Rabbi Yair D. Robinson 

Parashat VaYakheil 2025 

 I want to start by asking a question: do the ends justify the means? It is one of the greatest ethical dilemmas, and one we struggle with to this day. When faced with what appears to be looming crisis, are we permitted to act in whatever way we deem necessary in order to achieve whatever our goals may be? Another way of understanding that question is in the call to revolution that has become popular again in our own day: “By any means necessary.” That phrase was first used by Jean-Paul Satre, and then made most famous by Malcom X, it is a call to action, and a call of desperation—justice by any means necessary, freedom by any means necessary, equality by any means necessary… Is that, with all its ramifications and implications, ever justifiable, truly?  

I raise this question as the text of our Torah portion, which is concerned with the observance of…Shabbat. Shabbat? Not one of our ethical or moral commandments, but the observance of Shabbat? Yes. Or rather, this specific instruction to observe Shabbat. In our parasha, Moses convenes the people of Israel in order to instruct them on the making of the  Mishkan, the portable sanctuary in the wilderness. Having already been instructed by God all the way back in parashat Terumah, you would expect the instruction to be about bringing the donations of materials, or how to make each of the items, but the first instruction is to observe Shabbat. Or rather, that work is permitted six days, but on the seventh no work is allowed, under penalty of death. Something strange is happening here. We were not given this punishment back in Exodus 20 with the Ten Commandments, nor in Exodus 34, when Shabbat is raised again. Why would working on Shabbat be punishable by death? What is the underlying concern in this mitzvah? Enter our traditional commentators, especially Rashi and Sforno, who tell us that this instruction is here, in order to remind us that one should not violate Shabbat even to make the Mishkan. Yes, making the sanctuary is a sacred task, but not so sacred that people should work at it unceasingly.  

I want us to pause and reflect on this for a moment. Here is a people that has been, for over four hundred years, worked every single day to make meaningless edifices for Pharaoh, whose sole purpose was to oppress and dehumanize and even slaughter Israel. There was nothing redeeming about the work; it was idolatry made manifest. And now, Israel is told that no matter how enthusiastic they might be, how eager they are for God to be present in their midst, they need to stop one day a week  in sacred rest. Israel is commanded that the Sanctuary’s construction CANNOT happen on Shabbat, and that doing so, insisting on its construction at all costs, is profanity. In effect, God signals that what makes the sanctuary holy is that it is made the right way, a way that affirms, uplifts, and sanctifies. For the sanctuary to be a sanctuary, the ends cannot justify the means.  

What does this mean for us? It means everything in this moment in history where so much seems to be unraveling and we are desperate to undo all the damage being done. I understand that we are frustrated, that efforts to enact social change for the better seem stymied at every turn. That pretty much any topic you can imagine, from drug overdoses to crime to immigration, rising costs, the diminishment of the voice of the individual or common person versus oligarchs, the commodification of everything, and of course, the crises seemingly stacked to the ceiling in our beloved Israel have us tired and angry and fed up, and seeing the increasing despair and chaos that has manifested since January, if not November, if not October of last year, we could be forgiven for thinking that at this point, the ends justify the means. Gotta break some eggs to make an omelet, right? But what omelet are we comfortable with? Protests, be they against Bibi Netanyahu’s chaos or violence against LGBT folks or people of color? Absolutely. Shooting health insurance executives in the street? Having protest leaders, no matter how terrible and problematic, picked up in the lobby of their apartment building and whisked off to a prison in Louisiana without due process? Is that the omelet we want?  

As Jews, I think we have historically winced at the idea of ‘by any means necessary.’ Call it generational trauma, call it a kind of instinct, but it seems that when people turn to that kind of ideology, when people decide the ends justify the means, we as a people tend to get caught in the crossfire. The protests that ravaged college campuses all last year are an example of ‘by any means necessary;’ progressive students decided that harassing Jewish students was an acceptable course of action to achieve social justice and freedom for Palestinians. Does that mean that Mahmoud Khalil, who, it should be said, has advocated and organized around some pretty terrible and violent things, should be deported without having his day in court? As angry as we are, as fed up as we are, does that protect us as a people? Or use us as a prop for some serious authoritarian behavior? Is the outcome acceptable irrespective of how it is achieved? Really?  

Our parasha is concerned with building a sanctuary, a sacred place. And Torah and our teachers seem to be telling us that what makes it sacred isn’t the gold and silver and crimson yarns and lapis lazuli and everything else brought, and it’s not even the idea that through it God will dwell among the people; rather, what makes it sacred is that it is made in a way that is sacred, the right way, which means without compromising the peoples’ values or humanity in order to make it. We are angry, and we are frustrated, and there is so much work to do, but the change we want will not come about if we decide that the end justifies the means. Instead, let us make a sanctuary, not of gold and crimson yarn, but of our support for one another, and especially the vulnerable in our midst, whoever they may be. Even in our fear, or our rage, let us achieve justice, freedom and equality in a way that honors our tradition, and so we can say that God truly dwells among us. Amen.