I often get questioned about the title I’ve given to this ongoing weekly column. “Who is the person in the parsha?” readers ask. The answer takes me back to the time many years ago when I began to write the column. My original intention was to focus on a person in the Torah’s narrative who frequently is ignored by most commentators and who rarely appear in sermons from rabbinic pulpits. Devorah, Rebecca’s nursemaid, is one such example, and another is Ahaliav ben Achisamach, the amazingly skilled artisan who deserves our admiration for his role in crafting the aesthetic grandeur of the Mishkan.
“Chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek!” “Be strong, be strong, and we will be strong!” The weekly portion we read this week is Parshat Pekudei (Exodus 38:21-40:38), which comprises the concluding chapters of Sefer Shemot, the Book of Exodus. As the ba’al koreh, the Torah reader, approaches the final verses, we stand. And when he pronounces the last words, we exclaim loudly and with dramatic flourish: “Chazak, chazak…,” “Be strong, be strong…”
"Words, words, words!", he shouted at me. He was a young man, raised as an observant Jew, but now in rebellion against his traditional upbringing. His parents had asked me to meet with him for several sessions to see if I could at least temper his rebellious spirit, and perhaps even convince him to return to the path they desired him to follow.