I was invited to give the d’var Torah (literally, “a word of Torah,” but in practice an essay on the week’s Torah portion, or parsha) at our synagogue last night.

This week’s parsha is Vayak’hel-Pekudei (it’s actually a double portion–you can read about what that means here) if you want the context for my remarks, which I titled “On Being Too Generous.”

Thanks to Rabbi Barry Block for the opportunity.

On Being Too Generous

This week’s parsha—actually a double parsha, a generous serving—offers us a mixed message.

It begins with Moses reminding the Israelites that G-d has commanded them to observe Shabbat, and not to kindle fire on that day. Interestingly, he says: “These are the things that the Eternal has commanded you to do” (my emphasis), as if these were the only things G-d had ever commanded. Moses’s phrasing tells us how important these particular commandments are. Above all else we are enjoined to observe the day of rest.

But the Israelites do not rest. In fact, they do just the opposite. For the very next thing Moses says puts them to work. G-d, Moses says, has also commanded that “everyone whose heart is so moved” shall bring gifts for the Eternal. He names a long list of precious objects that the people might bring: gold, silver, and copper; beautiful yarns and linens; animal skins and acacia wood; oils and incense. I’m interested in this commandment that apparently doesn’t apply to everyone—only “everyone whose heart is so moved” is commanded to bring what he or she can. What does it mean to command something for only a few? Aren’t the commandments for everyone? Maybe a gift that doesn’t come from a moved heart isn’t really a gift. Or maybe this way of putting it is Moses’s strategy for making everyone participate. After all, who wants to admit to being unmoved? Whatever the case, the commandment works. In fact, we soon learn, it works almost too well.

The gifts will be used to make the mishkan, the tabernacle, as well as the priestly vestments for Aron and his sons. Many commentators note that by beginning with a reminder of the commandment to observe Shabbat the parsha implicitly connects this creative work with the creation of the world itself.

Which is another way of saying that what is happening in the desert here is really important.

No wonder, then, that the Israelites are so generous with their gifts. In fact, they are too generous. They keep bringing gifts “morning after morning” until the master craftsmen who are leading the project have to talk to Moses about it: “The people,” the craftsmen say, ”are bringing more than is needed for the tasks entailed in the work that the Eternal has commanded to be done.” Moses responds immediately:

Moses thereupon had this proclamation made throughout the camp: “Let no man or woman make further effort toward gifts for the sanctuary!” So the people stopped bringing: their efforts had been more than enough for all the tasks to be done.

I’m really struck by this demand to stop giving. It seems counterintuitive to me. I would have thought the more gifts the better; the more gifts the more powerful the sign of the Israelites’ recognition of G-d. But that’s apparently not the case. Which leads me to wonder: can we ever be too generous?

Some people are instinctively and openly generous. I married someone like that. But some people, like me, aren’t. Not that we’re cheap or defensive or selfish. But we fear the toll that giving takes on us, emotionally, physically, maybe even financially. Do I have it in me to give? I ask myself that question a lot. This week’s parsha might be saying: an important part of giving is knowing when to stop giving. Not because we’re lazy or selfish or protective of what we have, but because we need to recognize our limits.

This isn’t the only place in our tradition where we find the exhortation to value what we have, what we have done, and what we are capable of doing rather than what we don’t have, what we haven’t yet done, and what we feel we should be able to do. I’m reminded in particular, as Passover approaches, of dayenu—the principle of sufficiency we shout out in joyous song. Dayenu is less about making do or being satisfied with whatever crumbs the world gives us than it is about valuing the meaning of what is and what has been given.

Giving, the parsha suggests, is a kind of doing. The Israelites’ problem isn’t that all their gifts are getting in the way of the craftsmen’s ability to work. Giving, in this story, isn’t an inferior or second-rate version of doing, the way we sometimes criticize ourselves for writing a check instead of, say, marching at the Capitol. Rather, the Israelites’ problem is that they’ve given more gifts than the craftsmen could ever possibly need. Some kind of proportion or balance has been undone. As the text puts it, the people bring “more than is needed,” “their efforts have been “more than enough.” That surfeit, that plenitude, that extra just isn’t needed. And it counters the point of the gifts, which is to allow us to honour G-d.

So it turns out that what I thought was a mixed message is in fact quite consistent. We must be busy, we must be generous, we must gather the particular gifts we have to give. But then we have to stop giving. We have to appreciate what we’ve done and what we’ve made possible. If we give too much we’re actually doing harm, making a problem for ourselves and for others. What attracts me about this week’s parsha is that it’s not a lesson about overweening pride or about the inevitability of scarcity. It’s pleasantly un-punitive. It’s as generous in its thinking about generosity as the Israelites are. No one is harmed by the Israelites’ generosity—except maybe the Israelites themselves. Once they stop bringing more and more they are able—as the parsha goes on to do at great length—to admire the beautiful creation that comes from their gifts. And to do that, they—and we—need to stop kindling our literal and metaphorical fires and observe the literal and metaphorical Shabbats in our lives.

If we rest from our giving, the parsha explains, it’s only so that we can gain the gift of our rest.

Shabbat shalom!