“A Creative Endeavor,” Rabbi Elaine Zecher’s Shabbat Awakenings

February 20, 2026 | 3 Adar 5786

Welcome to Shabbat Awakenings, a weekly reflection as we move toward Shabbat. You can also listen to it as a podcast.

Building the pyramids or whatever the Egyptians forced the Israelites slaves to do was not a creative endeavor. They had no choice. It was cruel labor of a captive people.

What happens when that people become liberated and are able to participate in the act of creation?

This week, we explore the reasoning for the divine command to build the Mishkan, the traveling sanctuary which would hold the tablets and serve as a physical structure at the center of the tribes as they moved forward on their wilderness trek toward the land of great promise.

This is a story of healing, of garnering the human capacity to create and to contribute of oneself to a project to produce a meaningful result.

We begin with the story of creation when God made a world for all living things to inhabit. In this description, the Hebrew word for make, asah, עָשָׂ֑ה appeared 200 times (Leibowitz, Exodus, pg 480). This Hebrew word is a synonym for create, barah, בָּרָ֣א. When God began to create….בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים The story of creation ended with a blessing when God blessed all that God had made. The commentator, Rashi, imagined the content of the blessing.

May it be granted that the Divine Presence rest on the work of your hands.

That work of the hands of humans would become manifest through the building of the Mishkan. God instructed Moses to convey to the people:

וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם׃
Let them make me a sanctuary and I will dwell among them.  (Exodus 25:8)

The modern commentator, Nehama Leibowitz, noted that the Hebrew word, asah, עָשָׂ֑ה we find 200 times in the creation story appeared seven times in the building of the Mishkan as a way for the Torah to connect these two creative and imaginative events.

The added layer with the construction of the Mishkan is how the people respond. They do so with their whole heart and willingly engage.

This is the moment of healing from the forced labor of slavery. They don’t have to do it.  They want to bring themselves forward to make this sacred dwelling and as a result the Divine would dwell among them because of them.

When we feel immobilized by the tyranny of the world that surrounds us, the capacity to join in a creative process or endeavor brings new light and life to the way we experience the world. We become active participants rather than passive observers. The direction to erect the Mishkan allowed the people to shed some the heaviness of slavery and liberate themselves through a sacred creative endeavor.

They won’t always get it right (see Torah portion two weeks from now) but it doesn’t mean that they or we won’t stop trying.

Shabbat Shalom! שבת שלום

I welcome your thoughts and experiences here.

Rabbi Elaine Zecher