This week?s Torah portion, T?rumah, can be seen as part of a trilogy. Two weeks ago we read Yisro, in which the Torah was given. Last week we read Mishpatim, which completes the bond between spiritual and earthly by providing guidelines for living life righteously. This week we read the blueprint for building the Sanctuary: the materials and measurements in precise detail.
Isn?t that in reverse order? Wouldn?t it make more sense to build a house for G-d first - a place where His presence could be felt on earth - and then enter it to receive His word? Why did the house come afterward?
Examine the process by which you might buy a home for yourself. When you?re young, you live with your parents or in an apartment, sometimes with friends. Why would you need your own house? You want to explore, find out who you are, examine the possibilities and your own tastes. Yet, when you begin to define yourself, when you marry and have children, when you need a space in which to express your mature personality, it becomes more important to take ownership of a home that you have dominion over, a place of permanence.
Now the order of the portions begins to make more sense. At first, the children of Israel were indeed children, spiritually. Their introduction to Torah was a rite of passage, a collective bar mitzvah. They were becoming aware of the fact that they lived under G-d's law and protection, and learning from Him the path they should follow.
In Mishpatim they received their scholastic degree (and here we should change pronouns: it was not just they, but we, as a people, who received these blessings). The parameters of a holy life helped us to form our personalities and beliefs, to define ourselves.
It was only then that it made sense to build the Sanctuary, for, while it is defined as the place where G-d dwells, it was not for His benefit that it was built. It was for the benefit of those who would enter it and be bathed in its light, the people who would henceforth proceed with the continuing task of building a home for the L-rd here on earth.
Where is it now? Where is the ark, where is the tabernacle, where is the space in which we discover Him? A part of that home is in each of us. We are the acacia wood, and the gold, and the silver, and the fine linens. It is only from us that the light will go forth.
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Rabbi Deitsch is the Director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
Isn?t that in reverse order? Wouldn?t it make more sense to build a house for G-d first - a place where His presence could be felt on earth - and then enter it to receive His word? Why did the house come afterward?
Examine the process by which you might buy a home for yourself. When you?re young, you live with your parents or in an apartment, sometimes with friends. Why would you need your own house? You want to explore, find out who you are, examine the possibilities and your own tastes. Yet, when you begin to define yourself, when you marry and have children, when you need a space in which to express your mature personality, it becomes more important to take ownership of a home that you have dominion over, a place of permanence.
Now the order of the portions begins to make more sense. At first, the children of Israel were indeed children, spiritually. Their introduction to Torah was a rite of passage, a collective bar mitzvah. They were becoming aware of the fact that they lived under G-d's law and protection, and learning from Him the path they should follow.
In Mishpatim they received their scholastic degree (and here we should change pronouns: it was not just they, but we, as a people, who received these blessings). The parameters of a holy life helped us to form our personalities and beliefs, to define ourselves.
It was only then that it made sense to build the Sanctuary, for, while it is defined as the place where G-d dwells, it was not for His benefit that it was built. It was for the benefit of those who would enter it and be bathed in its light, the people who would henceforth proceed with the continuing task of building a home for the L-rd here on earth.
Where is it now? Where is the ark, where is the tabernacle, where is the space in which we discover Him? A part of that home is in each of us. We are the acacia wood, and the gold, and the silver, and the fine linens. It is only from us that the light will go forth.
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Rabbi Deitsch is the Director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.