Let My People Know

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz: "We do not know how the Temple will be built but each and every one of us must contribute to its foundation"

 

When God took our forefathers out of Egypt, He performed innumerable miracles for them–the Ten Plagues, the Giving of the Torah, the Manna, the quails, the Well. 

Yet the Tabernacle of the Lord did not come down in fire from the heavens, but was built from the contributions of each and every Israelite. 

Rabbi Eliezer the Great speaks of the time prior to the coming of Mashiach when he says: 

We do not know how the Temple will be built, but it is we, each and every one of us, who must contribute to its foundations. 

Everyone will give his stone, his small share. 

Two stones build two houses; three stones build six houses (Sefer Yetzirah), and so on, ad infinitum. 

When these stones come together, The City of our God will be built.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From "On Whom Can We Rely?" in A Dear Son to Me by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz