The tabernacle is our guide to holiness. I have written extensively on this theme in the past (and briefly discuss it in the postscript). In summarized form, the elements can be explained as
Incense (reminder of our creation and connection with G-d; realizing the importance of the insubstantial), Menorah (light/knowledge/influence), Altar (elevation of the physical), and Ark (relationships).
One item is missing: the Table with the Showbread. In the past I have explained them as representing joint partnership with G-d in the world (i.e. the co-investment needed to make bread) and even technological development. And I think that is still correct.
But it is not all the story. Indeed, I now believe that the above understanding of the table is substantially inadequate, because the text itself points to a much more involved and interesting meaning: I believe the Torah is telling us that the Table and Showbread are meant to symbolically remind us of the lessons we are to learn from the Garden of Eden.
How so?
The word for Table is shulchan, which has the root word shalach. Shalach is first found in the Torah in these two verses:
And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become like one of Us, knowing good and evil: and now, what if he put forth (shalach) his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eating, live for ever:
And why were we expelled from the Garden? In part because we gave in to temptation; we allowed our decision-making to be guided by what our eyes found attractive. There is a mirrored shalach in a subsequent verse, which is about the expulsion directly.
Therefore the Lord G-d sent (shalach) him out of the garden of ῾Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
So it makes sense that the first Shulchan in the Torah, that of the Table, comes from the Expulsion; the text links them.
But there are other elements as well! The bread, lechem, is also connected to Eden. The word is introduced to us when G-d pronounces the consequences of Adam and Eve’s actions:
By the sweat of your brow shalt thou eat bread.
So the showbread is a direct connection to Eden as well.
The bread has related meanings: it is used to teach us patience and perspective.
See, that the Lord has given you the sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days: remain every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.
And Moshe said, This is the thing which the Lord commands, Fill an ῾omer of it to be kept for your generations; that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out from the land of Miżrayim.
Bread is meant to help us understand the value of planning, of consideration, and even historical perspective. These meanings are antidotes to the events in Eden, when Adam and Eve acted with none of these. So, too, the showbread may be meant to remind us of Eden as a cautionary tale.
The Table and Showbread are distinguished by having two rims that encircle them, instead of the single rim used for the Incense Altar and Ark. As is written here, the purpose of a rim is to separate insiders from outsiders. A double rim is an acknowledgement that our desires occupy a special part of our psyche: we are most likely to rationalize our desires as justified (as Eve did).
And the word for “encircle”, saviv, is also first found in connection to Eden:
And a river went out of ῾Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and branched into four streams. The name of the first is Pishon: that it is which compasses (saviv) the whole land of Ḥavila, where there is gold; And the name of the second river is Giĥon: it compasses (saviv) the whole land of Kush.
Lastly, the table, like many other items in the Mikdash, was made of shittim wood. This is the topic of another piece, but the conclusion is that this word, שְׂטֶ֥ה, is only used in two ways in the text: the word for adultery, and the name of a wood!
I think the tabernacle reflects us! We are, in part, animals. We seek crookedness, indulging our animal natures and passions. We are tempted by evil.
But the Torah is telling us, by naming the wood as the wood connected to adultery, that we cover that element of ourselves.
If you look at images of acacia trees in the Sinai you’ll notice that they were not straight and beautiful trunks like cedars. Instead, they are twisted and crooked. Both in word and in physical appearance, acacia represent the natural inclinations of man, the desire to go astray.
So in sum: the Table and Showbread are a cautionary reminder of what happens when we act as Adam and Eve did in Eden. The Table and Showbread remind us of the perils of acting as animals, of the consequences of seeking desire without very carefully considering whether our choices are indeed meant for the right reasons.
P.S. Explaining the very name of the tabernacle helps to see why I claim it shows us what holiness is meant to be.
The Tabernacle is often referred to as the mishkan, which refers to the dwelling of the divine presence among the people. The word is first found Ex. 25:9.
According to all that I show thee, the pattern of the mishkan, and the pattern of all its vessels, even so shall you make it.
Interestingly, that is not the word that actually introduces us the to Tabernacle. That word is found one verse earlier:
And let them make me a mikdash; that I may dwell among them.
The word mikdash is much more informative as to the underlying symbolic purpose of the tabernacle: mikdash literally has the root, “holiness.” The prefix is used as a noun in the Torah first to coin a word, mayim, literally the prefix added to the word “sea” to form “water.” In the Torah, “water” is the extract or essence of “sea.” So too, mikdash, in the same way, could be understood as “the essence of holiness.”