Something I really enjoy about teaching Torah is the way it allows me to connect with people on multiple levels. To see what makes someone tick, what moves or agitates, and to see what in our sacred text sets their souls ablaze. A few years ago, I was a shabbat scholar-in-residence for a local synagogue. The residency included the usual scholar activities: co-leading Kabbalat Shabbat, giving a dvar torah, kibbitzing at the oneg, and teaching a shabbat afternoon class. Prior to my class, I was invited to attend their community-led Torah study which was on this week’s parashah. The early parts of the conversation were dominated by source criticism. After a few minutes of impassioned conversation, this room of deeply intelligent Torah learners stopped their discussion and turned to me,
“You’re our scholar in residence, what do you think?”
I responded to this question in the most rabbinic way possible, with another question.
“What if this actually happened?” The room was quiet. “What if we allowed ourselves to believe, even if just for a moment, that these events actually happened?”
Don’t get me wrong, I think source criticism is a valid and necessary tool in the exegetical toolkit, but we also have to engage with the text and not just talk about the text. Now that I’m a few years out from that experience, I have a clearer understanding of what motivated that response.
For me, this parashha is personal. Parashat Terumah is the first parashah I ever leyned. Not at a bar mitzvah (I didn’t have one), but as an adult, in the midst of a global public health crisis. I have learned that when we bring Torah into our bodies, when we give voice to Torah with our voices, something alchemical happens; we join those words with ourselves and they live in us. Parashat Terumah is all about building the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary or tabernacle: its measurements, adornments, and materials. Moses has been tasked with collecting terumah, offerings or gifts, from the Israelites in order to build the Mishkan. Gifts like: gold, copper, crimson yarn, acacia wood, and dolphin skins, to name a few. And it’s important to note that this collection of materials is not a tax, it is a freewill offering from kol ish yidvenu libo-each person whose heart is moved/compelled to give. This is an offering of capacity that considers both what people are carrying with them and what they are able to give from what they are carrying.
The parashah assumes that anyone who wants to give has something they can offer. And yet, that idea can be easier to preach than it is to live. Have you ever experienced a moment when you have the opportunity and desire to offer something of yourself but feel ill-equipped to do so? A moment where you see others offer gold or acacia wood and you think to yourself: I have nothing to offer. Sometimes we need other people to remind us of who we are and what we’re capable of.
Reb Zalman Shachter Shalomi of blessed memory used to tell a story from his time as the Hillel Director at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. He took a group of students on a field trip to Brooklyn, to meet The Rebbe– Menachem Mendel Schneerson. After the rebbe’s opening remarks and shiur, one of Reb Zalman’s students asked,
“What’s a rebbe good for?”
The rebbe took this in stride and said,
“I can’t speak about myself, but I can tell you about my own Rebbe. My rebbe was a geologist of the soul. You see, there are so many treasures on earth. There is gold, there is silver, there are diamonds. But if you don’t know where to dig, you’ll only find dirt and rock and mud. The rebbe can tell you where to dig, and what to dig for, but you must do the digging yourself.”
Moses has two important jobs in this parashah: to accept the gifts people are bringing and to show them what they have the capacity to give; what they are able to offer to this holy group project of creating sacred space. I mentioned that this parashah is personal for me, as it’s the first one I ever chanted. That’s true, and also, I didn’t volunteer to leyn. The cantor of my Brooklyn synagogue saw what I could offer before I did. So on a shabbat morning in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, I chanted Torah on zoom; the Torah of gifts, offerings, and the portable nature of sacred space. We weren’t able to gather in our beautiful chapel or sanctuary spaces, but that zoom room became our Mishkan in the cloud– and God dwelt there among us.
Even with its extensive devotion to detail, Mark George, a professor of Bible and Ancient Systems of Thought at Iliff School of Theology cautions against reading this parashah as a blueprint, because even though it is painstakingly thorough, it doesn’t provide enough information to actually build the Mishkan. Perhaps, then, building the Mishkan isn’t the point.
Torah isn’t trying to teach us how to build (or rebuild) a physical structure, it is teaching us how to create sacred space. Before there are blueprints, measurements, and building materials, there are people. People and hearts that are prepared to answer the questions that are central to this parashah: What are you holding? What can you offer? What moves you?
The Mishkan that once stood in the wilderness is long gone, but what remains is Shekhinah, the presence of the divine that dwells among us. Not only are both words derived from the same root meaning “dwell”, they share another important idea: holiness and divinity dwell in the places we make room for them. Parashat Terumah then, comes to teach us that when we offer the gifts that we’re carrying, and allow our hearts to be moved, we too, can become sanctuaries.
Marques Hollie, visiting rabbinical student from RRC
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.