Rabbi Corey Helfand
This week’s Torah portion is Terumah: Exodus 25:1 – 27:19
Life feels complicated: at work, at home, with our families and friends, locally and globally. It feels like there is always another obstacle to overcome, a situation to manage. In some ways, that’s not surprising. We as individuals are complex, our relationships with one another are multidimensional and multifaceted, and our interaction with the universe is rarely straightforward. I often wonder how we can find holiness in the otherwise chaos of life.
As a postscript to the biggest event in tradition, the revelation at Mount Sinai, not to mention the most transformative narrative in Jewish history, the exodus from Egypt, God gives us a building project. God asks the Israelites in the wilderness, to “make Me a Sanctuary; that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). No simple feat. After much disruption, why would God suddenly give the Israelites the task of building a sanctuary? It’s hard enough to get a group of people to work collaboratively on a project for school or work, let alone our country. Could you imagine getting thousands if not millions of people to agree on designing and building the Tabernacle? Perhaps there is a method to God’s madness: somehow a complex building project is the perfect solution to responding to the complex world we live in.
The great Hassidic master Menachem Mendel of Kotzk once asked, “Why does the verse say that the purpose of making a Sanctuary is so that God may dwell among ‘them’ as opposed to dwell in ‘the sanctuary’?” The Kotzker Rebbe teaches that “each person must first build the Sanctuary in his own heart; then God will dwell among them” (Itturei Torah on Parashat Terumah). What does it mean to build a sanctuary in your own heart? Even when in the thick of it, if you can take a step back, pause and breathe, you may be able to begin to see that there is something worth appreciating even when moments are tough. There are people in your life who can love, support and comfort you in life’s most challenging moments. When we open up our hearts and expand our souls, we can refocus ourselves and push forward even when we meet resistance.
Alternatively, the Hassidic teacher the S’fat Emet suggests that the purpose of building the tabernacle was threefold: to experience a sense of oneness/wholeness in the realms of thoughts, words and deeds. It is through this oneness that we are able to be present with ourselves, with our communities, and with God even in the most complicated of situations (See Rabbi Art Green’s “The Language of Truth” on Parashat Terumah). The S’fat Emet helps me appreciate the fact that in moments of complexity, what we seek is a sense of wholeness, of oneness with ourselves, especially when we are pulled in multiple directions.
By focusing our thoughts, words and deeds toward a bigger goal, we are able to feel more in control of our own existence and working toward a common purpose. The building of the Mishkan was an exercise in “meaning making,” namely, learning how to work together as a Jewish people.
Nearly 500 verses of the Torah, half of the Book of Exodus, are devoted to the details of building the Mishkan. The detailed description is not only of physically building the Mishkan, but also a spiritual metaphor for all of the other challenges we face in life. Sometimes, it’s coming together in a moment of complexity that helps us achieve that wholeness, personally and communally.
Being an active partner in building the world means navigating the difficult life moments, not alone, but in relationship, with the hope of building something greater, something inspiring and something holy. So may it be for all of us.
Rabbi Corey Helfand is the rabbi at Ohr Kodesh Congregation in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
