Of all the objects in the Tabernacle, the brass laver had the strangest origin. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 38:8 preserves the story: it was made from the brasen mirrors of the pious women, who, at the season, came to pray at the door of the tabernacle of appointment, standing with their oblations, giving thanks and confession, and returning to their husbands, the mothers of righteous children, who had been purified from the uncleanness of their blood.
The Targum packs an entire theology of Jewish womanhood into a single verse. These women donated their mirrors. Not jewelry, not cloth, not gold. The objects by which they had made themselves beautiful. The rabbis of Midrash Tanchuma (Pekudei 9) tell the backstory. When the Israelite men in Egypt were exhausted by slavery and had stopped wanting to bring children into such a world, their wives used these mirrors to make themselves attractive, drawing their husbands back to them, rebuilding the Jewish family under the eye of Pharaoh. The mirrors were the instruments of the nation's survival.
When the women offered them to build the Tabernacle, Moses initially hesitated. Tools of vanity for the house of God? But God overruled him. These mirrors, God said, are more precious to Me than anything else you have gathered. They built the Jewish future in Egypt. Now they will build the Jewish sanctuary.
The Targum adds the women's spiritual practice: they came to pray at the tent, bringing oblations, offering thanks and confession, then returning home to their husbands as mothers of righteous children. Prayer, gratitude, family — woven into one continuous life.
The laver itself was used for ritual purification. The priest washed his hands and feet in it before every service. So every sacred act in the Tabernacle began with water poured from a vessel made from the mirrors of faithful women.
The takeaway: the Jewish future is built by the unnoticed tools of faithful women. Moses almost rejected these mirrors. God knew better. The holiest acts of every priest began with water drawn from the gift that Moses had nearly turned away.