| Vayakhel
“Moshe gathered the entire congregation of Israel and said to them” (Shemot 35:1). It is extremely rare that the Torah records Moshe speaking to the Jewish people. Rather, it is G-d who speaks to Moshe instructing him to bring his message to the Jewish people. Presumably, that is what Moshe would then do, but the Torah does not actually record such. Why then does Moshe, on his own initiative, gather the people and actually talk to them? What was so important that he had to gather “the entire nation of Israel”?
One might assume that Moshe had some new critical piece of information to share with the people. Yet that does not seem to be the case. Moshe tells them that they may not “work” on shabbat, something that they knew quite well. In fact, up to this point it was the most repeated part of the Torah[1]. Even before receiving the Torah the people were told that shabbat was special and manna bread would not fall on this day. Shabbat is the longest and most detailed of the Ten Commandments and is mentioned again in parshat Mishpatim (Shmeot 23:12), parshat Ki-Tissa (Shemot 31:12-17) and now here again. For this he had to gather the entire nation!
Clearly, there was little need to tell them about shabbat and that was not the reason he gathered the people.
Less than six months had passed from the Exodus to Moshe coming down the with the second set of tablets, having obtained forgiveness from G-d. Any yet Moshe spent 120 of those days, or some 70% of the time, away from the people. If there ever was a time the people needed handholding this was it. And yet he is nowhere to be found.
Moreover, he spent that time literally and figuratively in the clouds, talking with G-d. If the gulf between the human and the divine is unbridgeable and Moshe is about as close to the divine as one can get, he is almost by definition out of touch with the people. “And it came to pass when Moshe descended from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moshe's hand and Moshe did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while He had spoken with him” (Shemot 34:29). Living in the clouds, rendezvousing with G-d, “eating no bread or water for forty days” (Shemot 34:28) he had no idea that there was anything unusual about him. And for one who spoke to G-d that is true.
But Moshe was the leader of the Jewish people, people who for hundreds of years had no connection to anything divine. And to prove that having a connection to the divine cannot happen overnight, they built a golden calf to substitute for G-d. Is it any wonder the people – and that includes Aharon – could not relate to Moshe. “And Aharon and all the children of Israel saw Moses and behold! The skin of his face had become radiant, and they were afraid to come near him” (Shemot 34:30). It is hard, nay impossible, to lead a nation when the people of the nation are afraid to approach their “leader”.
Moshe sadly had little connection to the people. He may have redeemed them, led them in song after the splitting of the sea, brought them to Sinai, but what he had not done – and the people likely felt he was incapable of doing - was to speak with the people. He may have “spoken face to face with G-d, as one speaks to his fellow” (Shemot 33:11), but he did not actually speak to his fellow Jews.
When Moshe first arrives in Egypt it is Aharon who speaks to the elders of Israel. Not surprisingly, Moshe remains silent. When he does speak (regarding the instructions for the night of the Exodus) Moshe speaks to the elders only. When they arrive at the sea with the Egyptians on their heels, G-d tells Moshe to stop crying to Him and “speak to the Jewish people to journey forth” (Shemot 14:16). But there is no record of Moshe actually speaking to the people. When the people first complain to Moshe (and Aharon) about the lack of food and water (Shemot 16:3) Moshe is silent. When the Jewish people again complain about the lack of water Moshe does finally speak to the people. “Why are you arguing with me? Why are you testing G-d? (Shemot 17:2). Not a very auspicious beginning.
Moshe does have a very nice conversation with his visiting father-in-law, but with the people little more than silence. When G-d presents His covenant Moshe relays is to the elders. When he does speak to the people it’s to tell the men to separate from their wives for three days. Not exactly prime conversation.
Moshe had claimed that he was not an ish devarim, a man of words. As demonstrated time and time again Moshe was a most effective orator – able to convince G-d to change His mind. But he clearly had difficulty speaking to the average person and hence wanted out of G-d’s planned mission.
The sin of the golden calf not only changed the peoples’ relationship with G-d it changed Moshe's relationship to the people. At long last he realized that he would need to connect to the people. He thus gathers “the entire nation of the people of Israel”. What he said was almost irrelevant. It was the gathering of the people that mattered most.
Moshe understood that now is not the time to teach some new law. Rather, he told them a law they were most familiar with – helping to as we might say, break the ice. And that is followed by a repetition of the Mishkan highlighting the new and resorted relationship of G-d and the people – testimony to the great leadership of Moshe. Moshe understood that leadership is about building connections, bringing people together in a shared mission. The world is in need of many who aspire to be like Moshe.
[1] It would be overtaken by the command to be kind to strangers (and converts) – because we were strangers in the land of Egypt.