This week’s parsha starts out with Moses telling the Children of Israel to honor the Sabbath day.  Don’t make any fire on Shabbat.

Then Moses moves on to request donations of gold, silver and bronze, fabrics and acacia wood, animal skins and spices, and precious stones.  All these are to go toward building the Ohel Moed (the holy Tent of Meeting.)  He goes on to describe the Tent in great detail.  Here’s a small example: “the hangings of the courtyard, its columns and its sockets and the screens for the gate of the courtyard, the pins for the Dwelling and the pins of the courtyard.

The people are so eager to donate their precious things that Moses has to tell them to stop!  And so that you don’t think it was only men, the women, also, brought their spinning.

Although Bezalel and Oholiav were to be in charge, other men helped with the actual building of the Tent.

Now, for the building of the tent, we get more detail.  For example: “Fifty loops were made on the one tapestry…Then there were made fifty clasps of gold and then the tapestries were joined.”  We get the lengths of the tapestries too.  Boards, bases, poles, rings, sphinxes, dishes ladles, jugs, jars of pure gold!  Every detail is described. 

Food for Thought

Would you have contributed to the Tent?  Why do you think the Children of Israel were so eager to contribute?