Pekudei (Seven Turns)

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 Whenever the cloud [of God’s presence] was taken up from over the Tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on each stage of their journey; but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Holy One was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel throughout all of the stages of their journeys.

                                                            (Exodus 40:34-38)

Seven turns on the highway,
Seven rivers to cross.
Sometimes, you feel like you could fly away,
Sometimes, you get lost.

Somebody's calling your name.
Somebody's waiting for you.
Love is all that remains the same,
That's what it's all coming to. . .

                                                            (Allman Brothers, “Seven Turns”)

This book of Exodus, which begins in the darkest of times with the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, concludes on a high note in this week’s Torah portion, Pekudei.  Moses completes the work of building the mishkan, the portable sanctuary/tabernacle that the people will carry over their forty years of wandering in the wilderness.  As he finishes this sacred labor, the Israelites experience the Divine Presence within their midst—represented by a cloud by day and fire by night—which will accompany them through every stage of their long journey, guiding and guarding over them.

In his commentary Netivot Shalom, the 20^th century Hasidic master Rabbi Shalom Berezovsky notes that while the building of the mishkan and the journey that follows is a collective endeavor, each individual Israelite experiences her/his own passage.  He writes:

“Before the eyes of all the house of Israel throughout all of the stages of their journeys—This refers to the forty-two stages of travel [or camp sites] of the Israelites in the wilderness, through which each Jew also travels. . . Only when we strive to sanctify ourselves, to make ourselves a mishkan, does this protection accompany us in all of the multifaceted forms of the forty-two stage journey, the trials and crises through which we pass in life.”

In other words, the communal wilderness journey provides a lens through which each of us can view our own lives.  We all travel through our allotted time in stages, experiencing joys and sorrows, peaks and valleys, obstacles and assistances.  We voyage together, yet everyone has their own path.  For each of us, the Promised Land that always lies just on the horizon looks a little different. 

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The Allman Brothers Band employ this same metaphor to great effect in their 1990 song “Seven Turns.”  We begin in the wilderness, with its dual sense of endless possibility and deep disorientation:

Seven turns on the highway

Seven rivers to cross

Sometimes you feel like you could fly away

Sometimes you get lost

Just as the Israelites had the fire and the cloud, so do we have guiding lights that help point the way.   Each of us has a path that we can choose to follow—or not:

And sometimes in the dark of night

You see the crossroad sign

One way is the morning light

You got to make up your mind

We get a soaring slide guitar solo from Warren Haynes, which lifts us toward the Promised Land, then end with the repeating chorus, a powerful affirmation of the journey’s ultimate purpose:

Somebody's calling your name.
Somebody's waiting for you.
Love is all that remains the same,
That's what it's all coming to. . .

And so we travel on, next week, to the book of Leviticus.

Chazak, chazk, v’nitchazek—Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened!

To hear the Allman Brothers performing “Seven Turns”:

And for a Spotify playlist of all the songs featured for the book of Exodus: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6tvS8zp9gFNqEwxUUOWUwj