The gift of giving. It was the first Israelite house of worship, the first home Jews made for God.

But the very idea is fraught with paradox, even contradiction. How can you build a house for God?

He's bigger than anything we can imagine, let alone build. King Solomon made this point when he

inaugurated another house of God the first temple.

He said, will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you,

how much less this house I have built. So did Isaiah in the name of God himself, heaven is my

throne and the earth is my footstool. What house can you build for me?

Where will my resting place be? Not only does it seem impossible to build a home for God.

It should be unnecessary. The God of everywhere can be accessed anywhere. As readily in the deepest

pit as on the highest mountain, in a city slum, as in a palace lined with

marble and gold. The answer and its fundamental is that God doesn't live in buildings. He lives

in builders. He lives not in structures of stone but in the human heart.

What the Jewish sages and mystics pointed out was that in our Parcia God says,

Let them build me a sanctuary that I may dwell in them, not that I may dwell in it.

Why then did God command the people to make a sanctuary at all? The answer given by most commentators

and hinted at by the Torah itself is that God gave this command specifically after the sin of

the golden calf. The people made the calf after Moses had been on the mountain for 40 days to

receive the Torah. So long as Moses was in their midst, the people knew that he communicated with God and God with him,

and therefore God was accessible, close.

But when he was absent for nearly six weeks, they panicked.

Who else could bridge the gap between the people and God?

How could they hear God's instructions?

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