We're coming up to the end of the long description of the construction of the Mishkan today. The Mishkan, the tabernacle in the desert, is finally actually constructed and becomes a reality. It's a revolution in the people's access to God: instead of going through the prophet, there's a system of priests, rituals, sacrifices, a calendar, obligations, a rhythm of heightened spiritual life around Shabbat and festivals, and a return to the everyday. Even though most of the details are a repetition of the instructions to Moses given in parashat Terumah and Tetzaveh, there is a subtle difference now that it is being constructed after the events of the Golden Calf. Before, the Mishkan-in-potential was an innocent centre of spiritual life. Now — and this is made explicit by the rabbis — the Mishkan serves as atonement for the Golden Calf. If the people wanted to worship objects and create idols, it now seems that they were given a religious system instead, a physical place full of objects, where they can channel their thirst for idolatry in a legitimate way. The story of the Golden Calf was both a tragedy for the people and an opportunity to renew their relationship with God, and now it reframes the purpose of the Mishkan. Moses takes eight days to set up the Mishkan, and at the end we read that he completed the work - וַיְכַ֥ל מֹשֶׁ֖ה אֶת־הַמְּלָאכָֽה - using similar language to the completion of the creation of the world in Genesis, vayechulu, the heavens and the earth were completed (Genesis 2:1). As he finishes, a cloud covers the Mishkan, and we are told that the Kavod Hashem, the "glory of God" fills the entire place for as long as the cloud is there. But what does that actually mean?
The word Mishkan means a place of dwelling, presumably a dwelling-place for God. Now that can not be taken literally, as Solomon says when constructing the Temple,
כִּ֚י הַֽאֻמְנָ֔ם יֵשֵׁ֥ב אֱלֹהִ֖ים עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ הִ֠נֵּ֠ה הַשָּׁמַ֜יִם וּשְׁמֵ֤י הַשָּׁמַ֙יִם֙ לֹ֣א יְכַלְכְּל֔וּךָ אַ֕ף כִּֽי־הַבַּ֥יִת הַזֶּ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר בָּנִֽיתִי׃
“But will God really dwell on earth? Even the heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this House that I have built! (I Kings 8:27)
Forgive me for taking time to state the obvious, but the description of God filling the Mishkan isn't physical. It's the Shekhina, the presence of God, that enters the Mishkan after its construction. Again, what does that actually mean?
'Presence' is a difficult concept to define. If I look around the synagogue, there are tables and chairs here, they exist here, but the people who are here don't just exist but are present. When I am in the room with a person, something beyond their mere physical existence affects me; I am in their presence. It is not only humans who have presence, I can feel in the presence of great buildings or historical events or with a beloved pet, but it is only humans who can comprehend presence as opposed to physical existence, it's not something that can be measured by a machine. We can be more or less receptive to someone's presence for one of two reasons: our capacity to be receptive, to open up to the awareness of the presence of the other, can be stronger or weaker, depending on who we are and the context we are in. And someone's presence can be stronger or weaker, also dependent on a variety of factors. In the Mishkan, in theory, both of these were at their maximum — the people prepared themselves to be as open as possible to the presence of God, and the presence of God was more apparent there than elsewhere. The Mishkan is the model for religious life outside the Mishkan too: it is being in the presence of God.
We often quote around this time of year the verses that speak about God dwelling among those who built the Mishkan:
וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם
And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. (Exodus 25:8)
We make the precision that God dwells among them, the builders, rather than in the building. In our parasha today however, God seems to dwell in the building:
וְלֹא יָכֹל מֹשֶׁה לָבוֹא אֶל אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד כִּי שָׁכַן עָלָיו הֶעָנָן וּכְבוֹד יְ—הֹוָה מָלֵא אֶת הַמִּשְׁכָּן
Then a cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. (Exodus 40:34)
One way to understand it is to remove the separation between the builders and building, and see them both as expressions of the other. A 20th-century German philosopher, whose name should not be expressed in the synagogue, wrote an essay called Bauen Wohnen Denken, “Building Dwelling Thinking”. I've always read it as an introduction to understanding the Mishkan. He plays with the shared German etymology of building and being (Bauer, Nachbar, bauen, ich bin...), and contrasts building, which is an expression of Being, and technology, which isn't. “We do not dwell because we have built, but we build and have built because we dwell: that is, because we are dwellers.” If the presence of God is received by the people, then it is in the building that they create to mark that presence too.
The presence of God is described as dwelling in the synagogue too, but again, there is a subtlety here. The Shechina is considered to dwell in the minyan, in the group of people gathering together to pray. Without the people, the building would not be a sacred place. But perhaps without the building, the individual people would not be able to be in the presence of God. When we speak of kavannah, of focussed intentional prayer, we need to see ourselves as standing before the divine presence. I often think that this state of being is a muscle that we can train; if we become more receptive people to the presence of others in general, we can make this Shechina in the synagogue more real. But how is this muscle trained?
We're coming up to Purim now. Famously, the name and the presence of God are hidden in the story of Esther. But the Jews insist on celebrating it as a religious festival with blessings and synagogue rituals and commandments. There are four major mitzvot, commandments, on Purim: reading the Megillah twice, having a feast, giving gifts of food to friends, and giving gifts to the poor. If you ask a normal Jew which is the most important, depending on their age they will either answer reading the Megillah or getting drunk. But Maimonides insists on a different hierarchy of priorities.
מוּטָב לָאָדָם לְהַרְבּוֹת בְּמַתְּנוֹת אֶבְיוֹנִים מִלְּהַרְבּוֹת בִּסְעֻדָּתוֹ וּבְשִׁלּוּחַ מָנוֹת לְרֵעָיו. שֶׁאֵין שָׁם שִׂמְחָה גְּדוֹלָה וּמְפֹאָרָה אֶלָּא לְשַׂמֵּחַ לֵב עֲנִיִּים וִיתוֹמִים וְאַלְמָנוֹת וְגֵרִים. שֶׁהַמְשַׂמֵּחַ לֵב הָאֻמְלָלִים הָאֵלּוּ דּוֹמֶה לַשְּׁכִינָה שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (ישעיה נז טו) "לְהַחֲיוֹת רוּחַ שְׁפָלִים וּלְהַחֲיוֹת לֵב נִדְכָּאִים":
It is preferable for a person to increase donations to the poor than to be lavish in their preparation of the Purim feast or in sending gifts to their friends. For there is no greater and more splendid happiness than to gladden the hearts of the poor, the orphans, the widows, and the strangers. One who brings happiness to the hearts of these unfortunate individuals resembles the Divine Presence [domeh la-shekhina], which Isaiah [57:15] describes as having the tendency "to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive those with broken hearts." (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Megillah 2:17)
There is a radical theological statement here: that by doing certain acts, we can become godly. God caring for the poor and people caring for the poor are not two separate acts, but one and the same, and someone who brings their behaviour in line with what they understand as the behaviour of God, as described in the Torah for example, is manifesting the Shechina, God’s presence in the world. Having this perspective is an explicit mitzvah (8th in the count of Maimonides, 611th in the Sefer Hachinuch) of “imitating God to the best of one’s ability”. Being truly in the presence of God means being affected by that presence to the extent that who we are changes through that encounter.
The rabbis took this idea of the Shechina outside of the Mishkan, and projected it everywhere. Shabbat is the Shechina, ten people are the Shechina, acting with kindness and justice is the Shechina, being in a loving relationship is the Shechina. I wish us all the possibility, between this Shabbat and the preparations for Purim, with all the challenges today, to strengthen our muscles and open up to the presence of the world around around us.
Shabbat shalom.
[I’m finishing up a modern commentary on the laws of Purim, based on the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. It should be ready in the next few days, but you can peek at it already here. Comments and feedback welcome, as always.]