Mishkan can only be built with heart

Rabbi Adrian M Schell

Parshat Vayakhel-Pekudei

Bet David, Morningside

The other mode is that of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. As the Israelite people build the Mishkan, they rely on their inner wisdom and individual gifts. Although the pattern of the mishkan comes from G-d, the gifts that make the sanctuary what it is, come from the depth of the human heart.

Both of these models appear in our Parshat Vayakhel-Pekudei. Moses assembles the community and reminds them of Shabbat. He is communicating in the mode of Sinai, in which law is paramount. Yet, Moses then moves into a second mode.

He says: “These are the things G-d has commanded: Take from you a gift for the Eternal. All those whose hearts are willing shall bring a gift for the Eternal” (Sh’mot 35:5). The Mishkan cannot be built only according to law. It must be built by those whose hearts are willing.

The people respond to this plea. “Everyone whose heart lifted him up, and everyone who was moved by a spirit of generosity, came bringing the gift of the Eternal for the work… all who were generous of heart” (Sh’mot 35:21-22).

Rabbi J. Hammer points out that the Israelites respond not out of obedience, but because their hearts speak to them: “As the Mishkan grows in beauty, every single Israelite becomes part of the process of putting it together. The beauty of it comes from the beauty of the generous-spirited hearts that design and build it.

“So too, we can only build a sacred community when the wisdom of the individual heart has a recognised place alongside the sacred text.”

There is a spiritual model that teaches us to distrust the heart, mind, and body and trust only the wisdom of sacred text. Yet the Torah tells us that the Mishkan cannot be built without the wisdom of the heart.

The Talmud (Berachot 55a) makes this very point in a midrash about the chief artist of the Mishkan. In this midrash, Moses gives instructions for the building of the Mishkan that are different from what G-d instructed – instead of G-d’s commandment to build first the Mishkan, then the Ark and at the end, the vessels, Moses instructs Betzalel to build the Ark first, followed by the vessels, and at the end, the Mishkan.

Betzalel intuits that something is wrong and asks for clarification. Through Betzalel’s inner wisdom, he has intuited what G-d wants, and the midrash implies that G-d agrees with him rather than Moses.

This fact seems to imply that the understanding of the inner sense can be just as revelatory, than obedience to text. Although it is true that the heart cannot always be trusted, sometimes our inner knowing helps us to see a different, perhaps even a more accurate truth, if we are listening to our hearts.