Vayirka
God Calling - Are You Home?
The Mishkan as a Home
It is not a coincidence — nothing in Torah is — that the Mishkan, the sanctuary where God’s Presence dwells, and that which we model our Synagogues after, looks so much like a home.
There is a table, for nourishment.
A menorah, for light and beauty.
An incense altar, for fragrance, intimacy, and memory.
And yes — a barbecue in the courtyard. The mizbeach, the altar for offerings, where the choicest meats are cooked over flame and lifted heavenward in the sweet smoke of connection.
It is the aroma of dinner, the quiet glow of candlelight, the murmured prayers rising like incense — all echoing the sacredness of the Mishkan.
Because the true sanctuary of God is not only in the wilderness, or the Temple, or the synagogue.
The true Mishkan is the home.
Where people live.
Where people love.
Where people hurt, and heal, and grow together.
It Is Not Good to Be AloneThe Torah says it plainly:
“Lo tov heyot ha’adam levado.”
“It is not good for man to be alone.”
Not “bad.” But not good.
Not complete. Not sustainable.
Because the adam — the human being who has already eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, who now contains both good and evil, both clarity and confusion, both creativity and self-destruction — that person cannot live well in isolation.
To be alone is to be vulnerable to despair, to ego, to the yetzer hara whispering lies into your solitude.
Even the strongest of us stumble.
Even the wisest fall.
And some wounds… you just can’t bandage by yourself.
Two Are Better Than OneKing Shlomo writes in Mishlei, the book of Proverbs:
“Two are better than one… for if one falls, the other can lift them up.”
Sometimes, the only thing between a person and rock bottom is a hand to hold.
A partner.
A friend.
A child.
A spouse.
And sometimes, even when both of you fall — if you’ve ever been there, you know — you can brace your feet against each other, grip each other’s hands, and pull.
And together — impossibly, miraculously — you rise.
This is why Torah is given not to individuals, but to a people.
This is why holiness begins not in the clouds, but at the dinner table.
And this is why the Mishkan — the House of God — is filled not with lightning and mystery, but with furniture.
Tables.
Lamps.
Altars.
Like a home.
The Divine Dwells in the Space BetweenWhat does this teach us?
That kedusha — holiness — is not found in escaping the world, but in engaging with it fully.
In our relationships.
In our responsibilities.
In the way we speak to those we live with.
God does not live in the sky.
He lives in the space between people who love each other.
In the honest struggle to be kind when you're tired,
to forgive when you're hurt,
to listen when you're right.
And when we build that kind of home,
when we make a space where light and food and kindness are shared,
then the Shechinah — the indwelling Presence of God — comes to rest there.
Just as it did in the Mishkan.
Just as it always has.
Shall we now step inside, and light the fire of the korban olah?
It is not a coincidence — nothing in Torah is — that the Mishkan, the sanctuary where God’s Presence dwells, and that which we model our Synagogues after, looks so much like a home.
There is a table, for nourishment.
A menorah, for light and beauty.
An incense altar, for fragrance, intimacy, and memory.
And yes — a barbecue in the courtyard. The mizbeach, the altar for offerings, where the choicest meats are cooked over flame and lifted heavenward in the sweet smoke of connection.
It is the aroma of dinner, the quiet glow of candlelight, the murmured prayers rising like incense — all echoing the sacredness of the Mishkan.
Because the true sanctuary of God is not only in the wilderness, or the Temple, or the synagogue.
The true Mishkan is the home.
Where people live.
Where people love.
Where people hurt, and heal, and grow together.
It Is Not Good to Be AloneThe Torah says it plainly:
“Lo tov heyot ha’adam levado.”
“It is not good for man to be alone.”
Not “bad.” But not good.
Not complete. Not sustainable.
Because the adam — the human being who has already eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, who now contains both good and evil, both clarity and confusion, both creativity and self-destruction — that person cannot live well in isolation.
To be alone is to be vulnerable to despair, to ego, to the yetzer hara whispering lies into your solitude.
Even the strongest of us stumble.
Even the wisest fall.
And some wounds… you just can’t bandage by yourself.
Two Are Better Than OneKing Shlomo writes in Mishlei, the book of Proverbs:
“Two are better than one… for if one falls, the other can lift them up.”
Sometimes, the only thing between a person and rock bottom is a hand to hold.
A partner.
A friend.
A child.
A spouse.
And sometimes, even when both of you fall — if you’ve ever been there, you know — you can brace your feet against each other, grip each other’s hands, and pull.
And together — impossibly, miraculously — you rise.
This is why Torah is given not to individuals, but to a people.
This is why holiness begins not in the clouds, but at the dinner table.
And this is why the Mishkan — the House of God — is filled not with lightning and mystery, but with furniture.
Tables.
Lamps.
Altars.
Like a home.
The Divine Dwells in the Space BetweenWhat does this teach us?
That kedusha — holiness — is not found in escaping the world, but in engaging with it fully.
In our relationships.
In our responsibilities.
In the way we speak to those we live with.
God does not live in the sky.
He lives in the space between people who love each other.
In the honest struggle to be kind when you're tired,
to forgive when you're hurt,
to listen when you're right.
And when we build that kind of home,
when we make a space where light and food and kindness are shared,
then the Shechinah — the indwelling Presence of God — comes to rest there.
Just as it did in the Mishkan.
Just as it always has.
Shall we now step inside, and light the fire of the korban olah?