As we continue to prepare for Passover, pay attention to all the details required to enjoy the Pesah Holiday from preparing the home to preparing the food. And as we sit down for the Seder--the orderly and ordered evening of storytelling and tasting, let's remember all those who are still in bondage. Let's pray for their release.

No mention is ever made about how an individual Israelite ever felt during the performance of a sacrifice. The personal emotions of grief, loss or gratitude are never described. Yet, the Torah does tells how God felt! That's interesting and thought provoking. . .

Who hasn't been challenged by a project that requires assembly? You get all the pieces, a manual, a few tools, and as you look at the planks, the sockets, the screws you wonder how am I going to put all this together? Well, in this week's Torah reading all the various pieces of the Tabernacle (the Mishkan) have been manufactured. But who will assemble this sacred structure. The Israelites try and fail. The Chief architect, B'tzalel tries and he, too, fails. Finally all eyes turn to Moses, and he. . . well let's listen.

After Moses received the Ten Commandments, he was told by God that Israel had grievously sinned by creating a Golden Calf to which they attributed their freedom from bondage. God's fury almost led to the destruction of the Israelite nation. But Moses intervened; God relented. When Moses brought down the tablets of the law and saw that Israel had violated the fundamental rule against idolatry, Moses in his fury cast the tablets down and they shattered at the foot of the mountain. But Moses knew that Israel had sinned before he came down the mountain. Why, then, did he bringt the tablets with him?

Why is there a Menorah in an empty night time sacred space in the ancient Tabernacle and the two Temples in Jerusalem? No one is there overnight. There is no one to see it. It is an empty chamber. Yet, there is something profound expressed when an oil lamp, a candle is lit--even when the place is unoccupied. 

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When the Egyptians in the Hebrew Bible were afflicted with total darkness--a darkness they could almost feel, rabbinic imagination something even deeper that resonates into ur own day.