This week culminates in Shabbat HaChodesh, the New Moon of the first month (March 16–17), which means Passover comes only two weeks later, at the full moon. Now, New Moon might sound like an esoteric topic in our high-tech urban world, but we’ll see that it’s actually most relevant—not just to the simple agricultural life of our ancestors, but to our lives as well.

God is a specific God. He loves details. He shares these details with his servants. His children hear his voice and they obey. This week’s parashah deals with many details of the building of the mishkan (tabernacle). It reminds me of building Legos as a kid.

In Parashat Ki Tisa the Israelites are in the desert waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain. Until this point the narrative has moved rapidly: the enslavement of Israel, the calling of Moses, the drama of the plagues, the events of the first Pesach, the Exodus itself, the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, and traveling through the desert to Mt. Horeb. Suddenly, the fast-paced and miraculous events have stopped. Israel waits.

A good friend writes, “Clothing is a prominent theme throughout the Bible.” Clothing is significant throughout Scripture, from the clothes God designed for Adam and Chavah in the Garden (Gen 3:21), to the wedding gown of the bride for her marriage to the Lamb (Rev 19:8). At times it provides covering against the elements, and at other times it serves as a symbol of rank or status.

God is the God of order and we see the divine recipe in Leviticus 24:7–8: “Also, you are to take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes of it, with two tenths of an ephah in each cake. Then you are to set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before Adonai. Set pure frankincense on each row, as a memorial portion for the bread, an offering by fire to Adonai.”

Let’s start with a sore subject: losing things. Wallets. Car keys. Expensive smart phones. IPads. Computers even. And sometimes we lose something to which we feel especially attached. We look everywhere and come to the grim realization that the object is gone. What happens then? Anger. Sadness. Self-reproach. Our loss is more than financial.

But all is not dark.

Our parasha contains that momentous occasion when our people received the Torah at Mount Sinai. Due to the centrality of this pivotal moment in Jewish history, the rabbis have scrutinized, pondered, and debated every minute detail. One of their questions was, “How did they know that it was God speaking to them?”

Imitatio Dei, the imitation of God, is an idea with a long history in both the Jewish and Christian worlds (it’s a Latin phrase after all), and with surprising relevance today. From a Jewish perspective Imitatio Dei sounds like real chutzpah—which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Bo knows.” About 20 years ago, Bo Jackson was a superstar athlete who played both baseball and football, and played them well. Nike picked him up and marketed his talent and prestige with the slogan that he knew what was going on. And so, this parasha, Bo, knows what’s going on.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other word would smell as sweet.

Shakespeare’s famous soliloquy has Juliet asking why Romeo has to be called by that name, by that family. But what’s in a name, indeed?