Parts of the Whole

There are many half-measures and pieces involved in the portions surrounding the building of the mishkan.

Of course, Ki Tisa begins with the census being taken through the offering of a half-shekel.  There are thousands of wonderful commentaries on the beauty and meaning behind the half-shekel.

Some of the items in the construction are also in half an amah, or cubit.  I've seen fewer, but similar, commentaries regarding why the Torah would not work in whole cubits regarding this most fundamental structure.

One part of the mishkan I've always wondered about are the coverings over the Kodesh - why are the blankets/coverings made in "halves" of either five or six and five (10 pieces for the first covering of yarn and 11 pieces, I think, for the remaining coverings)?  Why are the pieces set forth in their individual measurements and, instead of being all sewn together piece by piece, attached half to half by fifty loops and fifty golden hooks?  A peshat reading might be that they were simply easier to fold and transport this way - surely five pieces of gigantic blankets and animal hide were extremely heavy, perhaps too heavy to carry if sewn entirely together.

But is it only for practical purposes, if that even is a "real" reason at all?  

I think that, just as with the half-shekel, there are lots of interpretations, all of them correct.  But the one that I am currently feeling - maybe as a result of the bitter cold temperatures and incoming snow, maybe as a result of a tense international climate - is that while the inside if the ohel is perfect, its covering simply cannot be.  While the internal is perfect, the external which - ironically, protects that perfect interior - is still in pieces and must be held together in patchwork fashion.  While G-d is eternally Perfect, we who, in some respects, "build" and "maintain" and "protect" his presence in this world are far from it - sometimes knit together in strong fashion but sometimes held together by hooks and loops - porous, even in its most ideal form.

I'm not sure there is a deeper lesson here than this objective truth - that humanity is broken and even when giving the outward appearance of unity, perhaps only united behind gold (gold hooks).  Nevertheless, that unity, porous as it may be, is the covering which G-d has desired and instructed us to build ourselves, eternally.  G-d, seemingly, desires that imperfect or manufactured unity in protection as a dwelling.