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By Rabbi Tuvia Bolton, Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim, Kfar Chabad, Israel

This week we read how the Jews put the finishing details on the Tabernacle (Mishkan) that G-d commanded them to build in the desert.

This edifice was of the utmost importance to Judaism: besides being the prototype for the ensuing two Holy Temples which temporarily revealed the Creator, and the third Temple which will be permanent, it is also the prototype for our personal service of G-d; every Jew is enjoined to become a Holy Temple.

Namely we must use the Torah to reveal the Creator in every detail of our lives and the world around us.

But here we see something interesting. When the Tabernacle was finished it refused to be assembled! The boards were simply too heavy and only Moses was able to miraculously erect them! (Rashi Ex. 39:33)

And, as though that wasn’t enough, even then it wasn’t completed! The Tabernacle still required Moses’ blessing in order that G-d’s presence (‘Shechina) should really ‘shine’ there. (39:43)

At first glance, this is very hard to understand.

This Holy Tabernacle was G-d’s idea. Why didn’t He at least make it easier for the people to finish it? And why did He need Moses’ blessing to be revealed there?

To understand this, here is a story. (HaGeula weekly (368)

Mrs. Raizel Estulin was behind the iron curtain with no avenue of escape other than prayer. Russia was closed… forever! Or so it seemed. Every year she applied anew for a visa to move to Israel to her family.

But every year she, like thousands of others, was rejected.

But what she lacked the most and what she prayed for non-stop was to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe. She had seen pictures of him and her parents had seen the Previous Rebbe. They were all Chabad Chassidim.

But it looked like she would never leave Russia and the Rebbe was in America.

But miraculously it happened! One day she looked in her mailbox to see a letter from the government. It was permission to leave to Israel!
It was truly a miracle! And to make it complete, shortly after she got settled in Israel her family bought her a plane ticket to the Rebbe.

A few days later, when she entered the Rebbe’s office he asked about her family, about her health, about the situation in Russia, how she was acclimating to Israel, and then told her that when she returns to Israel she should devote time to encouraging Jewish women and girls to light Shabbat Candles.

And when Mrs. Estulin feebly protested that she didn’t know how to speak Hebrew, the Rebbe assured her. “You do what you have to and if any one makes trouble tell them that the Lubavitcher Rebbe told me to.”

Mrs. Estulin, a true Chassid of the Rebbe, wasted no time. The first Friday after her return to Israel she took a bus to the nearest hospital and bravely entered with the plan of going from room to room distributing candles together with a folder explaining why, how and when to light them.

She was full of optimism but there definitely was more than a trace of anxiety. After all, she only knew a few words of conversational Hebrew and had never really approached total strangers before to ask them to do commandments. In Russia it was unheard of.

And sure enough, the first room …. trouble!

Mrs. Estulin entered with a smile and outreached candles to a sixty-year-old woman but before she could say a word, the woman opened fire: “What are you doing here?! What? Candles? Shabbat? Commandments? GET OUT with your nonsense!! All you religious people are parasites! Do you hear me? Parasites! OUT OF MY ROOM!!”

Mrs. Estulin flinched and just wanted to apologize and back out, but suddenly she remembered what the Rebbe said and blurted out in her Russian accent. “Listen, the Lubavitcher Rebbe sent …. ” but her limited Hebrew and the shouts of the woman still ringing in her ears tied her tongue. Then something happened. The woman calmed down! “Ehh? You said the Rebbe of Lubavitch? The Rebbe sent you?”

“Yes.” Mrs. Estulin answered and asked incredulously, “Do you know the Rebbe?”

The woman’s eyes filled with tears and she answered in Russian. First apologizing for yelling and then saying.

“When I was young my parents passed away leaving me and my brother to fend for ourselves. He went to Medical School and graduated with high honors while I turned to other interests. But we were very close because all we had in the world was each other.

“But things weren’t good in Russia and after a while, it was over five years ago, we decided to leave. My brother, although he was head of a department in a large hospital, was making almost no money and I was making much less.

“To our joy we got permission to leave but my brother didn’t want to move to Israel with me, that was always my dream, but he wanted New York where he could make the money he deserved. So for the first time, we decided to part ways, of course, we would to write and call regularly and the plan was to eventually rejoin.

” In Israel I managed to get a job and a place to live but But things didn’t work out so well for my brother. It seems that he overestimated the value of his Russian degrees. He went from hospital to hospital presenting his portfolio and credentials and receiving the same results; they all told him he needed at least another year of medical school! But he had almost no money; the little he brought with him went for the first two month’s rent and food and now his landlord was hounding him for the months that he owed.

“I got one last terrible letter from him. He wrote that he was totally depressed and trapped with no money, no job, no hope, no place to stay and no energy. So he had nothing, no friends, contacts or income and his debts were piling up.

“I was really worried. I would have sent him money but he left his room so had no way of contacting him and for over a month. NOTHING.

“But then I got a letter. I opened it and it was the happiest day in my life! He said he was alive and optimistic. And he told the following story.

“He wrote that before writing the previous letter he had already decided that he would (G-d forbid) end his own life. He mailed the letter then stayed up the entire night thinking about it and became more and more depressed until the sun rose. It was a cool Friday morning when he walked out of his apartment onto the sidewalk. He walked in a daze for several hours until he found himself walking to a local bridge. He had nothing to live for anymore. No one cared. He had no future. Everything was black all around him. He decided he would (G-d forbid) jump off into oblivion.

“But then someone called out ‘Excuse me sir, are you Jewish?’ He tried to just ignore it but such a question coming from nowhere almost made him laugh. Jewish? Where did that come from? He stopped for a moment and that was enough. The young man began to hound him saying ‘Nu, if you’re Jewish come put on Tefillin.’

“My brother had never put on Tefillin in his life. We were Communist atheists from Russia where no one puts on Tefillin. But the fellow got my brother talking until he convinced him to do it. He put on the Tefillin and then he told him why he was on the bridge and what he had come to do. The young man almost fainted.

“‘What?” he yelled, “Suicide!?? G-d forbid!!!  Why do such a crazy thing? You’re a human being! And you’re a Jew! It’s forbidden to give up.”

“Anyway, he convinced my brother to come with him to Shabbat in Crown Heights and then somehow arranged him a meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

“Well, I don’t know what the Rebbe said there to my brother but he came out of the Rebbe’s room a different man. Maybe they even gave him some money or found him a job or something but my brother didn’t tell me that. He just said that he spoke to the Lubavitcher Rebbe and everything will be all right.

“And he ended the letter saying ‘My dear sister, if you have a living brother today it is only in the merit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe'”

The woman turned to Mrs. Estulin with tears in her eyes and said. “Now please tell me more about these Shabbat Candles.”

This answers our question; why were Moses’ efforts and blessings needed to complete the tabernacle.

The Torah begins by telling us about how G-d put Adam, the first man, into ‘Gan Eden” to improve it. Gan Eden means heaven.

In other words, the world was already ‘heaven on earth’ but it was waiting to be made better. In heaven we receive pleasure and there are no challenges. But in heaven on EARTH there are challenges and when we meet them, we GIVE G-D pleasure!!! (Nachat Ruach).

And this was the purpose of the Tabernacle and the Three Temples (The last will be built by Moshiach). To give G-d pleasure by transforming the world.

But this can’t be done without Moses.

Moses is the one that ‘puts it all together’, inspires the Jews to bring the feeling and revelation of G-d into the world.

And the mystical book ‘The Zohar’ teaches us that in EVERY generation there MUST be such a ‘Moses’.

So just as Moses took the Jews from Egypt and brought ‘down’ G-d and His Torah at Mt. Sinai (Ex 19:20). And just he erected the Tabernacle and brought G-d’s presence there, so the Moses of our generation; the Lubavitcher Rebbe, does for us.

Just like in our story. If it wasn’t for the Rebbe Mrs. Estulin wouldn’t have met that woman and convinced her to light Shabbat candles and her brother would not be among the living!

But it all depends on us to be ready and do everything possible to hasten the arrival of Moshiach.

And not much is lacking to make it happen. We are standing on the merits of thousands of years of Jewish suffering and faith. Now it could be that just one more good deed, word or even thought can tip the scales and we will see a world that is more alive, holy and JOYOUS than we dreamed possible with ……

Moshiach NOW!!

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