Audited accounts – P’kudei
Checking the income and expenditure of the Tabernacle-building project required careful auditing, which is the major feature of the Torah passage this Shabbat.
How interesting it is to see God as an accountant, one more area of His professional expertise to add to literary references to God as a doctor (Ani HaShem rofecha), God as a lawyer (E-l orech din), God as a shepherd (HaShem ro’i) and so on.
None of these descriptions can be taken literally. They are metaphors which acclaim God’s wisdom and His headship in every area of life.
We may be good with words but we are unable to find words to define the nature of God. We cannot articulate His attributes of essence. All we can do is to suggest His attributes of activity – not what He is but what He does.
God in Himself is unique: as the prayer book says, not even if all the seas were ink and all the feathers were pens could we describe His true nature.
