The current compulsion to re-imagine Israel education is exhausting and exhilarating – yes, both. The concern of the growing number of non or anti-Zionists within the Jewish Community outlined in the JFNA survey and the more recent  Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, is at once fascinating and frightening – yes, both. 

I have long argued, most recently in the Prizma Israel Education Now Journal Fall 2025 Article that our approaches and pedagogies for Israel education can and must be informed if not anchored in Jewish education. It is in this spirit that I believe this week’s portion of Terumah can be extremely instructive.

The Building of the Tabernacle evokes one of the most fundamental goals of Zionism

אנו באנו ארצה לבנות ולהבנות בה

We have come to our land to build and to be rebuilt in it.

In an analogous way, the building of the Tabernacle was not for God, rather for us. With an eye for details which the (IKEA like) instructions demand, the injunctions are the blueprints for an ethical way of life, or the core values that will enable becoming אנשי קודש a virtuous people.

Yet at the heart of the pivotal directives in the construction of the tabernacle lies a striking incongruity 25:18;

וְעָשִׂ֛יתָ שְׁנַ֥יִם כְּרֻבִ֖ים זָהָ֑ב מִקְשָׁה֙ תַּעֲשֶׂ֣ה אֹתָ֔ם מִשְּׁנֵ֖י קְצ֥וֹת........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)