NOTES for Exo 35:1-35
Wisdom of heart, judging by the biblical narrative, consists not only in being able to make something needed for the Tabernacle. It also consists in simply bringing something, contributing to the common fund, taking part in the shared work somehow, even through an ordinary offering. It turns out that to take part in God's work, when it is done together with others, wisdom is needed, even when the participation is minimal. At first glance this may seem strange, but on closer examination the matter becomes clear. Really, what is a shared work? Simply some job, activity, or some action connected with solving an assigned task?
Of course, it is that too, but such activity is only the outward side of the process. Behind it stands something else: relationships. The very relationships that make people a team. No team, no full-fledged work. At first glance this is only psychology, and today there is a psychologist at every workplace. In the time of Moses, of course, there was neither psychology nor psychologists, yet ways of resolving the corresponding problems existed even then.
The point, however, is not psychology alone. No psychologist can turn a work group into a community, and without that it is impossible to do God's work together. It is impossible because it can be done only by being involved in the process of relationship with the One who assigned the work. No relationship with God means no work of God, even if, from the standpoint of the tasks being solved, everything corresponds exactly to what was assigned. For God, the person is what matters first of all, and every work matters to Him only as the background and context of spiritual formation in God for the one who does it. If there is no formation, the work loses its meaning.
This is all the more important when the Tabernacle is in question: what was being built was not just anything, but a sanctuary; a place for communion with God was being arranged. To arrange it without at the same time arranging one's own heart and one's own soul would be strange, to say the least. Moreover, in this case the issue is the simultaneous formation of many people taking part in one work. This process unfolds differently for each person, because every person is unique, but at the same time they are all connected to one another, and their lives are connected too.
This kind of connection, joining together people who follow God and move toward God, united by one task set by God, is what forms a community. This is no longer a work collective whose members are defined and connected by function, but a process of shared standing before God and formation in God. It is a process no psychologist can start, direct, or control, because God Himself starts and directs it.