Sefer Shemot

Parshat Vayakhel: On Being Wise-Hearted

In Parshat Vayakhel, or “And he assembled,” Moses gathers all the Israelites and gives them instructions for building the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, God’s traveling dwelling place. Effectively, the entire Torah portion is devoted to this task, and we learn quickly that it’s one that requires a “chacham lev,” a person with a “wise heart.”  

In Exodus 35, Moshe tells us: 

And let every wise-hearted man among you come and make all that the Lord has commanded. 1

These references to the “wise-hearted” show up over and over again in this parshah. 

Chapter 35 continues:  

And all the women that were wise-hearted spun with their hands, and brought what they had spun: the blue, and the purple, the scarlet, and the fine linen. And all the women whose heart stirred them up with wisdom spun the goats’ hair. 2

Then chapter 36 begins: 

And Bezalel and Oholiab shall work, and every wise-hearted man, in whom the Lord has put wisdom and understanding to know how to perform all the work for the service of the sanctuary, according to all that the Lord has commanded.

The context of this “chacham lev” phrase indicates that being “wise-hearted” means having some kind of God-given talent for a certain job. The Talmud takes this position in Tractate Shabbat, teaching that the wisdom the women needed to spin goats’ hair was greater than the wisdom and ability the women needed for spinning wool, 3 as the term “whose heart stirred them up with wisdom” only appears regarding goats’ hair. Rashi comments, “This required extraordinary skill, for they spun it… from off the backs of the goats (while it was still on the living animals).” 4

However, a more spiritual way we can look at being chacham lev is that one’s mind and heart ought to be in sync. Our minds should bring wisdom to our hearts, and in return, our hearts should bring wisdom to our minds—all as we use our full selves to do what it is commanded of us in the world. 

But what does that have to do with the Mishkan? We’re merely asking people to donate their time, resources, and labor, which doesn’t necessarily involve being a person of exceptional internal character. The point, though, is that what we give to the world needs to be given through the prism of compassion. Perhaps it’s not only our talents that make us “wise-hearted,” but the kavanah, the intention, with which we use them.  

This is especially relevant at this point in Jewish story. The Israelites are being trained as ex-slaves. This is the first time we have the autonomy to be givers, and we are being trained to give with this level of sophistication and nuance, with skill from both the head and the heart. 

What’s interesting about the phrase “wise-hearted” is that wisdom and the heart are often thought of as being in tension. Wisdom is associated with the brain. And the heart is considered at times to be the source of unhelpful emotion, an obstacle for the brain to overcome. 

We’re often told to make sure we’re thinking with our head instead of our heart. There’s the common trope that “facts don’t care about your feelings,” which, when we strip away the rhetoric, is just an assertion that someone’s heart is too intertwined with their thinking, as if they have to choose one or the other. 

Here, the Torah gives us an opposite way of thinking, saying our brains should inform our hearts and our hearts should inform our brains. We need our full God-given human capacities to be contributing to the work of our lives.   

While that might sound exhausting—giving all of both our head and our heart—it’s actually more efficient. It’s precisely having multiple capacities, a synergy of our faculties, that prevents burnout and fatigue.  

Rabbi Dr. Marc Gopin argues that, while empathy is imperative, it can lead to imbalance. In his view, compassionate reasoning is the trait that embodies both the heart and the mind. He writes: 

Here is the key linkage of compassion and reasoning. The more compassionate you are as a person, the more you are energized to use logic and reasoning, the whole of your mind and capacities, in order to care for others in the best way possible. 5

Overreliance on empathy can be paralyzing to those who are deeply compassionate. It’s an emotional overload if you feel too much. Conversely, brilliant people who at the same time are not compassionate, or do not allow their empathy to be a factor in their decision making, can do horrific things. We need to combine high-level reasoning with deeply emotional compassion. 

The Jewish tradition is fully aware of this need to nurture both wisdom and the heart. There are streams of Torah study that focus heavily on logic, and there are wisdom traditions that apply such learning directly to the spiritual-emotional life. The goal, then, of much of our Jewish practice, whether it’s influenced by hasidut, the Musar movement, or some other school of thought, is to harness the power of habit to behaviorally condition the self by unifying the heart and mind. 

This concept is expressed best in the Shema, our source for the tradition of tefillin being bound to our hearts (by placing it on the arm, opposite the heart) and to our heads (between our eyes). It says in Deuteronomy 6: 

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart… And you shalt bind them for a sign upon your arm, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. 6

So much of our work to try to improve the world is often devoid of both the head and the heart. There’s urgency to act, and sometimes not enough space is given to either the processing of emotions or to the intellectual analysis of the problems at hand. For that reason, activist programs need a deep commitment to learning, to the cultivation of emotional intelligence, and to bringing it all together through leadership development. 

At a glance, that seems like a lot to ask for, but the contributions of the wise-hearted proved beyond sufficient for the Jews in this week’s parshah. Exodus 36 says:

The people were bringing more than was needed for the tasks entailed in the work that the Lord had commanded to be done… Their efforts had been more than enough for all the tasks. 7

The concept of chacham lev, or being wise-hearted, thus shows us that by using all of one’s innate abilities, by joining our mind with our heart, and by working in tandem with other wise-hearted individuals, we can greatly increase our potential to fulfill our mission in this world. 

Sources

  1. Exodus 35:10
  2. Shemot 35:25-26
  3. Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 99a
  4. Rashi on Exodus 5:26:1
  5. Marc Gopin, Compassionate Reasoning (2022), p. 8 (pagination is based on a Word document).
  6. Deuteronomy 6:5-8
  7. Exodus 36: 5-7