabernacle” (Exodus 39:32), but then it has to be brought before Moshe and set up properly. 

We then read, “In the first month of the second year, on the first of the month, the Tabernacle was set up.” (Exodus 40:17) So now it’s finished, right? Except it’s not. 

After Moshe has set up the Mishkan according to God’s specifications, “The cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of the LORD filled the Tabernacle.” (40:34) This is the last moment in the entire book of Shemot, so clearly it must all be finished. Even here, the sense of completion is misleading. The Mishkan has yet to be prepared for use and inaugurated into service. We’ll have to wait until several chapters into Vayikra to get there. There is no “done.” There’s only “done for now.”

As with my students and their Purim shpiels, there’s always something more to do. It’s the same approach we take to studying Torah, always going back for another look, reading and rereading and rereading again. This also holds in other contexts of our lives, from concrete projects to personal relationships to our connection with the Divine. We may feel that we reach stopping points, but those are often valuable moments to take stock and consider what we have accomplished and experienced. Then we keep going. There’s always something more just ahead.

Shabbat Shalom.