The name of this portion, Pekudei, means “accountings” as it provides a detailed account of exactly how much gold, silver, and copper were used in the Tabernacle’s various ritual objects, vessels, sockets, pegs, and hooks, as well as how the wool, linen, stones, and gold were used in the cohanim’s garments. The first lesson we learn from this portion is that even a great leader, such as Moses, must provide an accounting of how he or she disperses public funds; no one is above the law nor can anyone deal lightly with the communal treasury.
Since the Torah’s lessons apply to each person directly, we may extrapolate and conclude that this lesson applies not only to leaders but to each and every person. The Torah is teaching us that each and every person is held accountable for his or her thoughts, speech, and action. This is a fundamental notion intrinsic to all Jewish thought. Just as the Jewish nation’s ability to erect a Tabernacle and keep it functioning is predicated upon its maintaining appropriate communal levels of righteousness and accountability, so too accountability is a prerequisite for an individual fulfilling his or her life’s mission.
In conjunction with the repetition of the word “tabernacle” (discussed in the previous section), the word “accountings” is written in the plural. This also hints to a deeper message: each person is subject to two different levels of accounting. Many explanations have been given for these two levels of accounting, some providing spiritual guidance, some exploring the theological aspects of Judaism, and some entering the mystical realms.
Attempting to provide spiritual guidance, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach teaches that there is one type of accounting for what we have done wrong and another kind of accounting for what we did right but in an unenthusiastic or perfunctory manner. Similarly, he also taught that we are judged for both those things we did and for those things we could or should have done but refrained from doing out of laziness, a lack of conviction, or callousness.
On an even deeper theological and mystical level, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, as well as the Slonimer Rebbe and other Chassidic masters, teach that each person enters this world charged with performing a certain task, mission, or rectification. Even if an individual does everything right and can account for this, the primary accounting that he or she will have to give on judgment day is whether the specific purpose for which he or she entered this world was carried out.
The Ba’al Shem Tov and the Arizal before him similarly taught that sometimes a person is reincarnated in order to fulfill one mitzvah or to perform one crucial action that will rectify a serious flaw or omission from a previous lifetime. This additional mystical notion of two levels of accounting that relate to this lifetime and previous ones is based on the belief that everything is accounted for and judged, yet sometimes that judgment, for reasons only God knows, is not meted out immediately, but rather takes effect over more than one lifetime.
As the Jewish people completed the Tabernacle’s construction and prepared for its inauguration, it is quite fitting that Moses had to provide an accounting of his actions, for this also teaches us that accountings take place at every major juncture in a person’s life, whether the person provides the accounting him or herself or God renders judgment with or without the person being aware. Ultimately, as mentioned above, each person also gives a final accounting of his or her actions to God upon leaving this world. These multiple accountings are all alluded to by the plural form of “accountings” at the beginning of this portion.
