When I was a child, my parents took my siblings and me to a small, Biblical themed farm. I was quite small and I cannot remember almost anything of our visit. However, there was one special thing that I can recall very clearly. The woman who owned the farm invited us to see something amazing, prodding us that we would be impressed with what she was about to do next. She sat down by a large wooden machine, which she explained to us was a loom. For those who do not know or who cannot recall, a loom is used to turn raw threads into fabrics. Being the smallest of the group, I was invited to stand right near her as she picked up a large, fluffy white rabbit and put it on her lap. She told us that she was going to weave a fabric from the rabbit on her lap. Did we think she could do that?
We all thought that this would be impossible. Plainly, any animal whose fur was pulled would scratch, kick, claw, or, in the case of a rabbit, hop away. Of course, our host knew her business. She plucked hair after hair from the rabbit, pumping and pulling on her loom, and spun the threads into larger strings. It was a kind of magic. We pet the rabbit as it sat serenely, seemingly taking no notice that its fur was being spun into a kind of angora wool.
In our own Torah portion, focusing on the construction of the Mishkan, Moshe gathers the people together and instructs them to “[T]ake from yourselves a donation for G-d – anyone who is generous of heart should bring a donation for G-d.” (Leviticus 35:5). The people responded with great generosity, bringing whatever special raw materials they had. Special recognition was reserved for spinners of fabric:
And every woman who was wise-hearted spun with her hands, and they brought what they had spun: the blue, the purple, the worm-scarlet, and the linen. And all the women whose hearts uplifted them in wisdom spun the goat hair. (Ibid. at 25-26).
Our tradition tells us that the fabric was spun directly from live goats, much like the rabbit I was watching with my own eyes. So it appears in the Second Temple era translation and commentary, the Targum Yerushalmi:
And all of the women whose hearts were moved by wisdom would spin from goats on their bodies and comb the wool while they were yet alive.
I would like to highlight something in particular about this amazing process. Note it well: the women spun goat wool from live goats without causing the goats any pain. I think this is worthy of consideration.
You may perhaps be familiar with the phrase “creative destruction,” an idea first expressed by the economist and political thinker Joseph Schumpeter. In sum, it is a shorthand referring to the destruction that is inherent to so many processes. When something new is created, so very often something old must be destroyed.
This happens in all sorts of areas in our lives. From the printing press to the internet, from the blues to jazz to the Rolling Stones, from modes of communication and medicines to new technologies in these areas, one thing must be destroyed for another to take its place. Culturally, Starbucks, McDonalds, and the latest American movies and musical exports have replaced the stores and cultural outputs of nations and places all over the world. And yet, the gentle spinners of Israel were able to create one thing which was new without destroying another.
Two things stand out as we consider the process of creativity. First, we should appreciate creative non-destruction – creation that nurtures and grows without breaking too much. The classroom and home are not places from breaking down personalities only in order to build them up to specification. It is in these gentler spaces that seeds are planted, shoots watered, sunned, and sheltered in turn, where tall trees are eventually to be found and enjoyed.
As we go about building and planting, we must take time to consider how much uprooting and destroying are necessary. If the forming of spiritual personalities requires a soft, if firm, touch, what about our employees, business partners, and competitors? What about the people we meet in shops and on the streets? What about the people that look to us to see how we act culturally? Have we left them space to be themselves, to develop in their own ways, to keep what they have, to live in accordance with their own unique ideas and lofty traditions? Whatever we can give to good-hearted people, we should extend to them.
The second point is no less important. The modern age has indeed broken down boundaries, and the cars, architecture, and music of Berlin and Mexico City may no longer be quite so distinct as they once were. And where does that leave us? What of our own cultural, spiritual, and religious legacies? Have we made ourselves too culturally porous, too easily swayed, too white bread, too much like everybody else?
We should not mourn our accomplishments on the Western and American scene and we should not avoid Tesla or modern technologies like cultural moles. But what needs to be preserved for us to still have a sense of self? What needs to be safeguarded? We should be cognizant of the cultural creative destruction being constantly wrought in the world around us and effected on us. No less than anything else during this ongoing period of crisis, we need to gird ourselves religiously, spiritually, and culturally. Then we can ensure that we take only the best of what is being offered to us, without losing ourselves in the process.
