The Architecture of Holiness
Family Edition

The Summary

This is an abridged version of the essay The Architecture of Holiness, written by Rabbi Sacks in 2012.

From here to the end of Shemot, the Torah describes, in painstaking detail, the construction of the Mishkan, the first collective house of worship of the Jewish people. Precise instructions are given for each item, including their dimensions. But God cannot be contained in space. The Mishkan was a symbol, a focus, of the Shechinah that is everywhere, wherever human beings open their heart to God. So why are the dimensions and details so precisely listed? The dimensions should not matter, for God’s spirit can be any size.

Torah commentators, like Nechama Leibowitz have pointed out that the wording used for the construction of the Mishkan mirrors the way God’s creation of the universe is expressed at the beginning of the Torah. The Mishkan was, in other words, a micro-cosmos, a symbolic reminder of the world God made. The fact that the Shechinah rested within it was not meant to suggest that God is here not there, in this place not that. It was meant to signal that God exists throughout the cosmos. The Mishkan was a man-made structure to mirror and focus attention on the Divinely-created universe. It was in space what Shabbat is in time: a reminder of creation.

The dimensions of the universe are precise, mathematically exact. Had they differed in even the slightest degree the universe, or life, would not exist. Scientists are just beginning to realise how precise it is, and even this knowledge will seem rudimentary to future generations. We are on the threshold of a quantum leap in our understanding of the full depth of the words: “How many are Your works, Lord; in wisdom You made them all”. The word “wisdom” here – as in the many times it occurs in the account of the making of the Mishkan – means, “precise, exact craftsmanship”.

In just one other place in the Torah do we find the same emphasis on precise dimensions, namely, Noach’s Ark: “So make yourself an Ark of cypress wood. Make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The Ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around”. Like the Mishkan, the Ark symbolised the world in its Divinely-constructed order. God was about to destroy that world, leaving only Noach, the Ark, and what it contained, as symbols of the vestige of order that remained, on the basis of which God would fashion a new order.

Precision matters. Order matters. The misplacement of even a few of the 3.1 billion letters in the human genome can lead to devastating genetic conditions. The Butterfly Effect teaches us the beating of a butterfly’s wing somewhere may cause a tsunami elsewhere, thousands of miles away – small actions can have large consequences. That is the message the Mishkan was intended to convey.

God creates order in the natural universe. We are charged with creating order in the human universe. That means painstaking care in what we say, what we do, and what we must restrain ourselves from doing. There is a precise choreography to the moral and spiritual life as there is a precise architecture to the Tabernacle.

Being good, specifically being holy, is not a matter of acting as the spirit moves us. It is a matter of aligning ourselves to the Will that made the world. Law, structure, precision: of these things the cosmos is made and without them it would cease to be. And so, to signal that the same applies to human behaviour, the Torah records the precise dimensions of Noach’s Ark, and of the Mishkan.

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The Torah’s careful instructions for building the Mishkan tell us something beautiful about our world. Just as our entire universe depends on perfect measurements and balances to exist, the Mishkan’s precise dimensions weren’t simply about construction. They were a reminder in miniature of how God created everything around us, with incredible care and purpose.

When we look at the stars, or at the tiniest of insects, flora, and fauna, we see this same Divine attention to detail everywhere.

The Mishkan teaches us that similar care matters in how we live our lives - that every choice we make and every action we take has real meaning. Like the perfect measurements of the Mishkan and of Noah’s Ark, the way we live our lives creates ripples that touch and bring meaning to everything and everyone around us.

• While we could never know what an alternative universe would look like - with different actions and measurements - imagine you had made a different choice about your daily breakfast or another seemingly minor detail in your daily routine. How might that change the way the rest of your day goes?

The castle kitchen was still warm from dinner when a knock rang out from the castle door. A young woman stood in the doorway, her cloak heavy with rain. She claimed to be a lost princess from a neighbouring kingdom, though she carried no proof. Whoever she was, she needed shelter from the storm. But the royal family couldn’t help but wonder whether to believe her story.    

More curious than suspicious, the queen had the staff prepare a guest room with a high stack of feather mattresses. Before the young woman went to sleep for the night, the queen quietly slipped in and placed a single baked pea beneath the bottom mattress.

Morning light filtered through the windows as their guest made her way to breakfast. Her eyes looked tired and her face pale, though she sat very daintily at the table. She stirred her tea slowly, then looked up apologetically. “I’m sorry, but I hardly slept,” she said softly. “There was something in that bed - I know how strange this sounds given all those mattresses, but I could feel it. Like a small stone or seed.” She shifted in her chair, clearly uncomfortable.

The queen watched her guest quietly, noting how she winced slightly as she raised her teacup. It was a little-known fact that true princesses in that corner of the world were extremely sensitive sleepers who felt every bump, every ripple, and every piece of grit. The queen was that way herself. Now she knew that the woman was a true princess. The tiny pea, hidden beneath layers of luxury, had revealed more about the young woman’s nature than any royal proclamation ever could. Sometimes, truth lies in the smallest details.

• Are there times when such minor “peas” and other details aren’t nearly as important as we think they are?

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Parshat Shekalim is the first of four special Shabbatot that are scheduled in the run-up to Pesach. This first one usually falls on the last Shabbat of the month of Shvat, or on the Shabbat which coincides with Rosh Chodesh Adar, or on a Shabbat early in Adar.

A special reading, taken from Parshat Ki Tissa (Shemot 30:11-16) is added to the regular Torah reading. The passage describes a census of Bnai Yisrael, as instructed by God taken while the people were in the desert.

Although the Torah teaches that it is forbidden to count Jews in the ordinary manner (for instance pointing to each person and counting them one by one), this census was taken in a special way: the people were asked to donate silver coins, and it was their contributions that were counted.

II Kings 12:1-17 (Ashkenakim and Yemenites)
II Kings 11:17-12:17 (Sephardim and Minhag Anglia)
Rosh Chodesh Haftara– Isaiah 66:1-24 (see our Family Edition for Noach for notes on this special Haftara)

In II Kings 11:17–12:17, Yehoyada, the High Priest, establishes a covenant between God, the king, and the people, reaffirming their commitment to serve the Lord.   

The Temple of Baal and all of its alters and idols are thoroughly shattered. Queen Atalya is executed, solidifying King Yehoash’s rule.

Yehoash, crowned at a young age, reigns over Judah and leads religious reforms under Yehodaya’s guidance. Yehoash orders the priests to collect funds to repair the Temple, which had been neglected and damaged during Atalya’s reign. However, progress is slow, so Yehoash changes the system, directing funds from offerings into a secured chest for the repairs, ensuring transparency and efficient use of the money.

The Temple is restored, and its sacred worship revitalised. Yehoash’s reforms highlight the importance of proper stewardship of resources and fidelity to God in restoring spiritual and national stability.

I Kings 5:26-6:13

This week’s Haftara describes King Solomon’s preparations for building the Temple in Jerusalem, fulfilling the promise God made to David that his son would one day create the Beit HaMikdash. Solomon makes a treaty with Hiram, king of Tyre, securing cedar and cypress wood in exchange for wheat and oil. Then Solomon assembles a vast labour force, including Israelites and foreign workers, to carry out the construction.

     The building of the Temple begins in the fourth year of his reign. The structure is meticulously detailed in the Haftara, heavily featuring stone and woodwork crafted offsite to maintain reverence and silence at the construction site.

God speaks to Solomon, reminding him that the Temple alone will not secure His Presence. Instead, God promises to dwell among the Israelites and uphold His covenant as long as they obey His commands, emphasising the importance of faithfulness over ritual.

• Why does Tanach provide so much architectural detail about the Temple?

Rabbi Sacks wrote: “As soon as we read the opening lines of Terumah we begin the massive shift from the intense drama of the Exodus with its signs and wonders and epic events, to the long, detailed narrative of how the Israelites constructed the portable Mishkan that they carried with them through the desert.”

The link between the Parsha and the Haftara is clear. Both texts deal with the construction of God’s houses (the Mishkan [Tabernacle] and the Beit HaMikdash [Holy Temple], respectively).

The universe, created by God for us to dwell in, follows precise laws of physics. And to mirror this, we build the Mishkan, and later the Beit HaMikdash, following a detailed instruction manual, carefully creating a home for God to dwell within.

As Rabbi Sacks also wrote: “God creates order in the natural universe. We are charged with creating order in the human universe. That means painstaking care in what we say, what we do, and what we must restrain ourselves from doing. There is a precise choreography to the moral and spiritual life as there is a precise architecture to the Mishkan.

“Being good, specifically being holy, is not a matter of acting as the spirit moves us. It is a matter of aligning ourselves to the will that made the world. Law, structure, precision: of these things the cosmos is made and without them it would cease to be. It was to signal that the same applies to human behaviour that the Torah records the precise dimensions of the Mishkan and Noah’s Ark [and the Temple].”

Rabbi Alex Israel, in his wonderful book I Kings: Torn in Two, notes that the starting date for the construction of the Temple is “anchored in a reference to the Exodus.”

He tells us that “The standard protocol in the book of Kings calls for a significant event to be listed in reference to the years of the king’s reign. Why is a reference to the Exodus suitable or at all relevant? It is notable that the Exodus is a constant presence throughout these chapters, repeatedly mentioned in the ceremonial dedication of the Temple (see Kings 8:9, 16, 21, 51, 53 and 65). What is the nature of the linkage between the Exodus and the Temple?

“Despite the length of time since the Exodus, the Temple is viewed as the culmination and completion of a long journey that commenced with the nation’s leaving Egypt. In Israel’s jubilant song at the Reed Sea, we read of the Jewish people’s destination…the entry to the land will culminate in the establishment of the Temple.”

By connecting these two events, the book of Kings encourages us to view the entire narrative from Shemot to Kings as a single journey, and the building of the Temple by King Solomon and the people of Israel as the destination reached at long last.