The slogan of modern Israeli pioneers, "to build and be built" actually has its antecedents in the teachings of Moses. In our weekly Torah portion, Terumah, Moses and Aaron receive and pass along the first commandments concerning the construction of the Holy Tabernacle, a structure which served as something of a forerunner of the Holy Temple and even of our modern synagogues. Certainly there are many differences between the portable Tabernacle and the stationary Temple, but a common denominator between the two is, as in the less "mystical" commandments, ends and means form a common unity of purpose.

The Torah has previously introduced the concept of symbolic character development being achieved through divinely ordained physical construction in the portion of Noah. God there instructed Noah to cover the ark "from within and without with pitch"(Genesis 5). Both the verb "to cover" and the noun "pitch" allude to the Hebrew for "atonement". The instructions for the building of the Tabernacle echo this concept of exterior and interior oneness when God commands that the holy ark (which contains the tablets) be covered with gold, inside as well as out. A part of our daily prayer liturgy gives further resonance to this concept with the rabbinical statement that a person should always be God-fearing in private (as well as in public). To do otherwise would be to emulate the pig, the animal which merits special repulsion not because of its hygienic habits, but because while it lacks the internal sign of kashrut (the chewing of its cud), it nevertheless flaunts its outer kosher sign (its cleft hoof).

While the Tabernacle has much symbolism which is relevant to the character of the individual, its actual purpose of existence is for the service of the people as a whole. Rabbi Sholom Gold links the imminent minor festival of Purim with the Tabernacle by virtue of their demonstration of the principle that for every ailment(be it one of spiritual origin or physical threats from without) God always prepares the remedy in advance. In the Book of Esther, Mordechai's early unrewarded good deed comes to later serve as the catalyst for God's complex plan for the Jewish people's physical salvation. Similarly, when the Jewish people commit the terrible sin of constructing and serving the golden calf, in having previously ordained the construction of the Tabernacle, God has already placed the means of atonement at their disposal. The Tabernacle's many details and intricacies of construction form a means of sanctifying the physical with holiness. May we all strive to emulate this concept in our day to day lives.

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom!