Is bigger always better? Many in modern life would have us think so. If so, then the Mishkan, the small travelling sanctuary in this week’s parashah, is eclipsed in value by the beauty and size of the Temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem. The greater the architectural splendour of our places of worship, the deeper our religious commitment.

Our sages rejected this idea. The Talmud describes a man lamenting how his love life had declined. “When our love was strong, we could have lain together on the width of a sword,” he sighed. “But now that our love has weakened, a bed of sixty cubits does not suffice for us”.

Rav Huna saw this as a fitting metaphor for the movement from the Mishkan to the Mikdash (Temple), for it is written concerning the Mishkan: “And I will meet you there and I will speak with you from above the covering of the ark” (Exodus 25:22).

The ark was nine tefachim ( a biblical unit of measurement of around 10 centimetres) and the covering was one tefach, a total of ten tefachim. 

But it is written: “And the house Solomon built for the Lord, its length was sixty cubits, its width twenty, and its height thirty” (I Kings  1:6).

And in the end it is written: “So says the Lord, ‘The heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool, what house can you build for me?’”(Isaiah 66:1)

Some of my most powerful prayer experiences have been in the small shteiblach and batei midrash of Jerusalem and elsewhere, and some of the most loving and devoted couples I have met have lived in the simplest of homes.

Intimacy with God and with loved ones is often achieved through simplicity. Great costs can come at great cost.