Superficially, after the opening verses on Shabbat, most of Vayakhel is (frankly) boring. Sorry. It's the record of all the things that Bezalel and other craftsmen and craftswomen made for the Tabernacle, the portable temple the Israelites built in the wilderness at God's command under Moses' direction.

But a statement found in the Zohar (II, 164b) suggests that there are hidden spiritual depths here. Says the Zohar: "The 10 curtains of the Tabernacle symbolise the 10 firmaments and their mystery can be known only by the wise of heart." The Zohar is a book with layers of meaning; things are not always what they seem.

When the Zohar says "10 firmaments", it doesn't mean the 10 levels of heaven that our ancestors believed in, but the 10 sefirot, the 10 aspects of divinity through which God interacts with the universe and with us, and vice versa. The Tabernacle reflects the universe.

Kabbalists suggest that the 10 sefirot simultaneously reveal and conceal God's presence in the world. They reveal it because it is through them that the world comes into being and God's influence is transmitted to it, but they also conceal it because the full presence of God would be more than our minds could cope with.

Isn't this what curtains do? They conceal what is behind them, while suggesting that something is indeed behind! (Is this why the police advise us to leave our curtains open when we are away?)

So, if divinity is present in this world, in our lives, why are we mostly unaware of it? The answer: the curtains get in the way. We see the objects and people around us and imagine that is all there is, but in reality, these are curtains, and there is divinity within, seen only by the "wise of heart".