The second book of the Torah is known by its Greek title, Exodus—a word that evokes movement, drama, and liberation. The name reflects the assumption that the central theme of the book is God’s leading the Israelites from slavery to freedom. Yet this title is, in many ways, misleading. For fully half of the book is devoted not to the drama of departure, but to the painstaking, detailed construction of the Mishkan—the Tabernacle.

It is easy to understand why readers, ancient and modern alike, are captivated by the epic story of oppression and redemption: the suffering in Egypt, the ten plagues, the splitting of the sea, the triumphant song of freedom. Compared to these sweeping miracles, the architectural specifications of the Mishkan may appear technical, even tedious. And yet the Torah’s disproportionate attention to its construction signals something profound. The Mishkan is not an afterthought to redemption; it is its fulfillment. The question, then, is: what does the Mishkan represent, and what might it teach us today?

One approach sees the Mishkan as the bridge between Sinai and daily life. At Sinai, the people encountered God in overwhelming revelation—thunder, lightning, divine voice. It was a moment of transcendent clarity, but it was fleeting. The Mishkan, by contrast, represents a quieter, ongoing presence: God dwelling among the people as they journeyed through the desert. If Sinai was a moment of spiritual ecstasy, the Mishkan was the discipline of sustained relationship. Perhaps the Torah is teaching us that we cannot live forever at Sinai. We must learn to find God not only in moments of revelation, but in the steady rhythms of ordinary life.

Others note the striking parallels between the construction of the Mishkan and the creation of the world. The same key verbs appear repeatedly in both narratives: asah (to make), kalah (to complete), berakh (to bless), and kiddesh (to sanctify). Both accounts emphasize order, structure, boundaries, and intentional design. In this light, the Mishkan becomes a kind of microcosm of creation itself. God created a world as a home for humanity; humanity, in turn, was called upon to create a home for God. Even in the absence of a physical Mishkan, the message endures: our task is to shape our homes, our communities, and our society into spaces where the Divine presence can dwell.

A third insight—one of particular resonance in our own time—appears in Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ book The Home We Build Together. Rabbi Sacks presents three metaphors for the ways societies are constructed. The first is the “country house,” owned by a dominant person or group. Others may enter, but only as guests who must adapt to the owner’s culture and customs. Such societies inevitably create insiders and outsiders, majorities and minorities, belonging and alienation.

The second model is the “hotel.” In a hotel, everyone is welcome. Diversity is accommodated. Yet a hotel is a place of temporary residence, not rooted belonging. People coexist, but they do not truly share a common home. Everyone is a stranger; no one fully belongs.

The Torah offers a different vision: the Mishkan. The Israelites who left Egypt were hardly a unified people. They were twelve distinct tribes, joined by a “mixed multitude,” newly freed and internally fractured. Moses was charged not merely with leading them geographically, but with transforming them into a covenantal nation. How could such unity emerge from such diversity?

The answer was not another miracle. The plagues did not create a nation. The splitting of the sea did not create a nation. Even the revelation at Sinai did not, by itself, create a nation. Nations are not forged by spectacle. They are forged by shared responsibility.

In commanding the people to build the Mishkan together, God was teaching a revolutionary truth: a covenantal society is formed not by uniformity, but by collaborative creation. Each individual contributed—gold, silver, copper, fabrics, skills, craftsmanship. Each tribe brought its gifts. The Mishkan was built out of difference and diversity, yet unified in purpose. It was, as Rabbi Sacks described it, orchestrated diversity—an integration without assimilation.

Society, in other words, is the home we build together.

Few messages could be more urgent for us today.

Before October 7, Israeli society was deeply fractured. The rhetoric was fierce, the distrust palpable. Many spoke openly of civil war. Competing visions of who “owns” this country and what it is meant to become threatened to tear us apart.

In the face of unspeakable tragedy and existential threat, something shifted. Soldiers from every sector stood shoulder to shoulder. Volunteers mobilized across ideological lines. Differences did not disappear, but they were temporarily overshadowed by a shared recognition: if we are to endure, we must stand together. We must build together.

Now, almost two and a half years later, the question remains unresolved. Have we internalized the lesson? Have we understood that a nation cannot survive as a country house claimed by one camp or another? That it cannot function as a hotel in which we merely coexist without shared responsibility? Or are we slowly drifting back toward the precipice that loomed before October 7?

The Mishkan still speaks.

It reminds us that redemption is not complete at the moment of liberation. Freedom without shared purpose dissolves into fragmentation. The true test of a nation is not how it escapes Egypt, but whether it can build something sacred together afterward.

The future of this country will not be secured by miracles. It will not be sustained by outrage or by victory alone. It will depend on whether we choose—again and again—to undertake the difficult, humbling, sacred task of building our common home together.

I hope and pray that we will choose wisely.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)