The main body of this week’s parshah is a long list of laws. The large majority of them are simple civic laws. What happens if someone steals a bull? What happens if someone kidnaps someone? What happens if someone’s Ox gores someone else, causing death or injury? Some of the others instruct us to have a just court system. They are laws whose purpose is simple to ascertain. They are the basis for a workable society.
Many of the others are laws dictating the treatment of fellow human beings, be they slaves, the poor, or strangers. Some of the others are laws about the treatment of our animals. These laws, too, are simple to understand. God wants us to be good people and to treat others well.
One or two of the laws are ritual laws, prohibiting the worship of other gods. While these are not moral or civic laws, it is easy for us to understand why God would decree them.
Starting with 23:14, though, this section ends with a series of ritual laws discussing the holidays and some of their practices, before finishing off with the puzzling “you shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk (23:19).” This series of laws feels woefully out of place. What do pilgrimage festivals or a few of the specifics of the paschal sacrifice have to do with laws for setting up a civil and just society?
The last chapter of this parshah contains the Israelites’ formal acceptance of God and the Torah, including the well-known “everything God has spoken we will do and we will hearken (24:7).” This statement was an expression of faith by the Israelites that God’s commands will not lead them down the wrong path, and thus, they will perform the mitzvot even if they do not understand them.
The commandments listed from 23:14 – 19 are all ritual commandments, but there is a lot of variation between them. The commandment to celebrate Passover in the spring is fully explained right there in the text, while the commandment to celebrate it by eating matzah is referenced back to an early set of commandments and explanations. Others, such as the commandment to offer the finest fruits of the first crop, is not explained, but a possible reason (to give thanks to God because it is God who makes the fruit grow) is easy to come up with. Others, such as “do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” has no reason given and seems to have no easily discernible reason.
Our vow of “everything God has spoken we will do and we will hearken” covers all of the laws. It does not matter if they initially make sense to us or not, and it doesn’t not matter if God gives an explanation of them or not, or even if we cannot find an explanation of our own. All of the laws come from God, and we must trust that there is a reason for them, whether we can understand it or not. God is our co-pilot, and we need to have faith that God will steer us in the right direction.
Commentary for Terumah
31 JanThis week’s parshah mainly deals with the instructions for building the Tabernacle. The reason for God’s desire that the Jewish People construct the Tabernacle is given in Ex. 25:8: “And let them make for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” This phrase is troubling because it seems to go against the idea that God is omnipresent. If God is everywhere, then isn’t God already in the Israelite camp? And why does an omnipresent God need a special facility constructed to “house” the Divine Presence?
The answer, of course, is that God doesn’t. The focus of the verse should not be “And let them make for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them,” but rather “And let them make for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” As we go about our day-to-day lives, God can sometimes be hard to find. It is difficult to find the divine in the mundane monotony of the office. God understands this, and so God has us create a holy space; a place where we can leave behind the mundane in order to help us find the Divine.
Holiness in Judaism requires human action. Something only becomes holy if we designate it as such. If we separate it from the rest and make an effort to treat it as something different. The wine in the Kiddush cup is no different from the rest of the wine in the bottle it came out of until we make a blessing over it. If we don’t abstain from performing melachah (biblically derived categories of creative or destructive work), the Shabbat is no different from any other day of the week. Similarly, the synagogue, our present-day successor to the Tabernacle, is just a building unless we make an effort to make it something more.
The Gemarah in Berachot 6a asks “From where do we learn that The Holy One, Blessed is He, is found in a synagogue?” The answer given is a quote from Psalms 82:1, which says “God stands in the Divine assembly.” Rashi interprets “the Divine assembly” as being wherever Jews come together to pray. “And let them make for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” A synagogue is only a synagogue if we make it one. We are all obligated to help create and sustain this holy place in our community that helps us bring God into our lives. Whether we nourish its spirit by adding our voices to our communal prayer, or nourish its soul by organizing charity drives and social action campaigns, or nourish its body by simply making donations of time and money to help keep the light and the heat on, it makes no difference. The Prayer For Those Who Serve the Community (on page 148 of the Sim Shalom siddur for Shabbat and Holidays) praises them all because they all help to turn four walls and a ceiling into a holy place.
Tags: Finding God, Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them, Let them make Me a snactuary that I may dwell among them, Parshah Commentary, Shul, Synagogue, Terumah, Torah Commentary, Trumah