Transporting the Temple
After describing the order in which the twelve tribes of Israel traveled through the desert, the Torah tells of the census of the tribe of Levi, the tribe tasked with transporting and building the tabernacle (the temple) which was in the center of the Jewish camp.
Like everything in the Torah, the details of the story of the Levites are relevant to our lives just as they were relevant to our ancestors in the desert. For we too are tasked with the mission of the Levites, to erect a home for G-d, in the figurative, spiritual desert, the world we live in. In order to create the temple we rely on the spiritual part of ourselves, on the Levites within our soul.
The tribe of Levi was divided into three families.
The families of Gershon and Merori were tasked with transporting the curtains that covered the temple and the wooden planks of the temple walls. As the Torah tells us:
This is the service of the Gershonite families to serve and to carry.
They shall carry the curtains of the Mishkan and the Tent of Meeting, its covering and the Tachash skin covering overlaid upon it, and the screen for the entrance to the Tent of Meeting….
[As for] the sons of Merari...
This is the charge of their burden for all their service in the Tent of Meeting: the planks of the Mishkan, its bars, its pillars, and its sockets (4:24-31)
To create a temple in our lives, to build a haven of spirituality in the midst of a spiritual desert, we too employ the skills of the Levite families. To create holy space in our life, we too, like the families of Gershon and Merari, must create walls and a roof in order to take control of our environment. We must cultivate the capacity to say no, to reject, negative influences, temptations and distractions.
Yet saying no, rejecting the distractions and negativity is not enough. The third family of Levites, the family of Kehot, was tasked with transporting the vessels of the temple, the ark, menorah, table and alters.
Aaron and his sons shall finish covering the Holy and all the vessels of the Holy when the camp is set to travel, and following that, the sons of Kohath shall come to carry [them], but they shall not touch the sacred objects for [then] they will die. These are the burden of the sons of Kohath for the Tent of Meeting. (4:15)
Like the family of Kehot, we too must fill our space with the holy vessels, with holy positive experiences.
The spiritual mission of each of the Levite families are alluded to in their names. Gershon is derived from the word Garesh, which means to chase away, to divorce. Merori comes from the word Mar, which means bitter. They represented the difficult task of learning to say no to That which seeks to pull us away from our commitment to holiness. Kehot, on the other hand, is derived from the biblical word Yikhat which means to gather. Kehot teaches us to cultivate positive experiences; to collect all of our daily experiences and gather them in to our temple, to use them as furniture for the home of G-d, to use them as a conduit to fulfill the purpose of our creation.
(Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Lekutei Sichos 13 Naso 1).