Friends - this week's parasha deals with the plans for building the mishkan, the mobile Temple that served as the Israelites' central place of meeting with G-d, both in terms of His speaking and in terms of their worship, throughout their time in the desert. It seems that, not only was the mishkan itself of utmost importance, but the gathering of the materials and the building of the mishkan were also given much emphasis.
People were expected to "volunteer" the materials needed - gold, silver, various types of dyed yarn, oil, spices, and the like. Why should the Torah tell us so much about he process of gathering the materials, even into the next chapters when we are given the final count of what was donated? I would understand, say, at the shul down the street, when they say, "We would like to thank the Horowitz family for donating the new Ark for the Torah" or, "Thanks to the Blumenthal family for their contribution of several pews." (Do Jews use pews?) But, "Thanks to the Levine family for donating several bottles of ink" or "an entire cord of pine wood" is a little bizarre.
I think it makes sense, though. There are many lessons to be learned from all aspects of the mishkan. (Though one who reads R' Matis Weinberg on this week's parasha will certainly be wary of jumping too quickly into any given metaphor.) The mishkan is, as was the Holy Temple afterward, the locus of relationship between Israel and Hashem - with communication in both directions. But it's a funny sort of relationship that the nation Israel will have with the mishkan - most of them will never get to go in - and the Ark in the Holy of Holies, which no one will ever see.
But somehow most of our relationships are like that: there is some unique point of Personhood that we know is there, we sense it and try to get to know it, but most of the time we can only relate toward it. We receive from it, indirectly. It is similar with the mishkan - it is how we relate toward Hashem. Maybe for this reason Hashem wants Israel to bring wood and gold and raw materials. For if the people brought finished products they might forget that each contribution, each generous or pious act, is only one aspect of a much larger relationship. But with that knowledge, one's expectations of rendering a complete work toward the Other of the relationship, be it G-d or wife or world, is diminished in the face of the understanding of a relationship constantly in process.
Hopefully, the days when a relationship was based on a single moment are over. That was high school - wearing the wrong shirt might have meant social doom. Saying the wrong thing might have meant getting dumped. But there is a different sense when there is no fear that the Other will leave at the drop of a dime. Hashem tells us that, for reasons we do not understand, He wants to dwell among us. "V'asu li mikdash, v'shachanti b'tocham." ("Make for me a tabernacle, that I may dwell among you.") And yet, of course He knows how Large He actually is, and how no building can hold him, and how it is really impossible to relate to the fullness of Him, and how unfortunately difficult it is to relate with the entirety of us, but He seems to want a relationship despite all that. And to know that He wants it, and he's not leaving if we wear the wrong shirt, allows us the patience to build a relationship with Him starting with a bit of gold and a bit of wood. And after many days of single pieces of wood, single threads, suddenly a structure is built which will not collapse, will not end, but which serves as a house that we have built, together, which we may both have as the center between us, through which we may both communicate, and really feel at home.
So, I wish for us all the patience to persist, to see the importance of small contributions: to really know that the world is made up of molecules, relationships consist of individual words, of the individual tone of voice of each separate syllable of each word, of the breath one took in order to utter them.
Rav Gavriel Goldfeder
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Rav Gavriel Goldfeder is one of the first semicha recipients of the yeshiva. A graduate of Drew University in Religious Studies, he came to Bat Ayin after stints in other yeshivot and found a spiritual and intellectual home. Here he met his wife, Ketriellah, who was a student in our short-lived Women's Yeshiva. Upon graduation, Gavriel took the position of rabbi of the Aish Kodesh Congregation in Boulder, Colorado and together with Ketriellah and their growing family, they are busy creating (in Gavriel's words), "a community infused with Torah values, passion for learning and prayer, consideration of one another, and action, as well as deep celebration of the joys of life." |