The Tabernacle Technical

The Tabernacle Technical | Parshat Terumah 5786
By Rabbi Rachael Houser

Anyone who watches The Great British Bake-Off knows that the true test of a baker is not the showstopper, but the technical.

For those uninitiated into the mysteries of Bake-Off, let me explain. The Great British Bake-Off is a baking competition show, and each episode gives the contestants three challenges: the signature, which tests their mastery of the basics; the technical; and the showstopper, which gives them a chance to impress the judges with their unique style and flair.

But in the technical challenge, contestants are asked to make some obscure pastry they’re not likely to have encountered in their baking before, and they are given a recipe with omissions. Ingredients are listed, but not the amount to use. A temperature for the oven is given, but not the time it needs to bake. Contestants use their baking instincts to guess how the pastry is supposed to turn out.

The results are usually disastrous. Paul Hollywood, the toughest judge on the show, often remarks in his famous Scouse accent that the pastries are ‘raw, underbaked and underproved.’ It takes nothing short of a miracle for a contestant to guess correctly and produce a decent pastry, much less to win a coveted handshake from the likes of Paul Hollywood.

Contestants on The Great British Bake-Off have much in common with Moses and the Israelites in Parshat Terumah. Because on the top of Mount Sinai, Moses receives a technical challenge.

God gives Moses a list of instructions for how to build the Tabernacle, the portable sanctuary that God will dwell in while the Israelites continue their wilderness travels. God starts with instructions for the ark that will hold the Ten Commandments. At first glance, the list seems comprehensive:

Make an ark of acacia wood, 2 ½ cubits long, 1 ½ cubits wide, and 1 ½ cubits high.

Cover it with gold and put rings on the sides.

Make poles and insert them into the rings on the side of the ark for carrying it.

Seems simple enough. But it’s not.

We know how many cubits long and wide and high. But how thick should the walls of the ark be?

We know the ark needs to have rings on the sides. But which sides?

We know the ark needs to have poles. But how long should they be?

And it’s not just the ark that’s missing key instructions. God goes into detail about all aspects of the Tabernacle—the menorahs, the tent, the altar, the fence—but for everything God describes, something is missing.

The pressure’s on, because God tells Moses, “Exactly as I show you, the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings—so shall you make it.” Moses is tasked with creating a sacred space that will serve the spiritual needs of God, the priests, and the Israelites. He has most of the instructions, but not all, on how to make something worthy and beautiful and useful.

But there’s no hesitation in the text. Moses doesn’t argue that God has set him up to fail or beg for clarification. Perhaps he has internalized the lesson learned from his father-in-law, Yitro—“The task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone.” So what does he do?

He calls in reinforcements. Two Israelites identified as experts, Betzalel and Oholiav, are called in to use their skills to interpret the design. Moses advertises to ‘kol ish asher yidvenu libo,’ everyone whose heart moves them, to donate resources to help build.

Moses recognizes that by asking for help from people with experience and calling upon people to give what they can, he has a better chance of building the space God and the Israelites need. And in the end, God approves of the design and fills the Tabernacle with divine glory. By working together, they get it right.

The same strategy applies to all of us. We might not be Great British Bake-Off contestants. We might not be Israelites working on the Tabernacle. But we encounter similar puzzles when we try to create sacred spaces of our own. These sacred spaces look a little different for everyone:

Our families.

Our synagogue.

Our city.

Even our country.

How do we build these communities? Well, like Moses, we might have some instructions. We can read every parenting book ever published. We can memorize our synagogue charters and handbooks—which are probably as interesting a read as the incredibly detailed instructions for how to build the Tabernacle. We can even assiduously follow and defend the founding documents of our city and country, and yet—we are never going to find all the information we need for perfect execution.

Regardless of where you stand on any particular issue, from parenting to policy, I imagine many of us aren’t happy with the current execution of things. We can imagine a more perfect version, a more perfect union—or at least a somewhat-better-one-than-we-have-right-now.

So what do we do? How do we approach this impossible task?

We take our cues from Moses. We don’t freeze at the enormity of the task. We start with the instructions we have, and then we bring in other people. Moses calls in two builders with experience—we can call our own parents or in-laws or friends with kids for advice on how to get the baby to sleep through the night before we lose our minds. Moses pools the resources of his community and sees what everyone can give—we can raise funds, collect signatures, attend meetings, donate food, give time.

The thing is, we all already know the things we can do to build up our families and sacred communities—and if you don’t, please feel free to set up a coffee with any one of us clergy and we will be more than happy to help you get involved.

The lesson of Parshat Terumah comes from Moses’s reaction to God’s incomplete instructions for how to create a sacred space. He doesn’t hesitate. Nor does he try to do it alone. He takes what he’s been given, brings people in who are motivated to do the sacred work alongside him, and gets started. So if you’ve been waiting for a sign, here it is—go grab a friend and get started.

Even without all the directions we need, we still have what it takes to make a community God considers worthy to dwell within—because we build our best when we build together.

I’d wager that’s the reason God doesn’t give Moses complete, indisputable instructions in the first place. Nothing prevents God from manifesting the perfect Mishkan to God’s exact specifications and just plopping it in the middle of the wilderness ready-made. Nothing prevents God from giving Moses even more to work with.

But the Israelites will learn more about what holiness means to them by building space for a sacred community together. No instruction manual will teach them more about what God and sacrifice are going to mean to them than putting their heads together and teasing out the details, and the same goes for the instructions we have now.

No parenting book, no synagogue charter, no city laws, no Constitution can teach us everything we need to know about the community we’re striving to build. We teach each other when we build together.