Thoughts on parashat Terumah.
Rabbi Elazar of Bartotha said: give to Him of that which is His, for you and that which is yours is His; and thus it says with regards to David: “for everything comes from You, and from Your own hand have we given you” (I Chronicles 29:14).
Pirke Avot 3:7
We live in an organized and relatively ‘tame’ world and, as such, most of the institutions that we have built have been in response to our various group and individual life needs. In a similar way, we often think of our religious institutions: synagogues, schools, children’s camps, etc. as institutions there to satisfy our needs. These institutions, however, have a slightly different character: we create them directly and have a more direct influence on their shape and how they operate. We also create them in a relationship with God.
The existence of these institutions depends on our individual contribution and so it was from the very beginning when God commanded us to build the Mishkan. Everyone was obliged, according to their ability, to contribute to its construction:
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him. And these are the gifts that you shall accept from them: gold, silver, and copper; blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair; tanned ram skins, dolphin skins, and acacia wood; oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the aromatic incense; lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece. And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. (Ex 25:1-8)
However, from a theological perspective, the last verse quoted seems to be challenging: Why does God command us to build a sanctuary for Him to dwell, when we know that he is incorporeal and “dwells everywhere”? Did he not say through the mouth of Isaiah that: The heaven is My throne And the earth is My footstool: Where could you build a house for Me, What place could serve as My abode? (Is 66:1). Many philosophers and biblical commentators noticed this alleged antinomy. One of the answers to this question is that the sanctuary is not actually for him, but for us. We need it much more that He and He needs it only to take care of us: the sanctuary is necessary for our spiritual and moral perfection. As Abravanel, 15th century philosopher and bible commentator puts it:
I do not need the Tabernacle for My dwelling place for “all those things hath My hand made” (Is 66:2) but I commanded these to be made in order to implant in their hearts My Providence.
Samuel David Luzzatto, an Italian Jewish scholar and poet known as Shadal, adds to Abravanel’s reasoning an important ‘national’ dimension saying that building the Mishkan constituted an important factor in preserving the unity of the nation and promoting its loyalty to the Torah.
How does moral perfection work? By simply learning what is moral (learning the Torah) and performing it in practice. As Chinuch puts it:
Righteous acts perfect the heart spiritually. The greater the number and frequency of our good deeds, the more pure our thoughts. By assigning such acts, God seeks to ensure man’s welfare. Erecting a Mikdash and serving God in it represent concrete and sustained acts through which we can be imbued with knowledge of God.
We are in relationship with God, and as such, we are, in fact, building a sanctuary for God when we build our institutions for us, because everything we do in our lives we actually do for Him and for His praise. But it is much deeper than this. Yes, our good deeds are aimed at the good of our human communities, and that is part of “doing it for God,” but it is only a part of it: it is our rationalization of ethics. In fact, the goal is much deeper and enduring. All we do not only has an impact on our communities and our lives, but also on the many generations that will follow us. That is something we have no way to check empirically, let alone control, so we entrust this to God as part of our relational bond. By doing everything we do with an intention to do it for God, who will be a witness to the lives and actions of the generations that follow, we entrust our will to him, we place the realization of our desires for future generations in His hands.
The awareness of the limited perspective of our finite life teaches us modesty and humility. We need the sanctuaries ‘in our hearts’ to perfect ourselves spiritually and morally in individual, social AND communal aspects. All we do transcend our individual beings in both space and time and thus we need to entrust them to Someone who dwells in all space and at all time.
This is one of the most fundamental aspects of our eternal relationship with the Holy One. He will give everything we need and deserve back to us, both in the near and distant future.
Shabbat shalom!
