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Vayakhel opens with the command to keep the Sabbath, raising the question about the strange order of the last five topics in the Book of Exodus: Sanctuary; Sabbath; Golden Calf; Sabbath; Sanctuary.

My father, a Holocaust slave-labor survivor of Siberia, taught me to love every part of Jewish observance as well as to respect and nod or smile at everyone I pass on the streets, and we lived in many ...