Vayakheil - Pekudei: The Fire in Your Blood

The Machne is roaring.

Men pressing forward. 

Gold flashing in the desert sun. 

Copper clanging. 

Wool, thread, skins, wood. 

A storm of giving.

Everywhere you turn, someone is shouting, “Take this. Use this. I brought more.”

Holy chaos unfolding like the mad dash at the tachana merkazit to get the One bus to the Kotel.

It keeps coming until Moshe is told,

“מרבים העם להביא”

They brought too much.

Moshe gives the order, 

“ויכלא העם מהביא”

Stop.

Imagine that moment. 

We were so seized with the desire to build the Mishkan for Hashem that Moshe Rabbeinu had to restrain us.

And for Moshe, a thought suddenly hits.

He has seen this before.

The rush.

The gold.

The crowd.

The wildness.

This same nation that recently rallied around another project.

The Eigel.

The Yerushalmi in Shekalim says, 

אָמַר רִבִּי בָּא בַּר אָחָא. אֵין אַתְּ יָכוֹל לַעֲמוֹד עַל אוֹפִי שֶׁלְּאוּמָּה הַזֹּאת. נִתְבָּעִין לָעֶגֶל וְנוֹתְנִין. נִתְבָּעִין לַמִּשְׁכָּן וְנוֹתְנִין.

“You cannot fully grasp the nature of this nation. The people were solicited for the Eigel, and they gave; they were solicited for the Mishkan, and they gave.”

The same nation ran toward both. 

The problem was never that Klal Yisrael lacked passion.

The problem was where the passion went.

Chazal place the key in a pasuk every Yid already knows by heart,

“ואהבת את ה׳ אלקיך בכל לבבך”

“You shall love Hashem your God with all your heart.”

Why the plural לבבך, two hearts?

The Mishna in Berachos answers, 

בשני יצריך 

“With both your inclinations”, the yetzer tov and the yetzer hara.

This is not just another cute vort.

Serve Hashem not only with your refined sweet side.

Serve Him with the side that lunges. 

The side that wants everything NOW.

The Sfas Emes says the giving for the Mishkan was a tikkun for the Eigel. 

The same force that had been poured into sin was now redirected into kedushah. 

Nothing new had to be invented. 

The fire was already there. 

It simply changed direction.

The Nesivos Shalom goes even deeper. 

Loving Hashem with both hearts means a Yid learns to bring the fierce energy of the yetzer hara itself into avodas Hashem. 

Not the aveirah. 

The energy behind it, the drive.

A good friend of mine would always say, "A mitzvah needs prep. 

You need to say L’shem Yichud to get in the zone. 

But no one ever says L’shem Yichud to do an aveirah. 

You get right in the zone with no prep at all.”

This is where we get lost.

You can be Frum, learned, and still be asleep.

You daven, learn, and keep halachah.

But there is no force in it. 

No blood in it. 

No holy violence in the soul. 

לֹא הַמֵּתִים יְהַלְלוּ־קָהּ

Just robotic motion. 

Doing everything and somehow never really there.

Sometimes the deeper problem is that the fire is trapped. 

Or buried. 

Or being spent elsewhere. 

Or you are trying to force yourself into an avodah that isn’t you. 

Have you ever copied someone else’s doorway to Hashem and wondered why your own heart stays shut?

The Mesillas Yesharim writes that the yetzer hara keeps a person so occupied he never stops to examine his own path.

This is true avodas perach. 

That is how a man loses years of his life.

The yetzer does not always push you into aveirah. 

Sometimes it gives you something much nicer. 

A frum life with no flame.

Routine.

To be clear, the danger we’re discussing is not Menuchas Hanefesh.

There is such a thing as having a settled, deep avodah.

 יִשּׁוּב הַדַּעַת מִתּוֹךְ הַרְחָבַת הַדַּעַת.

(I see you, my fellow Khal chevra!)

The real danger is deadness. 

Mechanical mitzvos. 

A Torah life that no longer grips the heart.

But the Mishkan was not built by dead men.

It was built by men on fire.

So what is a brother to do? 

You and me, who are only half asleep.

How do we get started?

Rav Tzadok writes that the place of a man’s struggle often reveals the place of his hidden strength.

When your yetzer suddenly floods your body with urgency, energy, craving, or obsession, something important has been uncovered.

Not kedushah yet. 

But it's your raw material.

The fuel that only works in your engine. 

You need to ask yourself, "What is it about this drive that pulls me so?"

Why this and not that? What's the penimius of this aveirah that Hashem designed in me?"

This may take time to figure out, but it's work you need to do.

For the moment, the avodah has to be simple.

When the wave of compulsion comes, do not try to crush it.

You need to learn how to catch it.

If the yetzer can make you feel alive in .03 seconds, you had better learn how kedushah can do the same.

Your blood starts boiling? 

Good.

Move.

Do something holy that wakes you up physically, emotionally, and maybe even a little wildly.

Learn Torah out loud, not like a librarian but like a man.

Talk to your Father in heaven like he was your friend who just told you a good joke or the worst news of your life.

Go help your wife and take initiative now. 

Get down on the floor and play with your children with your whole self present.

Run to do a mitzvah like it's a Prime Day sale and you've got only ten minutes left before the deal disappears. 

Get physical if you are not sure what to do next. 

Drop and do ten push-ups, or a hundred.

Listen to one of my heavy metal albums on the stories of Tanach, or on Kedusha. 

Whatever it takes to get your blood boiling for kedusha, just like the Yetzer gets your blood boiling for tumah. 

And if you have no list of things that ignite you in kedushah, then start building one. 

That itself is avodah. 

Experiment. 

Find what stirs your heart.

Even now. 

Even at forty. 

Even at eighty. 

A Yid is never too old to discover where his soul catches fire for Hashem.

That fire is still in your blood.

The only question is what you are going to build with it.

An Eigel?

Or a Mishkan.