Today we look in detail at the building of holy spaces. Moses’s Mishkan (sanctuary or Tabernacle or tent) in the parasha, and Solomon’s Beit Ha Mikdash (Temple) in the Haftorah.
Let’s start at the very beginning with the building of the MIshkan. It starts with God telling Moses to: ‘Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him’
It’s an entirely voluntary operation and the people are overflowing with enthusiasm to get involved and they bring precious gifts generously. Then God says: ‘And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.’ וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם׃ It’s not just any random sanctuary though. It has to be made ‘Exactly as I show you’. The parasha goes into specific details of layout and the angels and the curtains and the poles and it is all oriented towards the Aron or Ark that has something in it. אֵ֚ת הָעֵדֻ֔ת אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֶתֵּ֖ן אֵלֶֽיךָ So, at the core it has the Eydut or testimony or pact as Sefaria translates it, in an ark, with two gold cherubim and curtains and poles that you don’t take out because this project is continually on the move.
As Rabbi Norman Lam comments, ‘it’s a cooperative project, the women weaved, the men build, the labourers laboured. it was a community undertaking. There was an overflow of enthusiasm, an unparalleled and unsurpassed outpouring of love for this sacred project.’ Sounds lovely, and Rabbi Lamm and others wax lyrical about how the sanctuary was made and what we can learn from it.
The construction of the sacred space described in this week’s Haftorah is less popular with the commentators.
In the Haftorah, we have moved from a mobile sanctuary, a tent essentially, that is carried on poles around the desert to a permanent one in Jerusalem that is made out of stone. The Haftorah starts with king Solomon making a cruel move. He imposes forced labour on the people of Israel and uses oppressive task masters to ensure it is all done. No crafting, volunteering or loving outpourings here… וַיַּ֨עַל הַמֶּ֧לֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹ֛ה מַ֖ס מִכׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל Look at the word ‘Mus’
That word is also used in Exodus 1:11 for what the children of Israel suffered at the hands of the Egyptians where it says: ‘So, they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labour’ וַיָּשִׂ֤ימוּ עָלָיו֙ שָׂרֵ֣י מִסִּ֔ים
Despite its grandiosity or perhaps because of it, the first Temple of Solomon is soon destroyed, and another is built later by Herod which is more grandiose and seemingly more permanent. Later it too is destroyed.
Our synagogues now mirror the Mishkan of the desert, and the Temples of Jerusalem. We now orient ourselves to the Ark here and we keep our sifrei torah in them. We pray instead of sacrifice. We build synagogues in all sorts of shapes and sizes, as any tour through European cities like Mainz shows. The huge old hulks of massive destroyed synagogues like the Oranienburger strasse synagogue in Berlin are particularly tragic. They are testimonies to lost communities that must have once thought they were forever when they were built. From mishkan to temple to synagogue, always orienting to the words of God. And for me personally, from sitting upstairs in the grand Marais Road shul in Cape Town to this intimate room that I thought was my forever space.
But things change all the time. Honestly, I haven’t been to shul in ages. I understand there are many people who are struggling like me to return to our public holy spaces. It’s not just that they are under threat and under fire. The lockdown changed something in me about public spaces and that includes spaces like these. I don’t know what comes next. I miss being part of a community of shared meaning, and I know that to have that again, I have to show up week after week, with a sense of generosity. No one is giving it to me on a plate.
The work is to show up, and to start building; one prayer, one conversation and one fish-ball at a time. I am comforted from reading today’s Haftorah, that more than the building that is holy, what counts is in the space between us all when we are communally oriented to the word of God.
Today that is with you, here, now.
