GOD THE BUILDER

 

"Make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them". These are God's words to Moses at the very beginning of Parashat Terumah. I have written before about the brilliance of God's decision to have the Israelites donate the raw materials for, and to build, the portable sanctuary.

 

The donations from the people would ensure that each person had a physical connection to God's dwelling place (not dissimilar from the plaques that we place in modern synagogues to indicate who donated toward a new building). By taking part in the construction of the portable tabernacle (Mishkan), the Israelites had the satisfaction of knowing that they were physically involved in creating God's home; it is human nature to feel a strong connection to the things that we create. That said, God gives precise building instructions to the Israelites as if to say, "I believe in free-will, but I'm not leaving the construction of my portable home to the whim of my human creations."

 

As I read the Parasha this year, something else dawned on me. God only gives very specific instructions to build one other structure in the Torah. Do you know what that was? I will give you 3 seconds to guess. Your 3 seconds are up......The answer is Noah's ark.

 

If these are the only two places in the Torah where God provides architectural plans, is there a possible connection between Noah's ark and the Mishkan? I am not sure. In both, the instructions are detailed; however, the structures do not appear to have additional physical similarities.

 

They both were intended as temporary dwellings: Noah's ark housed animals and humans (creatures of the earth), while the Mishkan housed God, the ruler of the heavens. The ark spent much of its time in the water, while the Mishkan spent all of its time on land. Both were portable, the Mishkan more so than the ark.

 

The only real connection that I can think of is that both Noah's ark and the Mishkan were designed to save and protect God's creations from destruction. With the ark, this is obvious. If there were no ark, there would have been no animal left alive to continue God's world. The saving function of the Mishkan is a bit more nuanced. In the dessert, the Israelites were going to need a constant reminders of God's presence in order to give them strength (emotional, spiritual, and physical) to continue. The Mishkan certainly served this purpose.

 

Perhaps the Ark and the Mishkan both served such important functions, that God needed to make it absolutely certain that they would be built correctly. There would be no better way to ensure this than to provide the blueprints to the builders.

 

Thus, God's architectural plans ultimately ensured that humanity would survive the flood and that God's chosen people would survive the dessert. God the conceiver, God the planner, God the manipulator....God the builder.