We are the material of the mishkan

In the midst of war, how does the Torah portion speak to us? As a Jewish American, I can’t even answer that question because it contains an “us”. How can there be an us when my life is so different from yours? How can I possibly imagine the stress of living in my homeland, under a barrage of missiles, under the threat of annihilation that seems constant?

Yet, the Torah binds us together. Despite being thousands of miles apart, we are joined by a common sacred teaching which is eternal and speaks to us in a language we are meant to understand. So, how can we hold both things to be true at the same time?

One truth is that there are no times like these in Israel. Children going in and out of bomb shelters, living a life that changes moment by moment, accepting this far-fetched reality as a state of being. And there are also no times like these in the United States, where Jew hatred has reached proportions I haven’t seen in my lifetime. Shootings, killings, molestations, in American synagogues and streets.

The other truth is that we can’t know the final story, or what is in the grand plan. We have to pray, to believe, to know that our Torah’s message is true, that we will survive this as a people.  This is the message we can take from Vayakhel – Pekudei.

Here are chapters upon chapters of construction detail: acacia wood and fine linen, blue and purple and crimson yarn, silver sockets and gold clasps, loops and hooks and the careful dimensions of curtains. At times, it reads like a contractor’s invoice. Every measurement from Terumah and Tetzaveh is now reported again and this time, implemented.

But the Mishkan is not about materials, it’s the context for an encounter, reflective of the people who built it. When Bezalel [בְּצַלְאֵ֛ל] is appointed as master craftsmen for the Mishkan, it’s as if his very name winks at a deeper meaning. His name seems to be an amalgamation of  “B’tzelem Elohim [בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹקים], meaning In the Image of G-d. Each person helps build the community, and does so willingly, by bringing their own unique gifts. They’re constructing a structure, but as a vessel. It’s their communal efforts that result in the space where Hashem dwells. In the act of building, contributing, each in their own way, they become one. Different but unified.

This is the realization of individual potential in the service of Hashem. Bezalel is filled with chochma, bina, v’da’at — wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, all aspects of human capacity to reach the highest of heights. We can learn from this that our gifts and talents need this level of work in order to serve a higher purpose. Da’at is a form of knowing that goes beyond the surface, beyond differences of opinion, beyond the temporal to a recognition of an inner reality.

The Israelites, freshly out of Egypt, stood at Sinai and received a prohibition: no graven images. Forty days later, waiting for Moses, their donations of gold were formed into a calf. Melting gold is faster than becoming a person, easier than doing the inner work of shaping yourself into a vessel worthy of the divine presence. The sin was numerous in reasons, and almost incomprehensible. Partially, it was an attempt to short circuit the slow, demanding work of forming a community worthy of being in the image of the Holy.

The Mishkan is the corrective. It asks the same people, those recently liberated but not yet freed from limitations, to try again. Not to make something holy, but to become a community through which holiness can dwell. Every donated gem, every carefully sewn curtain, every hour of skilled labor is an act of self-offering.

But the work is not solitary. Vayakhel means “and he assembled.” Moses gathers the people before a single piece is built, before anyone brings a gift. Because the first material of the Mishkan has to be the community itself.

The differences between our communities in Israel and America are many, and in recent years, has gotten stretched and pulled where those ties have begun to fray. American Jews can no longer assume that all are in support of Israel. Horrifically, antizionism is a descriptive term used when speaking about our own. The farthest left and right in my country have taken shots at demonizing the state I love. We have much work to do.

Yet, we have to believe that at our core, we are one. The Torah tells us that when we realize that, will we be awarded the sublime experience of having the Shechinah dwell among and within us.