About Mishkan Miami

Mission
Compassion. Care. Connection. / Chanun. Chesed. Chibur: These three concepts provide the foundation for Jewish spiritual care. When any individual experiences loss or transition due to health, age, or personal crisis, each of us has a Jewish obligation to care for one another. A compassionate, caring, and connecting presence can provide the resilience, courage, and support we need to face our challenges. Mishkan Miami: The Jewish Connection for Spiritual Support, a response of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, helps to build connection to community and our sacred Jewish resources ba’asher hoo sham, wherever they are. We seek to be a catalyst of change for local institutions and volunteers, to become caring communities and individuals, through teaching and inspiring the values of Jewish spiritual care.

Vision
Mishkan Miami envisions a seamless community of care in which agencies, synagogues, and individuals work together to provide an open and inviting environment for those who need it most. Mishkan Miami builds upon the Federation’s mission that Jewish community can provide support through providing economic and emotional assistance when needed. At the same time, we can provide spiritual support to all, recognizing that all of us have been endowed with a transcendent spirit. We see a community that engages each of its members in both Refuat HeNefesh and Refuat HaGuf - healing of spirit and body.

Logo: Its Meaning and Explanation
Mishkan literally means tabernacle, or tent. However, in the Jewish tradition, the word derives from the Hebrew root shin-chaf-nun, meaning to dwell within. Mishkan therefore connotes a place of gathering, a place where we share and meet. Every morning in the daily prayer we bless the collective efforts of the Jewish people in reciting the verse “Mah Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov, Miskenotecha Yisrael,” or “How Goodly are your tents Yaakov, your Tabernacles, O’ Israel” (Numbers 24:5). The tent can be seen as a symbol the entire Jewish people, of klal Yisrael.

At the same time, the word mishkan is invoked as the name of the makeshift Temple in the wilderness which housed the two tablets, the place in which ‘God dwelled’; this Tabernacle was later replaced when the Temple was built during the reign of King Solomon. In the Torah, we read, “You shall build me a sanctuary (mikdash) and I shall dwell (v’shachanti) among them” (Exodus 28:5). In essence, the mishkan symbolically represented the house of God.

Both are not houses, but they are homes. They are places where we feel rooted and have a sense of place. We feel protected and embraced, either by one another, or under the wings of the Shechinah, the in-dwelling name of the Divine.

Note the above verse states that God will dwell ‘among them’- the people (b’tocham) and not ‘within it’- the tabernacle (b’tocho); the Jewish commentators have noted this strange anomaly. In describing the charge to build the tabernacle in the wilderness, God assures Moses that by engaging in this great building project, they will be blessed with the presence of God among the people. The Temple represents the meeting place of the Jewish people as a collective with God; it is the ultimate expression of a people seeking transcendence and connection. When they collectively act in this fashion, they are rewarded by becoming a transcendent and holy people, because God dwells within the very fabric of communal life.

Thus, the mishkan represents both horizontal connection- our links to one another, as well as vertical connection – our connection to the transcendent in our lives. Mishkan Miami seeks to engage the community in such a way that each Jew feels that they dwell within the Mishkan, that they feel connected with a sacred community, especially during periods when they might feel most alone.

Our logo, in the form of a tent welcomes each of us in, and the triangle points upward, as each of us seek for meaning and purpose to help us through those difficult times in our lives. It also points outward, as each of us can reach out and become the source of strength to each other, as each of us are fashioned in the tzelem elokim, the image of God. The midrash teaches us “Just as I am merciful, so shall you be merciful.” Indeed, when we embody this, we are Godlike.

These two triangles form a stylized Jewish star, for this is our vision for what Jewish community can mean for each of us. The hospital, a friend’s house, a nursing home, or a synagogue- the mishkan can be experienced anywhere, as long as we reach out to one another.