Feb 24/07 — Parashat Terumah: Ready for God Inside and Out

Commentary by Rabbi Lawrence Pinsker

The theme of the Torah reading is the construction of a portable sanctuary. Moses is commanded to ask for contributions to build this sanctuary which will symbolize God’s presence among the Israelites.

The instructions regarding its construction are quite detailed. We are given a list of materials that were used. An ark, a table for bread, menorah, altar, and curtains are among the various objects to be crafted and then placed in this sanctuary.

The entire sanctuary was made so that it could be transported from place to place, reflecting the unsettled condition of the Israelites during their wanderings in the Sinai peninsula on their way to the Land of Israel. It will take several centuries before this sanctuary will find a permanent resting place.

During the time of King David, this portable sanctuary was moved permanently to Jerusalem. David’s son, Solomon, built the first more permanent stone Temple to contain a successor of the portable sanctuary. Solomon’s task is recorded in the haftarah, the prophetic reading that is recited today.

The ancient rabbis, commenting on the building of the sanctuary, compare the Ark containing the Torah to a scholar. Just as the ark was to be covered inside and out with gold so a true scholar was to be the same inside and out: that is, he (or she) must be a person of integrity. This comparison is an ideal that emerges following the destruction of the Temple and the loss of the Ark. The ancient rabbinic Sages believed that the scholar was to become the embodiment of God’s word and his teaching an ongoing testimony to God’s presence.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotsk once spoke about a verse in this week’s portion: “And they should make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell in their midst.” (Exodus 25:8) He said:

The Torah states that God will dwell “in their midst” and not in its midst, that is, within the Sanctuary they are building. We learn from this verse that every person is obligated to prepare a sanctuary in his or her heart so that God will be
able to dwell therein.

This is not a quirk of Hebrew (or, for that matter, English) grammar. Menachem Mendel of Kotsk points out that this is a strange grammatical feature of that verse: all that God asks the Israelites to build is a sanctuary, but he does not intend to dwell in the physical building that they will construct. God will, instead, dwell in the midst of the people.

Menachem Mendel asks, “So why would God need a building if God wants to dwell in the midst of the people?” If God is not going to be in the building, why build such a sanctuary? Furthermore, if we truly believe that God cannot be contained by any building – as God states in the Psalms – this entire command seems senseless. From this little point of grammar, from an unexpected turn of the phrase, Menachem Mendel of Kotsk is forced to relocate the sanctuary that we are to build. His answer is that each of us builds an internal sanctuary within ourselves, so that God can dwell in our midst, that is, in a community of sanctuary-builders.

Menachem Mendel reads God’s command as being directed to every person. Each of us builds his or her own sanctuary, even following the same structural requirements – because without a personal commitment, without establishing this sanctuary within us, we cannot become a community of sanctuary-builders, and God will be unable to dwell in our midst.

God’s goal is to dwell within the community, which is made up of individuals who are personally committed to participate in “letting God in” (another Kotsker Rebbe aphorism: “Where does God dwell? Wherever people let God in!”).

This teaching arises from a tiny point of grammar, an apparent anomaly in the text, and points us in a radically different direction that affects the very character of Jewish community. Our inner state of being –called “spirituality” by some – and our external pursuits – work, raising family, developing social ties – are part of a single process that in Judaism is the greatest task: through human action, to make ourselves and the world around us a place worthy of God’s presence.

Shabbat Shalom.