Our Homes – Reflections of Both the Tabernacle and the Temple (The Mishkan and the Mikdash)
What does it mean to build a sanctuary? Parashat Terumah opens not with walls, but with furnishings — the Ark, the Table, the Menorah — as if God is teaching us something about priority before practicality.
Bezalel, the master craftsman, famously pushes back: surely you build the house before furnishing it! And Moshe concedes, marveling that Bezalel somehow intuited God’s deeper intention. As Zohar Atkins notes, this is the Torah’s great paradox: the command-order reflects purpose, while the construction-order reflects process. You begin with the Ark because the Ark is what the whole enterprise exists for — but you can only reach the Ark by first raising the walls.
In another teaching on the parsha, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb teaches that these three vessels — Ark, Table, and Menorah — are not museum pieces. They live on in every synagogue and every Jewish home. The Torah in the Aron, the bima where we read and learn, the Shabbat candles echoing the Menorah’s light — the Mishkan never really ended. It migrated.
And that migration carries something more. The Mishkan in the wilderness was Israel’s intimate covenant space — particular, personal, the dwelling of the God of Israel among our people. But the expansion of the Tabernacle to the Beit HaMikdash in Jerusalem helps the furnishings formulate new meaning. Our homes and synagogues now represent both of their hopes.
Every home with an ark, a table, a Hanukkah menorah, an oven and a stove to cook a Shabbat meal and challah to fill the air with a delightful scent is an affirmation of Jewish particularity, as well as a space that expresses a universal hope. The ark of history that we chart in Psalm 136 culminates in that universal hope — that all will come to delight at each other’s tables. The Psalm closes with the verse that grounds everything:
נֹתֵן לֶחֶם לְכָל בָּשָׂר כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ׃
“He who gives bread to all flesh, for His steadfast love endures forever.” (Tehillim 136:25)
God’s chesed — the lovingkindness that sustained Israel through the wilderness — is the same chesed extended to all humanity, to all flesh. The table in our homes, laden with Shabbat challah, becomes a symbol of universal nourishment. The Temple in Jerusalem and our small sanctuaries, our synagogues, and our home altars, our Shabbat tables, are all symbols of particular intimacy with our God and a universal hope for justice, friendship and even an end to war.
We remind ourselves on the High Holy Days that our sanctuaries in Jerusalem and symbolically our shuls and homes are houses of prayer for all. Isaiah declared:
וַהֲבִיאוֹתִים אֶל הַר קָדְשִׁי וְשִׂמַּחְתִּים בְּבֵית תְּפִלָּתִי עוֹלֹתֵיהֶם וְזִבְחֵיהֶם לְרָצוֹן עַל מִזְבְּחִי כִּי בֵיתִי בֵּית תְּפִלָּה יִקָּרֵא לְכָל הָעַמִּים׃
“I will bring them to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer; their offerings shall be accepted on My altar, for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Yeshayahu 56:7)
The smoke of the incense altar rose not only toward heaven but, in the prophetic imagination, as a beckoning — that one day all nations might lift their hearts together in moral clarity and service of the One God. Our God promises a shared vision of morality and cultivates the possibilties of human flourishing. Our culture of Torah and debate was designed for people with hearts and human agency to agree to disagree, converse, create, craft and build a world that could serve as a dwelling place for the Shekhinah, the indwelling spirit of the Lord among neighbors.
This is why Moses and Betzalel had different approaches to building and furnishing the Tabernacle. This is why Rashi and Ibn Ezra disagree on whether God revealed the plans to Moses before the outset of the building project or Betzalel helped understand God’s commands through his wisdom and expertise.
כָּל מַחְלֹקֶת שֶׁהִיא לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם סוֹפָהּ לְהִתְקַיֵּם׃
“Every dispute that is for the sake of Heaven — its end is to endure.” (Avot 5:17)
Our synagogues and homes in the Diaspora inherit the spiritual dimensions of both Tabernacle and Temple. We are particular and universal — Mishkan and Mikdash at once. The walls we build are ours; the aspirations rising from them belong to all humanity.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Bolton
….And a YISHAR KOACH to our congregant and friend, Saskia Siderow, for launching a new and important blog:
The Aging Almanac is an evidence-based guide to navigating later life, so we can age with agency, dignity and intention. Blending reporting, expert insight, and practical tools, it explores how we can work longer, plan smarter, care for ourselves and others, and make informed decisions about health, money, housing and caregiving. The Aging Almanac is written for readers at any age and any stage of life—but primarily those already embracing older age, as well as those caring for aging parents or planning ahead for their own future. Created by healthcare analyst and journalist Saskia Siderow, MPH, The Aging Almanac is a free public service project hosted on the Substack platform.
Saskia has a background in healthcare policy, serious illness and public health communications, and years of personal experience as a caregiver for relatives living with serious illness and disability. Saskia previously spent a decade in financial journalism, including as Financial Services Correspondent at the Financial Times, an experience that continues to shape the rigor and independence of her editorial work. Saskia holds a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University and serves in advisory roles related to palliative care and geriatrics at the Mount Sinai Health System.
The Aging Almanac launched earlier this month and comes out weekly. You can read the first issues here https://agingalmanac.substack.com/