In Parashat Vayakhel(Ex. 35:1–38:20) Moses assembles the people of Israel, asking them to bring—as their hearts lead—the materials needed to build the Mishkan, the Holy Tabernacle. However, he first reminds them to keep Shabbat. Why?
Whether they realize it, Moses is connecting the sanctity of time (Shabbat) with the sanctity of place (the Mishkan), making the nation aware that man, as co-creator has the capacity to “build” holiness into this world by transforming the raw matter, given to them by God—the wood, gold, fabric—into a vessel for transcendence as represented in the Mishkan.
We see in this, the cycle of giving and renewal that the Creator builds into the process. It’s also a lesson in sacred physics—time allowed the physical realm to coalesce into existence. Seeing Moses prioritizing Shabbat just before building the Mishkan aligns human effort with God's cosmic rhythm—honoring the “rest” that grounds the material world before shaping it into holiness. It's an example of the Creator's holy intent hidden as natural law: God’s mechanism for forming energy into matter is mirrored in our recognition that time is holy.
The nation comes together in this effort to build a place of worship, fashioned with the material blessings given them, in the abundance that their heart dictates. On a spiritual level it's a directive on how to live a life of purpose, it's the way to worship. But there is the pashut or basic level of understanding, that Israel is commanded to build a place of worship. The specific design is given in the upcoming chapters. These aren't suggestions, the Torah states, "These are the things that HaShem commanded"
The Sages speak of the Mishkan as a model for the cosmos, including our world. The Talmud (Shabbat 99a)relates how the beautiful tapestries secured with gold fasteners, within the Mishkan symbolized the skies and the fasteners shined like the stars at night. Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, one time Chief Rabbi of Israel taught that those gold fasteners conveyed a lesson in celestial mechanics—in the same way that the fasteners held the tapestries in place, making the Mishkan a stable unit—the stars function in a similar way. We may think that only the moon exerts influence on the earth’s oceans but all the stars affect our planet. In Job 38:31, Job is asked if he can, “Bind the chains of Pleiades." God brought the Mabbul, the Flood in the days of Noach, by removing two stars from the constellation Pleiades (see Talmud, Berakhot 59a). Rav Kook said that the true purpose of the stars was, “…to bind together the forces of the world, making the universe one.” The role of Israel in building the Mishkan—and later the Temple—reinforces the concept that man is co-creator with G-d, rebuilding the Temple and with it, the ultimate Unity.
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