Muse

Who can forget the iconic Sabbath Blessing duet from the movie "Fiddler on the Roof"? The parents in each household in the shtetl, the Jewish village, make, in essence, (although in English) the same blessing over their children as their ancestors made, and as we say today,

" May God make you like Ephraim and Menashe", for boys, and

"May God make you like Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah" (Some put Leah first, as she became Jacob's wife before her younger sister, who was promised to him, did, but that's another story), for girls.

Like many of you, I never thought to question or examine this more deeply,

What to do about Grandma? Many of us have had this discussion with our families. Should we build an addition onto the house: a “Grandma apartment”, if you will? Fill it with some, but not all, of her treasured memories? And what to do with the myriads of  family pictures, some of which were taken during the early days of photography, when the camera employed to collect those memories was, itself, nearly as big as an apartment?

Now imagine what Moses must have felt like when shown the plans for God’s apartment: the Mishkan, wherein God’s presence would be concentrated when the Israelites camped in the desert! An involved commission from the One who created the entire world? NO PROBLEM!! (Not.)