[Picture: Moses as a CPA... Photo by Tara Winstead from Pexels]

[For articles on the “Sabbath of Pekudei" in Hebrew, click here]

Updated on March 14, 2023

Rabbi Dr. Yossi Feintuch was born in Afula and holds a Ph.D. in American history from Emory University in Atlanta. He taught American history at Ben-Gurion University.

Author of the book US Policy on Jerusalem (JCCO).

He now serves as rabbi at the Jewish Center in central Oregon. (JCCO).

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Moses had superb and unique credentials for a personal rectitude; not only did God’s voice proclaim him to be “My servant [who] in all My house is he trusted [for] mouth to mouth do I speak with him” (Numbers 12:7-8), but we also read that God knew Moses “face to face” (Deuteronomy 34:11).   And yet, this man goes public with a detailed accounting spelling out in exact amounts all the donations given by the Israelites for the construction of the Sanctuary, from gold through silver to copper and far more, and how they were put to use (Exodus, 38:21-). Why did he have to do that?

[Picture: Moses as a CPA... Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels]

It makes sense for a charity organization that receives gifts from individuals to report its accounting if it cares about its public reputation and charity rating. But the Sanctuary was not a charity cause; it was a structure for the purpose of serving God, even when the volitional donations were “My offering” (Exodus 25:2), namely, a priori belonging to God, albeit held by individual Israelites. And since God trusted Moses absolutely, why did Moses find it necessary to provide a CPA-like report to the public about the quantities of those donations and how they were used? Well, for Moses it was not enough that only God knew that he did not pocket even an ounce of copper, nor set a pinch of silver for personal use.

Indeed, using this very example Rabbi Hanania ben Dosa will teach generations thereafter: “Everyone with whom the spirit of the people is pleased, the spirit of God is pleased with him; and everyone with whom the spirit of the people is not pleased, nor is God’s spirit pleased with him” (Pirkey Avot 3:13). In other words, that God had full confidence with Moses (e.g., “God knows that I am innocent”) was insufficient; Moses had to earn his people’s faith in his ethical conduct even as he had earned God’s. Or in the words of King Solomon: “So shall you find grace and good favor in the sight of God and man” (Proverbs 3:4). Namely, one has to earn her moral credentials with people too, in addition to God, to seal the deal about her virtue.

[Picture: Moses as a CPA... Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels]

Years later when two tribes of Israel opted to stay on the eastern side of the Jordan River (where no military conflict was anticipated), and not to enter the Promised Land, they chose to assign their warriors not only to be embedded within the other troops of Israel, but to be in their vanguard – up there in the very frontier line of the battlefield – so that their participation in the collective military effort to conquer the land “will be clear of the Lord and of Israel” (Numbers 32:22), or be noticed by the people too.

This verse has become a standard imperative in Jewish ethics: a person, and how much more so one who handles public funds, must do the utmost to avoid any suspicion in the eyes of the public. The need to appease the public’s collective mind is required due to peoples’ innate proclivity to engage in gossip and to badmouth folks who handle the public treasury, or other leaders. Ahem, Moses felt it himself; according to the Tanhumah Midrash when the Torah notes: “And so, when Moses would go out to the Tent, all the people… wood look after Moses…” (Exodus 33:8), they did so with malice.  “Look at his neck” the people would say to each other, “and look at his thighs” -- intimating that Moses looked robust and fit because he could afford the best food with money that he embezzled from the community… And others retorted: “Wouldn’t you expect that from the very person who handled the donations for the Sanctuary? Wouldn’t you expect him to be enriched?”

[The original image is a free image - CC0 Creative Commons - designed and uploaded by dansamu to Pixabay]

Having overheard such merciless slanders Moses decided right away to provide a full and exhaustive report about the gifts that the people gave for the building of the Tent of Meeting and for the making of its accessories.  To be clear and innocent in the eyes of the people, and not only in the eyes of Heaven has been a key principle of conduct – a high bar of proper standard especially for leaders -- since Moses set it in by providing full transparency with “the accounts of the tabernacle, even the tabernacle of the testimony, as they were rendered according to the commandment of Moses” (Exodus 38:21).