Parashat Terumah 5770
The Profound Word
Howard S. Joseph
http://TheProfoundWord.com
Mishkan: Home and Dwelling Place
25:8. They shall make for Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst.
Rashi: They shall make in My name a place of sanctity.
The phenomenon of a Holy Place seems to be universal in all societies. It is a place for the community to visit and gather to share and reinforce its values and celebrate its Holy Times and meet its Holy People. There is nothing unusual about such a place. Or is there?
Rashi here appears to share this sense of ordinariness. However, in a later comment [31:18] he tells us:
When He had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, stone tablets, written with the finger of God.
Rashi: He gave Moses: In the Torah, chronological order is not adhered to. The episode of the calf took place long before the command of the work of the Mishkan. For on the seventeenth of Tammuz the tablets were broken, and on Yom Kippur the Holy One, blessed is He, was reconciled to Israel. On the morrow [i.e., on the eleventh of Tishri], they commenced with the donation for the Mishkan, and it [the Mishkan] was erected on the first of Nissan. -[from Midrash Tanhuma, Ki Tissa 31]
Is this just a question of chronology? Or, is Rashi suggesting that the Mishkan was not needed until the fall of Israel from its lofty spiritual plane through the Golden Calf episode? If they had remained on that level there might have never have been a necessity for a Holy Place.
This indeed is the view of a later medieval commentator, Rabbi Ovadia Seforno. He makes this comment on a verse [20:21] at the end of Yitro:
An altar of earth you shall make for Me…. Wherever I allow My name to be mentioned, I will come to you and bless you.
A simple earthen altar, not gold and silver, anywhere, can bring one to the presence of God. This was true immediately after the revelation at Sinai but dramatically changed after the Golden Calf. [See also his comments at 25:9 and 31:18]
Rabbi Moses ben Nahman [RAMBAN, Nahmanides] believes in the naturalness of having a sanctuary and not that it was a reaction to the terrible failure. In fact, for him, the orders for its construction do indeed immediately follow the conclusion of the Sinai covenant, for the Mishkan is to be the permanent reminder of those exalted moments. The construction details each reflect some aspect of Sinai. Through the Mishkan the exalted moment achieved at Sinai could be regularly re-enacted so that a continual elevated state could be achieved. We could say that for Ramban the Golden Calf episode only illustrates the real need to have such a Holy Place without which the necessary inspiration would not exist. The sanctuary would help Israel fulfill its purpose of ‘knowing that I am the Lord.’ Sinai was never made into a permanent Holy Place. Its holiness was transferred to a movable entity, the portable sanctuary, during the wandering years. Eventually, a permanent place would be chosen after the settlement in the Land of Israel had been secured.
What does Neziv have to say about all this?
Neziv follows Ramban in agreeing that it was always intended that there be a sanctuary. However, he relates it to what is said in the verse: I will dwell in their midst. We have to look for the function of the sanctuary as promoting the presence of God in the community of Israel. At Sinai we saw that God entered into a marriage type relationship with Israel and indeed Neziv remarked there that God entered Israel. God must continue to dwell in and among Israel, the bride. It seems that for Neziv the sanctuary might be akin to the home of the newlyweds, so to speak. There they could meet and speak lovingly, respectfully and intimately. There they could consult on important issues for eventually the great scholars would have their place at the sanctuary to guide and judge the people.
How will the sanctuary accomplish all this?
For Neziv the sanctuary does not recall Sinai but the very creation of the world. Just as God dwells within the world so must the sanctuary be constructed so God can dwell in Israel.
I will dwell in their midst: Rashi considers this to be a promise. If you build the sanctuary I will then dwell in your midst…. But this is really a command: make the sanctuary in such a way so that I can dwell in their midst.
In other words, do not just make any kind of sanctuary. It must be made in such a way that I can dwell within it and you. So the explicit design and instructions are given to Moses as told in verse 9:
according to all that I show you, the pattern of the Mishkan and the pattern of all its vessels; and so shall you do.
Moses received detailed plans on Mt Sinai of how to build the Mishkan.
Neziv continues:
The matter is that all the details of the Mishkan were intended to reflect all of the world created by the Blessed Creator who lives in the world. God commanded that the form of the world should be made in the Mishkan and its vessels. God showed Moses the form of the entire world…. Thus, because the Mishkan reflected the the form of the entire world it was possible to cause the Shekhinah to dwell there.
Then God went into details which might seem to us to be for the purpose of constructing the Mikdash so that it will be sturdy. For example, the fifty blue woolen loops that held the curtains. We might think that if there were one missing the Mishkan would not stand.. But this is not so. They are there to reflect something in the creation of the world. If one were missing it would not be in the form of the world and the Shekhinah could not dwell there….
So, the sanctuary is a world in miniature. The people of Israel must build and maintain it according to the specific designs and instructions. The activities in the sanctuary help maintain the entire world and support God’s presence in the entire world. Maybe this is one of the ways Israel is to bring blessing to the world.
When Israel enters the sanctuary it can be inspired by some connection to the Sinai revelation, an unmatched moment of intimacy reflected in the ark, tablets and Torah scroll, as well as the regular readings from it. The ark is surely one of the key elements of the sanctuary. The second most important item is the dramatic lamp, the seven branched Menorah. Next week we will see what this has to teach us.
Shabbat Shalom
Hayyim Shemuel Yosef
Adar 6 5770
February 20, 2010
A weekly parashah essay based on the writings of Rabbi Naphtali Zvi Yehudah Berlin, the Neziv, in Ha’amek Davar [HD] and Harhev Davar [HRD]. Please feel free to distribute this material for educational purposes. All rights reserved.