Exodus 35

From here to the end of Exodus, we get a whole lot of repetition of what we've already read. Now that the Israelites have received God's instructions on how to build the tabernacle and its various doodads, we readers get to enjoy the delights of a blow-by-blow account of the Israelites actually building and manufacturing these items. You know how certain Jews memorize the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) by age 12? Well, I can imagine how much a pain it is to memorize the instructions for the tabernacle furnishings, but at least for the last few chapters of Exodus, you can pretty much repeat those instructions and just change the verb tense.

Here, though, we do get a few new tidbits of interest. First, verse 5 says, "Everyone who is willing is to bring to the LORD an offering…." God is not bullying anyone like some minatory overlord; offering is a voluntary act. If one chose to devote one's life to God in Old Testament times, then of course one had to abide by the burnt offering stipulations and whatnot. However, it's not like God stands behind us with a cattle prod saying, "Give me your money!" And it's not always about money either; verses 25 and 26 show that the Israelites also used their talents to help prepare the materials for the tabernacle.

Intriguingly, verse 26 specifies, "All the women who were willing and had the skill spun the goat hair." Which brings up the age-old question: Why goats? Of course, I really mean the issue of those who are willing but don't have the skill. Take Ed Wood, for example--he was a film director who had a passion for moviemaking, but his films were just terrible; one in particular, Plan 9 from Outer Space, is many critics' least favorite movie of all time.

I'm glad that I don't have a passion for math, because I suck at it; I'm sure high schoolers and most middle schoolers could run rings around me, chortling with derision. And I'm also glad that I'm not a mathematical prodigy, because I find math to be such a slog. (Yes, I knew calculus once upon a time, but I'm afraid most everything beyond algebra has gone right out the window. I do remember what combination of sides and angles do NOT work for the triangle similarity theorems, because it was the one that spelled a naughty word. Also, I remember that trying to memorize the trigonometric identities sucked.)

As for my passions, I love animation, but even my stick figures look like those Jackson Pollock would draw if you asked him to draw with his foot and if said foot had the same dexterity as one that has just stepped on a LEGO brick. I have to believe that God has given each of us at least one gift that's also a passion. A smattering of kind folks--pretty much all friends and family--have intimated that my writing is at least above average, so I suppose that's my gift. But if it's not, I also have the much-vaunted skill of knowing the names of all of Steven Spielberg's films and the year each one was released.