I don’t know if any of you have ever had to assemble a piece of furniture from a famous Swedish chain shop. They provide you with all the necessary parts, the tools to assemble it and instructions that guide you step by step. However, assembling one of those pieces of furniture is a slow and laborious operation, the risk of making a mistake is very high, and you may end up with something that does not work, if not completely different from what you expected.
When God asks the Israelite to build Him a residence, He gives particularly precise and detailed instructions. We know what materials they are to use, how big each part is to be, and in what order and with what precision each element is to be assembled. The same instructions are repeated twice within the Torah. The first time in this week’s parashah and in the very next one, Tetzaveh, a second time in Vayakhel and Pekudei, when the operations of building up the sanctuary are recorded. Everything is repeated in every single detail and we are told that the Israelites were able to carry out perfectly what the Lord had commanded: ‘The children of Israel had performed every work according to what the LORD had commanded Moses. Moses saw the whole work, and behold, they had performed it exactly as the LORD had commanded’. (Ex. 39:42-43) The Mishkan is exactly as God intended it to be and only when it has been completed and consecrated can He finally reside in it. Curiously, however, in verse 25:8 of our parashah God says: ‘They shall make a sanctuary for me and I shall dwell among them’. The sanctuary must be built so that God can dwell in the midst of His people. The sanctuary is an instrument so that we can be with God and God in our midst, within us.
Today we no longer have a sanctuary. How, then, do we build something that will allow God to reside in our midst again? We no longer have a physical place, yet we have ourselves and our lives. These are the sanctuaries we have to build every day so that God can dwell in them. But where can we find the instructions and teachings that will enable us to make our lives a dwelling place for our God? The Torah is our guide to making ourselves a sanctuary to welcome God’s presence on earth. Yet, we are not gathered anymore around Moses at Sinai, so as to receive instructions directly from God. That moment is gone forever. We can try to recreate it, every Sabbath in our synagogues, but revelation is far away from us. We do not resemble Betzalel, or the craftsmen who molded every detail, or the Israelites of that time who brought what was exactly required as an offering. If anything, we are more like those who have just brought home a piece of furniture and enthusiastically try to build it up by interpreting the instructions, turning the paper to work out how to orient the figure, wearing glasses to see better, reading from beginning to end and then going back step by step to each operation to understand the details. Enthusiasm can easily turn into discouragement and frustration.
Fortunately we have had those who have gone before us. Each one of them has noted down more details in the instruction booklet, written in that absurd language which is often incomprehensible to us, clarifying obscure points and indicating the most common errors to be avoided. Yet the operation remains complicated and success is not guaranteed. We still run the risk of wanting to build a table and ending up with a chair.
This is because our life is much more complicated than building a piece of furniture, more complicated even than building a sanctuary. Sometimes we lack the pieces or the strength to hold them together. At other times, despite everything, we do not understand what we have to do and how we have to proceed. Sometimes we are tired, hungry, or need to take a break. Or we need to ask someone for help. Often we have to make do with a chair, when we would have liked to build a four-season wardrobe. But if we do not abandon the instruction booklet, if we continue to keep it close to us, to read it, to note it down, to make it the centre of our existence, God will continue to reside in our sanctuary, even if it is imperfect, even if it is not exactly as we expected it to be. For if we return to the Lord, he will respond:
- Return, Israel, to the Lord your God.
Your sins have been your downfall!
- Take words with you
and return to the Lord.
Say to him:
“Forgive all our sins
and receive us graciously,
that we may offer the fruit of our lips.
- Assyria cannot save us;
we will not mount warhorses.
We will never again say ‘Our gods’
to what our own hands have made,
for in you the fatherless find compassion.”
Fortunately, we have had those who have gone before us. Each one of them has noted down more details in the instruction booklet, written in that absurd language which is often incomprehensible to us, clarifying obscure points and pointing out the most common errors to be avoided. Yet the operation remains complicated and success is not guaranteed. We still run the risk of wanting to build a table and ending up with a chair in our hands.
This is because our life is much more complicated than building a piece of furniture, more complicated even than building a sanctuary. Sometimes we lack the pieces or the strength to hold them together. At other times, despite everything, we do not understand what we have to do and how we have to proceed. Sometimes we are tired, hungry, horny, need to take a break. Or we need to ask someone for help. Often we have to make do with a chair, when we would have liked to build a four-season wardrobe. But if we do not abandon the instruction booklet, if we continue to keep it close to us, to read it, to note it down, to make it the centre of our existence, God will continue to reside in our sanctuary, even if it is imperfect, even if it is not exactly as we expected it to be. For if we return to the Lord, he will respond:
- Return, Israel, to the Lord your God.
Your sins have been your downfall!
- Take words with you
and return to the Lord.
Say to him:
“Forgive all our sins
and receive us graciously,
that we may offer the fruit of our lips.
- Assyria cannot save us;
we will not mount warhorses.
We will never again say ‘Our gods’.
to what our own hands have made,
for in you the fatherless find compassion.”
We need to be brave enough to go though the mud of our existence with Torah under one arm and kindness under the other. And we will be able to build again a home for ourselves and for God.
Martina Loreggian LBC rabbinic student
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.