The Blessings of Burdens
According to the ancient Greek legend, Sisyphus angers the gods and is punished with the task of rolling a huge boulder up a steep hill. Each time he gets close to the mountaintop the stone rolls back down and Sisyphus must again start the exhausting work of pushing the boulder up the hill. Again and again, and for all time, Sisyphus must do this same task, even though there is no hope of ever completing the work. He is condemned to the eternal fate of rolling the stone up the mountain but never reaching the top.
This week we read about the building of the tabernacle. Even though the entire community contributes to the building of this mishkan, and Bezalel is the construction project’s leader, the honor of lifting the final boards into place is reserved for Moses. When God explains his privilege, our hero worries about his age and his ability to do this heavy task. He is well into his eighties at this point. (Makes me think of someone else doing some difficult and important work.) Moses protests and says, “Maybe I could have done this many years ago, but I am no longer young. I cannot lift these boards myself.”
God instructs Moses to lift them anyway. And when Moses bends down to lift the boards, it is as if they lift themselves. The midrash explains. Our hero is aided by God in doing the work of the tabernacle. We never lift by ourselves. The heaviest of lifts are assisted by God (and others, I would add). No matter how young or how old we are, when doing such holy work, it is as if the weight of the burden no longer exists. It is as if the boards are like feathers.
For Judaism, lifting is a privilege. It is not a punishment. Even if we never get to the top of the mountain, lifting is a blessing. It is not a curse.
In fact, our tradition constructs our lives around responsibilities, duties, and yes, even burdens. It is not easy carving out a day like Shabbat and even a few hours on this seventh day to leave the work week behind. It is not so simple preparing a Passover seder and its many symbolic foods. It is not always so convenient to give a tzedakah donation. (I have so many other emails to wade through!) And yet these are among our tradition’s holy tasks.
Burdens are blessings.
This is not how we tend to see things. The goal of modernity is to un-burden our lives and most especially to un-burden our children’s lives. How many newfangled devices are advertised as time savers and ways of doing away with everyday chores? Look at some of the many autonomous vacuum machines and their advertisements. “iRobot. So you can human.” Look at how we twist ourselves in knots, and throw our schedules into disarray, so our children cannot miss out on any activity or be saddled with chores.
Judaism teaches us not to let go of these burdens but instead to see them as blessings. We should not lift them for our children. But instead lift them together.
I once heard a legend about a Hasidic rebbe. One day his disciples saw him sweeping the sanctuary’s floors. His disciples were astonished. He responded that even something as mundane as cleaning the synagogue’s floors is holy work. “But rabbi,” they said, “It is beneath your stature. You could be studying. You could be teaching.” He turned to them and smiled. He continued sweeping then began singing a niggun. When done with the task, the rebbe said, “Now the sanctuary is indeed deserving of our prayers. Now the synagogue is fit for study and learning."
To be Jewish nothing is a curse. To be human nothing need feel like a burden.
Chores may feel like Sisyphus’ boulder. They are not. They are instead like the boards of the tabernacle. They may be heavy and may even seem beyond our abilities, or perhaps beneath our worthiness, but they can always be filled with meaning.
A life of meaning is predicated on duty, not leisure. Our lives are blessed with responsibilities.
Perhaps the burdens we carry we feel as light as the final boards of the mishkan.
Then again sometimes the most meaningful burdens are in fact the heaviest.