Terumah תְּרוּמָה was my bar mitzvah parashah פָּרָשָׁה. At the time, I was excited about it because I wanted more than anything to be an architect, and Terumah תְּרוּמָה is all about the architecture of holy space. That career goal is in my past, but I still appreciate the parashah פָּרָשָׁה, even if I imagine we could save a lot of time in shul if we just lifted up a set of blueprints.
I found myself asked to give divrei Torah דִּבְרֵי תּוֹרָה on this parashah פָּרָשָׁה many times. Of the many things I can say about this parashah פָּרָשָׁה, my favorite comes from this verse:
| Prepare for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them (Exodus 25:8) | Ve’asu li mikdash veshakhanti betocham. |
וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם |
We are commanded to build a sanctuary, not to house God, but so that God will dwell among us. King Solomon made it very clear in his speech dedicating the Temple
| “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27) |
כִּ֚י הַֽאֻמְנָ֔ם יֵשֵׁ֥ב אֱלֹהִ֖ים עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ הִ֠נֵּ֠ה הַשָּׁמַ֜יִם וּשְׁמֵ֤י הַשָּׁמַ֙יִם֙ לֹ֣א יְכַלְכְּל֔וּךָ אַ֕ף כִּֽי־הַבַּ֥יִת הַזֶּ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר בָּנִֽיתִי׃ |
Although Abraham Joshua Heschel’s argued that we Jews sanctify time and not space, we still have a sense that certain spaces, certain places are holy. My wife, Rabbi Miriam Spitzer and I recently went to an exhibit at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia which shows the exteriors and interiors of many American synagogues, and it is clear from the architecture that the congregants experience a sense of holiness in these very special places.
As I said, I wanted to be an architect, and I aspired to create spaces like that. As a Jewish educator, I have realized that the space can set a tone, but the real holiness is not from the space but from the people who inhabit it. That is why the passage from this week’s Torah reading stresses
| Prepare for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them (Exodus 25:8) | Ve’asu li mikdash veshakhanti betocham. |
וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם |
We built the sanctuary so that God may dwell among us, not in the sanctuary.
I use a particular version of the Avodah עֲבוֹדָה paragraph in the Amidah (the one that begins R’tzeh רָצָה …בְּעַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל וּבִתְפִלָּתָם). It traditionally concludes הַמַּחֲזִיר שְׁכִינָתוֹ לְצִיּוֹן (who returns God’s presence to Zion) but when I was living in Israel, I attended a congregation which used the following text, which I have adopted and used for the past twenty years. They say הַמַּחֲזִיר שְׁכִינָתוֹ וְעִמּוֹ לְצִיּוֹן (who returns God’s indwelling presence, and God’s people, to Zion). I believe that the author of this slightly emended text is expressing a profound theological point. God’s presence returns to the Land only through the presence of the people of Israel, because God acts through us and dwells in us.
Since I chose to be an educator and not an architect, I see my life’s work in the building of souls and not the building of spaces. What kind of soul do we need to let God in, to provide a place for God? How do we act so that God acts through us?
A beautiful song, a hymn by John Thompson and Randy Scruggs is actually a midrash on the verse I’ve been quoting. The verse reads:
| Prepare for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them (Exodus 25:8) | Ve’asu li mikdash veshakhanti betocham. |
וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם |
Thompson and Scruggs read the phrase וְעָשׂוּ לִי v’asu li (you, Israel, make for Me a sanctuary) as וְעָשׂוּ אוֹתִי v’asu oti (You God, make me into a sanctuary for You). This is a radical transformation of the verse, but one that deeply fits the sense that we are the home in which God dwells within this world.
The lyrics to Thomson and Scruggs’ hymn are simple and evoke other Biblical sentiments:
O Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true, and with thanksgiving, I’ll be a living sanctuary for you.
I am not sure which Jewish musician created the commonly sung Jewish version of that hymn, but it begins with the verse from Parashat Terumah, and then quotes Psalm 115:18, echoing the theme of thanksgiving in the hymn. Gratitude and thanksgiving are crucial to the experience of having God dwell in us and work through us. At the core of gratitude is the sense of humility that forces us to acknowledge what we are and are not capable of doing on our own. As Rabbi Dan told our students a couple of Tuesdays ago, God only reveals God’s self from a humble place which is why the humble mountain of Sinai was chosen for the giving of the Torah.
| Prepare for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among you (Exodus 25:8) | Ve’asu li mikdash
veshakhanti betokham. |
וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ
וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם |
|||
| And we shall praise the Lord from now until forever, Halleluyah (Psalms 115:18) | Va’anachnu nevarekh yah
me’atah ve’ad olam |
וַאֲנַחְנוּ נְבָרֵךְ יָהּ
מֵעַתָּה וְעַד עוֹלָם |
| O Lord prepare me,
to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true, |
and with thanksgiving,
I’ll be a living sanctuary for you |
We have been singing this during our Zman Kodesh, our holy time with which we start the day at HACD. Cantor Julia Cadrain sings this version beautifully here, performed at the Reform Central Synagogue in Manhattan. I hope that by singing these words, our students will passively absorb and then actively embody what it means to let God in.
We no longer have a sanctuary, but we can try to act in a way that allows God to act in us and through us.
Shabbat Shalom,
Jeffrey Spitzer
School Administrator
Shabbat Shalom,
Jeffrey Spitzer