Moshe Rabbeinu gathered together the entire nation for the specific purpose of instructing them regarding the building of the Mishkan. Horav Baruch Sorotzkin, zl, observes that the power of certain mitzvos is catalyzed by their acceptance and performance by the tzibbur, entire community. There are other mitzvos that attain validity even if only one person observes and fulfills them. The mitzvah of building the Mishkan, the place where the Shechinah will repose, the source of Klal Yisrael’s kedushah and taharah, holiness and purity, is one that must involve the entire Jewish People. No individual, regardless of his ability to achieve even the loftiest degree of sanctity, can alone create a place of hashroas ha’Shechinah, a place in which the Shechinah rests. It must be a communal endeavor in which every individual takes part, each adding his own component of kedushah.
Horav Sorotzkin supplements this with the notion that in order for all of Klal Yisrael to receive spiritual influence from the Mishkan, each individual must sense that he has a share in it. He must believe that he is one of its builders and that he is as much a participant in the building of the Mishkan as is everybody else. Hence, even the poorest Jew was instructed to contribute towards the building of the Mishkan. This act engendered within him the feeling that the Mishkan was the source of Divine light for all people.
