This is Part One of a two-part series on creating and sustaining a mishkan and bringing the biblical experience into the present day.

When it came time for the ancient Israelites to celebrate the God who had just been revealed to them at Mount Sinai, they quickly learned that this god was different from those they had encountered before. The old ways of worshipping those other gods would not work (see the story of the golden calf). This God, their God, had been revealed to them all in a spectacular display of sight and sound: a pillar of fire, bolts of lightening, cloaked by a cloud, and accompanied by sounds so intense they could be seen. . Now the peoples’ looming task was to fulfill God’s instructions to “make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell [settle down] amidst them” (Exodus 25:8). What kind of sanctuary could possibly house this all-enveloping God who dictated laws and proffered a vision of a land of milk and honey?

Moses, the people’s prophet, asserted that “For it is to test you that God has come, to have awe [יִראָה /yirah] of him be upon you. . . . (Exodus 20:17). Creating a tabernacle, an earthly sanctuary (mishkan/מִּשְׁכָּן) that would sustain feelings of awe and exaltation worthy of this God would require something new.

Organization and cooperation were essential. Ultimately, members of the Levite tribe took charge of the sanctuary. More specifically, Moses’ brother Aaron and his male offspring became the kohanim (כֹּהֲנִים), the priests tasked with performing sacrificial rites and caring for the holy implements. They would be the caretakers and officiants, not the builders. Rather, the enterprise of building a place for those rites and creating those implements became an enterprise in which everyone participated.

The most gifted craftspeople were engaged. Bezalel and his deputy Oholiab were assigned overall........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)