I Have Questions – A poem for Parsha Vayakhel

He made the sacrificial Altar out of acacia wood. ~ Exodus 38:1

I’ve read the complete accounting of
the making of the tabernacle
and I have questions.

It says he made dozens of times
but is suspect as to exactly who
he was when the hes came along.

Where did he get all the things
to make the things? Slaves bolted
out of Egypt with all the

purple linen they could carry?
Could they have had time to
let the dough rise if they weren’t

so busy grabbing precious fabrics?
They were using a lot of acacia wood.
Was this history’s first deforestation?

Was this the world’s first tabernacle?
I bet I could look that up. Okay, I looked it up.
It was not the world’s first tabernacle.

That’s actually all the questions I have.
If you have questions you’d like me to
pass along in a future poem

please send them. But It may be another
seven years before I get back to this text.
If I live that long. I hope to, of course.

By then you may have built your own tabernacle.
All the instructions are there for you.
If you have enough acacia wood,

you can do anything.

Rick Lupert, a poet, songleader and graphic designer, is the author of 28 books including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion.” Visit him at www.JewishPoetry.net