Shabbat Shalom, yesterday we had the honor of hosting guests for the first time for a Kabbalat Shabbat at “Beit Bina” (Bina House) in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. It was a very moving moment for us to see our garden filled with people, in the middle of the jungle, so far from home.

Those who have been following our journey know that for over two years now, we, as a family, have been constantly on the move around the world. At one of our stops, when we were in Japan, we were exposed to a beautiful and profound local philosophy called “Wabi-Sabi”.

Wabi-Sabi is a worldview that finds beauty precisely in things that are imperfect, transient, and even a little flawed or broken. Instead of seeking glittering, cold, and symmetrical perfection, the Japanese celebrate the cracks, the natural wear and tear, and the authenticity of life as it truly is. They understand that these flaws do not diminish the value of the thing, but rather the opposite – they tell its true story and make it much more unique and precious.

As I sat down to write something about the weekly Torah portion, Parshat Ki Tisa, I realized that it contains a moment that is perhaps the greatest “Wabi-Sabi” of our tradition.

The portion describes one of the peak moments, immediately followed by the greatest rupture of the Exodus from Egypt. Moses descends from Mount Sinai with the Tablets of the Covenant – a divine creation, absolute and flawless perfection. But as he approaches the camp and sees the people celebrating around the Golden Calf, he realizes that this divine perfection cannot survive the encounter with complex human reality. Out of immense anger and heartbreak, Moses throws down the tablets and shatters them into pieces.

But here is where the truly interesting thing happens. God does not tell Moses to sweep the fragments aside and forget about them. Our tradition teaches that “whole tablets and broken tablets lie in the Ark.” The Ark of the Covenant, the most sacred object for the people of Israel, contained the second, whole tablets, but right next to them lay the fragments of the first tablets.

Moreover, the second tablets were no longer God’s handiwork. Moses carved them himself from earthly raw material. They were human-made – perhaps less symmetrical, less “perfect”. The Torah is essentially telling us something amazing here: true holiness is not found in flawless perfection that falls from the heavens, but rather in what we, humans, create with effort, with all our flaws and shortcomings.

And this brings me back here, to us, to the Kabbalat Shabbat that took place yesterday. Many of the guests who came to us are on a kind of journey. Traveling, moving between cultures, and living in a temporary and transient reality of backpacks and suitcases, whether physically or mentally. Each of us arrived here with our “whole tablets” – the hopes, joys, and amazing experiences we’ve gathered along the way. But we all also bring our “fragments” – the longing, the difficulties, the weaknesses, and the complexity of what it means to be part of our people, with our Israeli and Jewish identity.

Establishing Beit Bina here in Costa Rica is not an attempt to build a perfect community. The connection of our people has never been based on perfection. A true community is one that embraces human Wabi-Sabi. It is the place where we lay our fragments and our wholes together, in the very same ark, and discover that this imperfect mosaic we are creating here together is the most sacred, beautiful, and authentic thing there is.

Thank you to everyone who came to share their fragments and wholes with us. Shabbat Shalom!

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)