Side-by-side bonds
The subject of the Tabernacle occupies the remaining third of the book of Exodus. Amidst the details this week we learn: “Five curtains will be connected, each to its sister-piece, and five curtains shall be connected, each to its sister-piece”(Ex. 26;3). The Hebrew isha el achota, rendered “each to its sister-piece” literally means “a women to her sister”. Elsewhere (Ex. 25:20) we find a similar linguistic style for “a man to his brother.” Why, when describing beams and poles, nuts and bolts fitting together, does the Torah’s language use a relational metaphor? Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has written eloquently about the difference between face-to-face and side-by-side encounters. Civil face-to-face dialogue between adversaries only goes so far; while side-by-side efforts, even between adversaries, goes further and runs deeper. Consider the difference between polite dinner conversation (face-to-face), and the meal’s more labor-intensive preparation and clean up (side-by-side). The shared sweat of the side-by-side endeavor generates a cohesive bond, even if few words are exchanged, between complete strangers. This is why God institutes the side-by-side project of assembling and disassembling a structure like the Tabernacle following the Sinai revelation – to enable national cohesion to take root. Nation-building takes more than a founding story (the Exodus) and a lawgiving, defining moment (at Sinai), it requires that something be built together (a Tabernacle) side-by-side, relationally indicated by the Torah’s idiom “each to its sister-piece.”
Applications for the urgent need for side-by-side cohesion abound in 2010. The growth in social networks points to a hunger for association and social capital. Ideological food-fights, tension between ethnic groups, even religious hostilities could benefit from side-by-side shared sweat toward the building of something together. Strife with your neighbor has as high a likelihood of being calmed by toiling shoulder-to-shoulder as by talking eye-to-eye. God built us to forge bonds through dialogue and through doing, by listening and by laboring. May we deploy this additional understanding of naase v’nishma, “we will do and we will listen” to the relationships we grow.
Questions:
- How does “the table”, the Tabernacle’s furnishing, continue to be a setting for the holy?
- Why is having a single location to serve God important?
- Why do the poles for carrying the Ark remain attached even when the Ark is resting?
Resources: