Parshat Veyakhel-Pekudei: Principles and Details

This past Shabbat, we concluded the Book of Shemot (Exodus), the second book of the Torah with the reading of a double-parsha with Veyakhel-Pekudei.  There was a scholar-in-residence weekend at a shul in Columbus and Rabbi-Dr. Avraham Steinberg was the speaker.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get the change to attend most of his talks, but I did hear his d’var Torah on Shabbat morning and found what he said to be exactly what makes the details of Judaism so beautiful. 

Rabbi-Dr. Steinberg’s focus of the weekend was (Jewish) medical ethics, but he expanded his speech for the entire synagogue to be on broader Jewish practice and rooted in the details in which the Torah lists the laws of building the Mishkan and the service performed in the Temple.  Through this detail and two examples he provided that stood out to me, where we see the difference between (1) Jewish medical ethics and secular medical ethics and (2) Other religions and Judaism.   In both cases, the difference is principles versus details. 

In the case of Medical ethics, a popular ethical code to follow in America is Georgetown University’s 4-step approach of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.  These principles determine whether a doctor is ethical or not.  But, as happened to a doctor I know, what happens when a woman about to give birth chooses death for themselves and their baby?  If a woman needs a cesarean section to save her and the baby, and refuses, an ethical doctor would be required to let the woman and baby die to maintain the principle of patient autonomy.  Judaism would not allow this to happen.  In Judaism, life trumps autonomy.  You cannot allow a suicide or any death.  What good is autonomy when you are dead?  In Judaism, we look at the details in each and every case to work up to the over-arching principle.  A principle cannot be applied without an understanding of the detail. 

The same is true when analyzing Judaism against other religions.  All religions have principles.  But in most religions these principles are set-in-stone and applied in dictatorial way, with no regard to the individual case.  In Judaism, every little detail is important and no halachic (or ethical) decision can be made without all the details being laid out in front of you.  This week’s parsha dealing with the details of building the Temple are a prime example.  The details with which we obsessively build the mishkan, to get every angle and color and corner exactly right…those details are the beauty of Judaism…our infatuation with trying to become a holy being, a holy nation, a nation dedicated to God and God alone.  We become this type of individual – nation – by following the mitzvoth.  Many things take detail, many things are intricate…but only the intricacies of the Torah are the intricacies of God through which we gain (in Heschel’s words) “a sense of the ineffable.”