The road to destiny – Vayakhel
The first word of the sidra is Vayakhel, “and he assembled”.
Moses brought the people of Israel together in order to chart their future.
The sages say it was the day after Yom Kippur.
The Israelites had sinned; God had seen their repentance and forgiven them. Now they had to work out how to continue with their road to destiny.
The crucial element in their journey seems to be the feeling of being a congregation, a community, an entity. Being part of each other gave them the sense of strength to proceed – one strengthened the other, and they were not a mere conglomeration of individuals but a people.
Therein lies the significance of it being the day after Yom Kippur. What Yom Kippur does for us is two things – as individuals we find God and pour out our hearts to Him, and as a community we find ourselves bound to one another.
Yom Kippur is symbolic of the Jewish people – individuals and a community.