Rabbi Sara led us in our concluding reading of Exodus (Sh’mot), 40:33-40:38. She reminded us that the mishkan was built from the inside to the outside, the opposite order of most building projects. We discussed the cloud covering the Tent of Meeting and YHVH’s kavod filling the mishkan. We noted that Moses could not enter the mishkan because it was full of YHVH’s kavod; that when the cloud would lift off the mishkan, the Israelites would go on various journeys, and when it was on the mishkan, they would stay at home; and that there was a cloud by day and a fire, which could be seen by the Israelites in all their journeys, by night.
We discussed kavod which can be translated as honor, dignity, weight, or glory and suggests weightiness both physical and moral. Marilyn W. brought in the Jewish kabbalistic idea of tzimtzum or contraction. Sara suggested God was filling the mishkan and then would contract himself. Shay mentioned the masculine taking up space and the feminine, the Shechinah, spreading out and being accessible everywhere. R. Sara mentioned the mishkan becoming the container or vessel that enables communing with God.
