Scientific Perfection
"The Manhattan Project." A name of the most famous science project in history - the project that the United States embarked on to create the atom bomb.
In the 1980’s two individuals from Cleveland, OH set out to create a science project that would dwarf even the Manhattan Project.
The background to this unknown bit of history takes place sometime in the 1980’s. Two young brilliant minds in Mr. Pollard’s science class in the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland were tasked with creating a science project for the yearly science fair that the 7th grade put on every year. One of the young fellows was I and the other was my cousin and best friend, Eliyahu Koval (yes, the Rabbi's brother).
Heady with excitement, we ran home from school that day and began tossing different ideas back and forth. We got our mothers to drive us to the local library (remember those days before the internet?) and we began to pull out books. We had all sorts of lofty ideas as to what we would create, ranging from creating a real time machine to a robot that would clean your room for you (a top-3 wish for any 12-year-old boy). We were determined to put together the best science project the school, nay, the world had ever seen. We would make the Manhattan project look like tinker toys!
Being 12-year-old boys, those plans and excitement lasted for the time it took us to look at two science books. By our 3rd book we were already reading books about the Cleveland Indians and Encyclopedia Brown. The science project quickly faded to the back of our minds (and I mean the WAY BACK of our minds).
Fast forward two months to a Sunday afternoon. The aforementioned two science prodigies were sitting around doing what 12-year-olds do best: nothing. All of a sudden it hit us – the science project! It was due the next day! YIKES!! Gone were the well-intentioned plans of time machines and robots. At this point we had 12 hours to come up with something, ANYTHING!
We decided we were going to make a volcano. Our aspirations renewed, we dreamed of making a miniature Mt. Saint Helens.
We commissioned my younger brother who was a 7 and who looked up to us two “big” guys as being cooler than anyone, including Superman, to do our grunt work. After all, we weren’t about to waste our ENTIRE Sunday just to do this silly school project! (Before you get all sanctimonious at my taking advantage of a younger brother, if you had a younger sibling I’m willing to bet you did something similar!). So we gave my brother Moshe the nickname “Messenger Mo” and sent him to the yard to dig up as much dirt as he could while we played ball. When he began to slack off (and show signs of getting wise to the idea and wanting to quit) we coolly changed his moniker to “MM” which stood for Messenger Mo. The new level of coolness and realization that his older brother and cousin must have REALLY liked him energized him further and he continued with doing the dirty work for us (pun intended).
By some miracle, with the help of MM and contributions from myself and Eliyahu we put together a volcano, complete with “lava” (in the form of baking soda and vinegar) and “fire” (sparklers).
We brought our creation to school on Monday and when it was our turn to demonstrate our project we proudly marched up to Mr. Pollard’s desk and set it down. “And what is that?” asked Mr. Pollard. “A volcano,” we proudly declared, shocked that anyone who had a working pair of eyes couldn’t figure that out simply by looking at it.
We proceeded to demonstrate how it worked while Mr. Pollard and the rest of the class waited with bated breath.
Saying it resembled nothing like Mt. Saint Helens is akin to saying my 4-year-old’s painting from school resembled nothing like the Mona Lisa. The only thing our volcano had in common with a real volcano is that it caused our teacher to blow his top. For starters, the sparklers were a complete dud and fizzled out after 3 seconds. The lava was more like a cup of vinegar spilling all over (we must not have had enough baking soda) and it caused all of the dirt to get wet and run all over Mr. Pollard’s desk.
To make a long story short, we didn’t exactly ace the project (I think we got a D). What began with lofty ideas ended with a dramatically different outcome looking nothing like the original plans.
This week’s parsha tells us that the Jewish people, led by Moshe, constructed the Tabernacle “the way they were commanded to.” What’s puzzling is how the Torah goes into great detail enumerating the various parts of the Tabernacle and saying by each one that it was constructed “as they were commanded to do.” Why would the Torah, which is known for its brevity, go to such lengths to tell us this? It would have sufficed to sum it all up in one sentence – “And the Jewish people constructed the Tabernacle just as they were commanded.” Why was it necessary to repeat every part of the edifice and say it was done as it was supposed to be?
It is rare for a project, particularly one involving construction, to be completed and carried out precisely as it was intended at the outset. Usually there will be a small fraction that was not done according to the original plans. Such leeway is fine for a personal project like a science project or even when constructing a house. But when it comes to building a dwelling for G-d it must be perfect! There can be no deficiencies. And that is why the Torah goes to great lengths to tell us that each component of the Tabernacle was done completely as originally planned.
The lesson for is is when there is some work to be done on your house or in your physical possessions and it is not 100% perfect, don’t fret. But when it comes to spiritual matters, make sure you do as perfect a job as possible.
And when your child tells you they have to make a science project tell them to call me, I have a great idea for them! Maybe I can even get Messenger Mo out of retirement!
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Yosef Koval
