Terumah: some assembly required

Most of the parsha describes the construction of the Tabernacle and its vessels. I can follow the ark of the covenant.  It  is just a box, a coffin for the tablets.  The ark cover, the golden kaporeth, decorated by cherubim facing one another with outstretched, overhanging wings freaks me out, but is something that I can imagine.  The table is more difficult to visualize:  with its molding and shelves.  The menorah, with its cups, knobs and flowers is variously  imagined  by the commentators. 

As the descriptions proceed to the sanctum, the altar and the courtyard, they become sketchier.  I have trouble imaging how it is all put together.  

Much of my home furniture has come from Ikea. I used to assemble it myself.  I usually had to redo some part because of left/ right  confusion of nearly identical parts.  I did not feel talented at assembly.  I was not taught the value and pleasure of assembly.  I did have a tinker toy, but no erector set.  There was no role model for putting things together or fixing them when I was growing up.  If my father attempted such activities, he was berated, regardless of his level of success. My wife quotes her grandfather , " give a Jew a hammer, and he will hit his thumb."  I was taught to give up on construction projects. 

Besides, when i was a boy, we could not afford parts that fit together. No LEGOs. My clothes were "seconds" - sold at a discount because the stitching was a little off. The opulence of the parsha - gold, silver, precious stones- is  foreign. 

When I was 7, when Sputnik was launched, I scrounged for  stuff to make my own Sputnik: a wicker box with a lightbulb and other junk.  I plugged it in and blew the fuse.  The lesson was reinforced: don't even try to construct. 

When I was a young man, I was drawn to the laboratory where I could put things together.  But the ghost of deprivation haunted me, I needed to economize; my confidence was limited.  The shadow of that ghost is still with me. But now she tickles me when I get my patient $10,000./ month drugs for a $10. copay. 

I spoke at the Royal Palace in Warsaw about the heroic deeds of those who helped rescue my parents from the holocaust.  The Royal palace has a gilded, opulent look.  It is the Polish Versailles, the Polish Tabernacle. The corruption and falseness that is papered over ,in gold colored foil, is evident beneath the pretentious facade of reconstruction .

   We, who have been without a beautiful place of assembly for so long, our structure is the ragtag succah, the ditch in the Polish forest - cleverly covered with branches and leaves. Those are the structure I can relate to.