Parashat Terumah: Filling Sacred Space
Exodus 25:1-27:19
Exodus 25:1-27:19
Beginning this week in Parashat Terumah, the entire last one-third of the book of Exodus is devoted to the details of the building of the mishkan, the Tabernacle or portable sanctuary that traveled with the Israelites on their way to the promised land. In the last few weeks, the Israelites who left Egypt and crossed through the Sea, stood at Mount Sinai for three days in a sensory experience like no other. But then it was over. In the weeks that follow the giving and receiving of the law come the sacred project of building this sanctuary.
The details are somewhat mind numbing as the materials are enumerated, the colors imagined, the measurements taken and the elaborate instructions that follow. There are seven categories of items: metals, yarns, skins, wood, oil, spices, and gems thereby symbolically offering another creation story completed in seven parts. The verb used for making, la’asot, is repeated throughout these chapters: “make me a sanctuary," “make/do the Sabbath," “make for us a God.” It can be understood as contrasting with God’s creative endeavors in Genesis. As the Torah imagines God made the world out of the chaos of the universe, so now does it imagine the people made a home for God with their freedom from the chaos of slavery.
The mishkan was meant to be a signifier, of sorts, a permanent but portable representation of the revelation they experienced at Sinai. The portion opens with the powerful divine command that all Israelites whose hearts move them are to bring gifts (terumah) in order to build a sanctuary for God to dwell among the people. The instruction to build the sanctuary seeks to answer the question of where God dwells. There is ritual importance to the Tabernacle, and it is the sacred space of the people, but God dwells among the people, like glue that binds them together.
The importance of this is reflected in the commentary of biblical scholar Umberto Cassuto (1883-1951), that the purpose of the mishkan was to bring the experience of revelation at Sinai with them on their journey. “So long as they were encamped in the place [of Mt. Sinai], they were conscious of God's nearness; but once they set out on their journey, it seemed to them as though the link had been broken, unless there was in their midst a tangible symbol of God's presence among them. It was the function of the Tabernacle to serve as such a symbol” (A Commentary on the Book of Exodus p.319).
The mishkan might not only serve as a signifier of the past, but also of what might be. In a touching midrash, the rabbis teach that the Tabernacle was built in response to a human need to build something for God. The Tabernacle is not a gift to God, but the opportunity to build it, is a gift from God in recognition and celebration of the people’s growth. In the building of the sanctuary, the potential for the people to experience their connections to one another and to the covenant just established with the revelation of the Ten Commandments and subsequent laws is palpable. The sanctuary was to be an appropriate place for the Israelites could experience the presence of God, remembering their efforts to create it, and a representation of something that had not yet happened – an experience of the absence of God’s presence.
The mishkan itself did not possess intrinsic holiness. The text does not imagine God to say, “Make Me a sanctuary so that I might dwell in it,” because it is what occurs both in the construction of the Tabernacle as well as what takes place inside the structure that is holy. The phrase in Hebrew v’shachanti b’tocha means “I will dwell amidst them.” B’tocham can also be rendered as “in the midst of their toch"—their innermost place, the hollow of the soul that God wishes to fill. Where is the toch? In the sacred center of the people, the place that comes to life through testimony, connection, and holiness. Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Kotzk taught that that the text says: “among them” and not “within it” in order to teach that each person must build a sanctuary within her or his heart; then God’s presence will dwell among them. When the Kotzker Rebbe was asked, “Where does God dwell?”, he answered, “In every place we let God in.”
The three days amidst the trembling mountains, divine voices, lightening and thunder of Sinai changed the Israelites forever, but those moments were fleeting. Building the mishkan was a way for them to have a constant reminder of what was and could be again. In the building of the mishkan, the people worked to create the sacred space themselves that would invite in the divine.
As we approach the year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic and the beginning our turning inward to make sanctuaries in our homes for everything, in the building of your sacred space how has the inner hollow been filled with Presence? How did you build your sanctuary? How have you become a sanctuary?
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yael Ridberg
The details are somewhat mind numbing as the materials are enumerated, the colors imagined, the measurements taken and the elaborate instructions that follow. There are seven categories of items: metals, yarns, skins, wood, oil, spices, and gems thereby symbolically offering another creation story completed in seven parts. The verb used for making, la’asot, is repeated throughout these chapters: “make me a sanctuary," “make/do the Sabbath," “make for us a God.” It can be understood as contrasting with God’s creative endeavors in Genesis. As the Torah imagines God made the world out of the chaos of the universe, so now does it imagine the people made a home for God with their freedom from the chaos of slavery.
The mishkan was meant to be a signifier, of sorts, a permanent but portable representation of the revelation they experienced at Sinai. The portion opens with the powerful divine command that all Israelites whose hearts move them are to bring gifts (terumah) in order to build a sanctuary for God to dwell among the people. The instruction to build the sanctuary seeks to answer the question of where God dwells. There is ritual importance to the Tabernacle, and it is the sacred space of the people, but God dwells among the people, like glue that binds them together.
The importance of this is reflected in the commentary of biblical scholar Umberto Cassuto (1883-1951), that the purpose of the mishkan was to bring the experience of revelation at Sinai with them on their journey. “So long as they were encamped in the place [of Mt. Sinai], they were conscious of God's nearness; but once they set out on their journey, it seemed to them as though the link had been broken, unless there was in their midst a tangible symbol of God's presence among them. It was the function of the Tabernacle to serve as such a symbol” (A Commentary on the Book of Exodus p.319).
The mishkan might not only serve as a signifier of the past, but also of what might be. In a touching midrash, the rabbis teach that the Tabernacle was built in response to a human need to build something for God. The Tabernacle is not a gift to God, but the opportunity to build it, is a gift from God in recognition and celebration of the people’s growth. In the building of the sanctuary, the potential for the people to experience their connections to one another and to the covenant just established with the revelation of the Ten Commandments and subsequent laws is palpable. The sanctuary was to be an appropriate place for the Israelites could experience the presence of God, remembering their efforts to create it, and a representation of something that had not yet happened – an experience of the absence of God’s presence.
The mishkan itself did not possess intrinsic holiness. The text does not imagine God to say, “Make Me a sanctuary so that I might dwell in it,” because it is what occurs both in the construction of the Tabernacle as well as what takes place inside the structure that is holy. The phrase in Hebrew v’shachanti b’tocha means “I will dwell amidst them.” B’tocham can also be rendered as “in the midst of their toch"—their innermost place, the hollow of the soul that God wishes to fill. Where is the toch? In the sacred center of the people, the place that comes to life through testimony, connection, and holiness. Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Kotzk taught that that the text says: “among them” and not “within it” in order to teach that each person must build a sanctuary within her or his heart; then God’s presence will dwell among them. When the Kotzker Rebbe was asked, “Where does God dwell?”, he answered, “In every place we let God in.”
The three days amidst the trembling mountains, divine voices, lightening and thunder of Sinai changed the Israelites forever, but those moments were fleeting. Building the mishkan was a way for them to have a constant reminder of what was and could be again. In the building of the mishkan, the people worked to create the sacred space themselves that would invite in the divine.
As we approach the year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic and the beginning our turning inward to make sanctuaries in our homes for everything, in the building of your sacred space how has the inner hollow been filled with Presence? How did you build your sanctuary? How have you become a sanctuary?
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yael Ridberg