Dvar Torah delivered on a Thursday morning

Vayakhel Moshe et kol adat bnei Yisrael: Moshe gathers the Israelites and reminds them to keep shabbat, then describes the needs of the mishkan and puts out a call for donations. And the donations come flowing in until the artisans involved come to Moshe and say, "enough, tell the people to stop donating." So Moshe tells the people to stop giving, and they do. Then the artisans continue their work in constructing the elaborate mishkan.

Wait, rewind that back?

Moshe has to tell them to stop giving.

Stop giving!?
We've all tried lobbying for volunteers before,
fund raising,
even just trying to rustle up a gabbai before minyan actually starts--
we love you, Jes.

We've all been in that position,
it's like herding cats, and sometimes
you just end up doing it all
yourself.

We all give. In fact,
We give a lot.
The fact that all of you are awake
And sitting here right now
Listening to me
Proves that.

We give a lot.
We're busy, we're exhausted, we're broke, and sometimes,
we just have nothing left to give.
So how can Torah seemingly ask of us
to give any more?

But that's not what it's asking.

In that moment, at that time, every single Israelite turned into
Us.
Each of them was there, ready
To give everything they had to this project
And was it for the sake of the mishkan that Moshe asked them to stop giving?
Or because they were giving too much,
Each one according to their means?

Rambam tells us to give tzedaka
But not enough to impovrish ourselves.

If the concern was not for the Mishkan but for the people,
Why did it take the skilled laborers to make Moshe aware that there was a problem?
Because as the leader of such an enthusiastic people,
Moshe gave the most,
and was left with
the least.
So someone else had to say to him,
Stop
It's too much
stop
working
so hard.

So Moshe commands us: enough already!
Give, yes, of course,
Give as much as you can
Without impovrishing yourself.
Sometimes, even when it seems that others
aren't giving as much as you
or aren't giving enough
It's okay to rest
It's okay to take a breather
read a romance novel
play a videogame.

I'm not saying, God forbid,
to give up;
we all have those projects that but for us
are never going to get done
Give to them, yes,
But give judiciously.
Don't give your relationship.
Don't give your family.
Don't give your health.
Give,
but don't burn yourself
out

You're still in the desert. If you burn out now,
You'll have no strength left for when you cross the Jordan
and the real work
begins.