Bezalel and the Importance of Expertise

Written by Rabbi Elliott Karstadt — 15 March 2025

With regard to this week’s portion, Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani tells a story that is recorded in the Talmud:

God told Moses to go to Bezalel and say to him, ‘Build a tabernacle, an ark, and vessels.’ Moses then went to Bezalel and said to him, ‘Build an ark and vessels, and a tabernacle.’ Bezalel replied to Moses, ‘The practice is first to build a house, and then to building things to go in it. Where would I put the vessels if I haven’t already built a house? I think maybe God said it differently to you.’ Moses realised his mistake, and makes a pun on Bezalel’s name, saying, ‘Perhaps you were in God’s shadow (betzel el), and that is why you knew that God said something different to what I told you.’

I wanted to spend some time this morning introducing us to Bezalel – the artisan who is entrusted with the building of the Mishkan – the Tabernacle, the portable Temple that the Israelites transported with them through all the long years of wandering in the wilderness.

This story about Bezalel is supposed to demonstrate his chochmah – his wisdom. And there are commentators who say that the reason Moses gave him the instructions the wrong way round was a test to see if he would prove his wisdom by correcting him. This may be too generous to Moses.

But the point is that Bezalel is endowed with great chochmah – which is translated as ‘wisdom’, but is really a very practical kind of wisdom rather than knowing deep mysteries (though our tradition teaches that Bezalel has both!)

The medieval commentator Nachmanides reads the first verse of our portion and explains why God had to say that God had endowed Betzalel with such skill – Nachmanides says: because the Israelites have just emerged from slavery, where they had worked with nothing more refined than stone and mud – they had never worked with things like gold and silver and precious stones. Indeed, it was a great miracle that even one of them was able to work with these refined materials! That’s why God introduces him: ‘He wanted Moses to see what a miracle it was, and to understand that it was God who had “endowed him” with the ability to make the Tabernacle.’

Another commentator, Ibn Ezra tells us that: ‘Bezalel understood mathematics, biology, physics, and metaphysics far beyond anyone else of his generation.’

Yet another commentator, Isaac Abarvanel, says that Moses knew that Bezalel was the best for the job, but did not want to appear to be favouring him because he was Miriam’s grandson (Moses’ great-nephew) – and so Moses waits for God to appoint him.

The conservative politician and government minister Michael Gove famously declared: ‘The British People have had enough of experts’ – of course his words were taken out of context, as his use of the word ‘expert’ was qualified. It wasn’t that he was saying to dismiss the words of experts altogether, part to draw attention to certain experts that said something he disagreed with.

One of my favourite TV shows, and one of the greatest political satires of recent years was ‘The Thich of It’, in which political bulldog Malcolm Tucker (played by Peter Capaldi) celebrates the role of experts in politics because, he says, it is easy enough to find an expert who will tell you what you want to hear. He says it’s all very well hearing from experts, but unless you have the right expert, the expert who is going to help you to make your political point, then you might as well not have an expert at all.

Having an expert to testify in favour of your course of action gives it legitimacy.

This is why, perhaps, the world has become so suspicious of experts, particularly in politics. Perhaps it is why society is so often skeptical about those who bring wisdom and skill and artistry and professionalism. If we know that people are just going to bring the expert that will agree with them and support their case, we end up tuning out what they say because it becomes staid and predictable.

Scepticism is healthy, but there is a difference between healthy scepticism, and cynicism about experts in general, which is maybe what has led us to a politics that has become based more on personal loyalty and fealty than on the recognition of professionalism and skill. We have not got the balance right.

Sonny, in your Dvar Torah, you very wisely pointed out two things: firstly, that when we built our new building here at Alyth, we delegated the responsibility of the physical building to experts – as we knew that was how we would prevent the new building from collapsing upon us as we enjoy kiddush in just a few minutes; but secondly, that the process of building community is one that everyone has the skill and ability to be part of – everyone in their own way, without there being some gold standard by which we judge a particular individual’s contribution.

Sometimes when I first meet people in the congregation they begin with an apology – they are not very good Jews – as though we as rabbis have a standard by which we are judging every member – if there is, I would not be able to articulate it. And it’s odd, because those people then tend to give me a long list of all the things they do that are profoundly Jewish, before apologising again that they are not really that involved. Everyone’s contribution to the community is going to be different and of immense importance, if their intention is right.

But expertise is important. It is important because it is what stops the building from falling down. Expertise is what helps us to make progress in preventing and curing disease; it’s what enables us to make scientific progress, produce great works of art, and resolve conflict. We dismiss expertise at our peril.

But that does not mean that the source of expertise is always obvious. There is a trap in thinking that the people with the expertise are the ones in particular positions in society.

In Pirkei Avot, the sayings of our Sages, Rabbi Shimon ben Azzai asks, ‘Who is Wise?’ and the answer is: One who learns from everyone.

So, let us be open to the unusual answer, let us be open to learning from those who we might not expect to learn from. Let us find wisdom and expertise and skill in unexpected places. But let us still hope that we can be led and nurtured with skill and expertise, and not settle for something else because we have become fed up with people telling us things we do not want to hear.

And let us learn something from everyone. Because when we do, we can build incredible things.