Hindy rushed off the school bus towards her house. Finally! She had so much to tell Mommy!
“Hi, Hindy!” Chesky said, sitting on the front steps. “Look what I made - a mishkan! I’m gonna be a Kohen Gadol!”
“That’s nice, Chesky,” mumbled Hindy walking into the house. “Hi Mommy!”
“Hi Hindy!” Mommy said. “How was school?”
“Oh. My. Kneidlach. You’re not going to believe what happened. So you know I told you about that new girl, Chevy, who wears those ugly yellow headbands?”
“You absolutely did not tell me, Hindy. If you did, I would have stopped you right away, because that would be loshon hora.”
“Okay, her headband is not important for this story. So today they moved her back to the second grade! Can you believe it? She wasn’t even in our school for one week, and they moved her back? We didn’t even have a test yet that she could have failed.”
“Hindy!” Mommy said, shocked. “How could you just stand there and tell me loshon hora about someone?”
“But it’s true,” Hindy said.
“It’s still loshon hora, even if it’s true,” said Mommy. “How can you talk like that in our house?”
“I dunno," said Hindy, pacing back and forth nervously. “I uh... I didn’t think...”
CRUNCH
Hindy looked down to see that she had just put her foot down on Chesky’s model mishkan, which he had moved to the living room floor.
“MOMMMYYY!!!” Chesky howled, running inside. “Hindy broke the Mishkan! She’s a rasha like Nevuchadnetzar!”
“I’m not a rasha!” Hindy said angrily. “It was an accident!”
“You need to buy me a new mishkan!” Chesky said.
“No, I don’t!” retorted Hindy. “You shouldn’t leave your things on the floor and people won’t step on them.”
“Hindy!” said Mommy, askance. “What has gotten into you today? Apologize to your brother.”
“I’m sorry, Chesky,” Hindy mumbled.
“Now help me fix Chesky’s mishkan,” said Mommy, taking down some tape, rubber cement, and popsicle sticks.
“Ugh okaaay,” Hindy said reluctantly.
“Come on, Hindy,” said Mommy. “It’s true that Chesky shouldn’t have left it on the floor, but it’s a big chessed to help fix it for him.”
Hindy sighed, moaned, and groaned as she helped Mommy rebuild the smashed mishkan.
“What’s wrong, Hindy?” asked Mommy. “You had so much fun putting together your new dollhouse last week. I would think you would enjoy this.”
“My dollhouse was fun because I was building something useful,” Hindy explained. “This is just a silly paper mishkan. It doesn’t do anything.”
“Hindy,” Mommy said. “You know, in the midbar, all of Klal Yisroel helped with the mishkan. Chopping wood, melting metal, weaving, sewing, everyone wanted to be a part of it. Even the women gave their jewelry.”
“Yeah, but that was exciting because it was the real Mishkan.”
“And we are also building the real Mishkan right now,” Mommy said.
“I’m not a baby,” said Hindy. “I know this isn’t the real Mishkan.”
“Oh I’m not talking about this model mishkan for Chesky,” Mommy replied. “I’m talking about our house.”
“Our house is already built,” said Hindy, looking around.
“But is it a mishkan?” Mommy asked.
“Well, no,” said Hindy. “There’s no mizbeiach, there’s no menorah - it’s just a house.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Mommy said.
“What?” Hindy looked around again.
“See this table?” said Mommy. “When we eat here properly, making brachos, thanking Hashem for the food, and thinking about how delicious and miraculous Hashem’s food is, it is like we are bringing korbanos. Our seforim shelves are like the menorah, lighting up our house with the or haTorah. But we have to build our house into a mishkan for Hashem - a place for Hashem to live with us.”
“How do we do that?” asked Hindy.
“Well, firstly, it means making our house feel like a holy House of Hashem. When we speak, we must speak in a holy way - that means only nice things and no loshon hora. It means treating everyone nicely, not yelling at Chesky for making a mistake, and going out of our way to help people - even if they might have left something somewhere they shouldn’t have.”
Hindy looked down at Chesky’s partially rebuilt mishkan.
“So building Chesky’s mishkan for him is actually building a real Mishkan for Hashem in our house?”
“Exactly!” said Mommy. “And if we’re building Hashem’s House, shouldn’t we be excited to do it?”
Hindy looked at Chesky.
“Chesky,” she said with a huge smile. “I’m so, so, so sorry for breaking your mishkan. But look, I’m making it even better than it was before!”
Turning to Mommy, she added, “Mommy, when we’re done, can we bake cookies so I can bring a present to Chevy in school tomorrow? It must be so hard for her to be in a new school with no friends.”
Have a Wonderful Shabbos!
Let’s review:
- How was building Chesky’s mishkan actually building a real mishkan?
- How do we make our home Hashem’s Home?
