Parashiyot Terumah and Tetzaveh contain the instructions for how to build the mishkan.  They teach us how to assemble its furnishings, fashion its tools, and construct the garments that the priests wear inside it.  In this week’s parashiyot, VaYakhel and Pekudei, we see the actual construction, meet the volunteers, and watch with satisfaction as the mishkan comes together.  Looking at how the mishkan was built can give us insight into what it takes to build our own tabernacles, our own small worlds.  It offers us guidance about what it takes to actualize and concretize our intentions, to move from the merely theoretical to the practical and the possible.