If you’ve ever started a minor building project or small renovation on your house, you know that they tend to snowball. The extent of the work, the time and the expense of these projects tend to end up much greater than they seem at first. Somehow once the work begins, we tend to see more and more details that need attention, little things that might as well be a little more perfect, and so on. Most of this week’s parsha details the actual construction of the mishkan, the portable holy space, that was described in the parsha several weeks ago. And there is a definite sense of the grandiose scope of the project and the materials that go into building it.
Before that begins, though, the first few verses of the parsha convey how Moses gathered all of the people and told them about the mitzvah of Shabbat, to rest and refrain from work once every seven days. The order of things in this part of the Torah can be a bit perplexing. First, three weeks ago, we got the instructions for building a holy space. The next week followed up with instructions for dressing and initiating the priests to serve in the holy space. Last week, we got the final instructions on how to make this space. This was followed by the mitzvah of Shabbat just before the incident with the golden calf. Now, this week, we are told again about Shabbat, before launching into the actual construction of the holy space that God instructed the people to build.
The rabbis read some of these events in a different order, arguing that the instructions as well as the construction of the mishkan, happened after the incident of the golden calf. But what is Shabbat doing in the midst of these events, not only once, but twice? As any good Jewish question, this one has multiple paths to resolution.
On a practical level, the Rabbis link the construction of the mishkan to Shabbat as a hint that the very activities that go into building the mishkan are the same activities that constitute melacha, the kind of work that is to be avoided on the holy day of rest. Many commentators note that the juxtaposition reminds us that even the holy work of building the mishkan does not supercede the need for rest on the holy day of Shabbat
On another level though, there is something more integral that links the work of the mishkan, the sin of the golden calf, and the mitvzah of Shabbat. When we start a building project in our homes, we have a vision of tangible physical changes we want to see. But underlying that vision of the tangible is a vision of the intangible rewards of the physical improvement. We want our home to be a more comfortable place for our family, to help us open our lives to friends, family, community. It is the intangible improvements that matter most, and I suspect that most often, the most important intangible elements are those that connect us with others.
Many scholars read Beresheet, Genesis, as God’s striving for a connection with humanity. God creates the tangible world in order to enter into relationship with a partner. But it proves difficult for humanity to maintain a relationship with an intangible God. Somewhere in the course of growing up, my students tend to transition from joyful awe at the idea of a God who is everywhere and in everything, to the question, “Is this all real? How do we know?”
This is what happens to the Israelite people when Moses spends too long on mount Sinai. They get nervous. They say, “We haven’t seen that guy, Moses, in a while! What if he doesn’t come back?” They seek desperately to connect with something greater than themselves, and willingly gather their gold to form into a tangible idol to try to fulfill this natural striving. The mishkan is God’s response. We cannot see and hold God, but we can make a space to hold our connection to the divine.
So, we build the mishkan, mirroring God’s work of creation, creating a physical structure to help us come into relationship with the divine, now generously bringing all sorts of materials, in great quantities, to the tangible side of this project.
What is Shabbat doing in this narrative? Shabbat is another kind of response to the striving for connection. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called Shabbat, “a sanctuary in time”. If the God we believe in is intangible, then building anything to help us connect is truly for our benefit, not at all necessary for God. And yet, if we are to be in relationship with the divine, we need some means of connection. While the mishkan uses the tangible to reach for the intangible connection, Shabbat reaches for the intangible by changing our orientation toward the world.
This week, a colleague brought to my attention a short piece by Rumi, the 13th century Persian Sufi Mystic.
You have no idea how hard I’ve looked for a gift to bring You. Nothing seemed right. What’s the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the ocean. Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It’s no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So I’ve brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.
Rumi does not make explicit if he is referring to God or to another human being, but he is clearly depicting a striving for connection. And his offering of a mirror seems perfectly fitting. Reading it this week, I saw in Rumi’s miror, the mishkan, built of the the shiny things that the people generously offered up. I saw also, the Jewish people’s mirroring of God’s day of rest each Shabbat, connecting and honoring the divine by following God’s example. This mirror offers, also, a model for the gifts we truly need from one another and that our children need from us. Of all the tangible things that they may want and request, what they most need is for us to truly see them, and to reflect back with love.
May this Shabbat bring you an opportunity to reach for the intangible, to connect, to reflect.
Shabbat Shalom