Shemot:25 : 8
Exit 18W, George Washington Bridge, US-46, I-80, Ridgefield Park, Milepost 113.8
I am driving south on the New Jersey Turnpike at six-thirty on a Sunday morning. I am alone in a large, white panel van that I rented in Paramus on Friday. The rate for the rental was the best I could find: forty dollars a day and twenty- nine cents a mile. I am rocketing down the Turnpike at seventy-two miles an hour, the fastest I figure one can go with a sixty-five MPH speed limit without being pulled over by a New Jersey state trooper. At this time of the morning on a holiday weekend-- President's Day, to be exact (though it is also Rosh Chodesh Adar)-- it's just me and a bunch of truckers. I'm on my way to Baltimore, Maryland to pick up the Mishkan, the Tabernacle the Jews used to worship G-d in the desert, and bring it back to New Jersey. I kid you not.
Exit 16W, NJ-3, Sportsplex, East Rutherford, Milepost 101.6
Giants Stadium, home of the New York Giants football team, looms large through the right side of my windshield, and to my left is the New York City skyline. I am in the middle of the New Jersey Meadowlands, a giant swamp where everyone in the area used to dump their garbage and toxic waste and now is making an environmental comeback. Birds can be seen feeding in the marshes, and beyond the wetlands are various office buildings and corporate headquarters. In the far distance are Newark and Jersey City.
It is overcast, but the sun peaks through the clouds occasionally. It's twenty degrees Farenheit outside, so the heat in the van is set pretty high. Next to my feet on the floor of the van is my Turnpike Survival Kit: my cell phone, a pair of sunglasses, the EZ Pass tag from my Honda, directions to the Rambam School, my old Walkman, and some CD's. I know it's illegal to drive with headphones on, but this van has only an AM/FM radio, and there's no way I'm driving for eight hours without some good music to accompany me, even if I get a ticket.
This whole journey actually began thirty years ago and eleven hundred miles away in North Miami Beach, Florida. My future father-in-law, Dr. Morton Freiman, was studying about the Mishkan, and, being the artist that he is, he decided the best way to learn about it was to build a scale model. Like the true Mishkan in the desert, his project became a community-wide effort. Among others, a carpenter, a seamstress, and a metal worker lent a hand to build the Mishkan's walls, curtains, and vessels. Most of the model was made of painted redwood, with the Aron and Shulchan made from balsa wood. The Kruvim were made from two eagles left over from the 1976 American Bicentennial celebrations, with a doll's head glued on to make them more cherub-like. It was a labor of love, to teach students, including his own children, about the wonders of Israel's site for worshipping G-d in the wilderness.
Exit 13A, Newark Airport, Elizabeth Seaport, Milepost 101.6
The swamps of the Meadowlands have given way to the oil refineries that give the Turnpike its reputation for ugliness. Yes, this is definitely an unsightly part of the world. Time to flip the recirculated air button on in the van to keep out the fashtoonkineh smell. Smokestacks billow out dark black particulate matter into the atmosphere. An airplane flies by low on its approach to the runways at Newark Airport.
It's still too early to call home and check up on the wife and kids. Someone is probably already awake, watching Sunday morning cartoons on PBS, but if Chana is lucky, the baby is still unconscious and she can sleep in for another half an hour. I took a cup of tea with me in a travel mug when I left home, but after twenty minutes driving behind a Dunkin Donuts truck I have a craving for some coffee. Maybe I'll hit the next reststop.
After the Mishkan model was complete, it sat on the back porch of the Freiman house for a few months, opposite the pool. (Rumor has it that my brother-in-law to be, Jake, used to pretend to perform animal sacrifices on the model of the altar with his plastic farm animals.) Teachers, school groups, and Rabbis came to see the model. Then it traveled to the Miami Convention Center as an exhibit in the Miami Israel Jubilee. It travelled to various other venues in Miami, including the Skylake Synagogue and the Central Agency for Jewish Education until it came to rest in the lobby of the Hebrew Academy of Greater Miami, where the Freiman children went to school. In the fifteen years it was there, hundreds of children learned from the model and developed an understanding of the Mishkan.
Exit 5, Burlington, Mount Holly, Milepost 44.0
Now I'm deep in the Pinebarrens, the heavily wooded, more rustic area in the southern part of New Jersey. It's quieter, and the traffic has less trucks. The snow looks prettier here, and an occasional farm can be seen on the side of the highway with a small group of cows looking sad and annoyed.
I stopped at the Molly Pitcher Reststop for a Snapple iced tea and a chocolate bar. All the reststops are named after famous New Jerseyans (who on earth is Richard Stockton?).
I popped on my headphones as I pulled back onto the highway and started playing songs by New Jersey based rock groups that mention Baltimore. I had only two with me: Bruce Springsteen's Hungry Heart ("Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack/ I went out for a ride and I never came back"), and Fountains of Wayne's Bright Future in Sales ("Heading for the airport on a misty morning/ Gonna catch a flight to Baltimore"). That's all I could come up with.
After fifteen years at the Hebrew Academy, the Mishkan migrated north. Dr. Freiman's daughter Toby (my sister-in-law) moved with her husband Tzvi Klein(my brother-in-law) to Baltimore, and the Mishkan was taken to the Rambam School, where it remained for ten years. Toby and Tzvi made aliyah in the summer of 2006, and the Mishkan remained there, without family. Until now.
Exit 1, Delaware Memorial Bridge, Milepost 1.2
It almost feels like an accomplishment just to reach the end of the New Jersey Turnpike. The Delaware Bridge is a pretty span over the Delaware River, though on the other side is Wilmington, an ugly industrial city. The Delaware Turnpike is fourteen miles long with around ten police speed traps. I lower my velocity to sixty miles an hour. Another hour and a half to Baltimore and I've exhausted all the music I brought along. I tune in to a Philadelphia radio station that will accompany me until the Maryland border.
My children have a wonderful relationship with their Grandpops from Miami. They adore him and Savta, and all his art projects are a source of fascination for them. But the Mishkan is special. It is a testimony to my father-in-law's dedication to Torah and his desire to bring it to life for his family and for others.
Rambam School, Baltimore, Maryland, Mile 202 of the trip
Maryland is always the prettiest part of the drive. The land is more spread out that New Jersey, and there are signposts for towns with pretty names, like North East and Rising Sun. Plus, there is an amazing bridge (the Millard E. Tydings Bridge) over the Susquehanna River on I-95 that affords a beautiful view of the river valley below. The final forty miles of the drive are on 695, the Baltimore-Washington Beltway, nothing to write home about. Finally, I pull up at the Rambam School.
The Mishkan is spectacular. I had seen it many years earlier but had forgotten the detail that my father-in-law had put into the model. The outer walls, the inner sanctum, and the altar are all so intricate that you can feel how much work went into the original, as well as the model.
With the help of the maintenance workers at Rambam and my friend Jeffrey who drove over from Silver Spring, we load the Mishkan into the van. It is a tight fit, but after some maneuvering, it is in.
After a quick brunch with Jeff at Goldberg's Kosher Bagels in Baltimore (excellent pea soup), I am back on the road.
Exit 10, I-287, Metuchen, PerthAmboy, Milepost 88.1
I am returning from the south to the north of New Jersey. Six and a half hours into the trip, and my nerves are a bit frazzled. Jeff called me on my cell phone half-an-hour ago to ask if I am hearing the voice of G-d from the back of the van, and Chana called to ask if I was being guided home by following a particular cloud.
I passed by the Joyce Kilmer Reststop without stopping, but I'll probably pull in at Grover Cleveland for a break. I'm excited to get home. I can't wait to see the looks on my kids' faces when I open the back of the van.
The Moriah School, Englewood, New Jersey, Mile 404 of the trip
Dr. Prager, the principal of Moriah, came out himself on the Sunday of a holiday weekend to let us into the school to deliver the Mishkan. It is right in the lobby, where everyone can see it and learn from it for the next four weeks. My father-in-law will be up in New Jersey for Purim, and he'll teach the kids about the details of the Mishkan. I can't wait.
My wife Chana tells me I did a big mitzvah driving the length of the Turnpike twice to bring the Mishkan to Moriah. I'm just not sure which mitzvah it is. Kibbud av ve'aym, honoring your father and mother? Perhaps a variation of Livnot bayit leshem Hashem, to build a house for the sake of G-d? I think that if there is a mitzvah involved, it's probably veshinantam levanecha, and you shall teach Torah to your children.
While driving the salt covered van back to the rental agency, my wife and kids following along behind me in the minivan to take me home for a hot shower, I keep thinking that there must be a story in here somewhere, driving a model of the mobile Tabernacle two hundred miles to a new resting place so that Jewish children can learn more about it. I just can't think of what it is.