Rabbi Daniel Siegel

If You Build It

The documentary, If You Build It, tells the story of a group of High School students who, by means of a “full-scale design and build project”, transformed themselves and their community. In the process, they reinvented “their own sense of what’s possible”.

Our parashah, Pekudei, concludes the building of the Mishkan/Tabernacle (The space for the divine “indwelling”) with the following words: “All the work of the Tabernacle…was completed…(by) the Israelites. Moshe inspected the work …and blessed them”.

The Rabbis present the following as being the words of this blessing: “May it be the will that the Divine indwelling manifests itself through your hands”.

The builders of the Divine Tabernacle, who a short while ago were the makers of the Golden Calf, are learning that the divine presence (or absence) is only wrought through their actions.  If “you” build it.

Significantly, unlike most blessings, which begin “May it Be God’s will”, here “the will” suggests it must be the human will that brings God into our world. 

The biblical narrative of the building of the Mishkan is purposely parallel and reflective, in many respects, to that of Creation story. If God calls the world into being, we craft its continuous becoming.

The documentary If You Build It derives its title from the film Field of Dreams. Realising our dreams, by making the possible present, brings divine blessings upon us.

“A great building must begin with the unmeasurable,

must go through measurable means when it is being designed

and in the end must be unmeasurable.”

Louis Kahn