This parsha deals extensively with the people's offerings towards the building of the Mishkan; the mobile Temple known in English as the Tabernacle. Midrash HaGadol takes the 15 materials donated to the Mishkan''s construction and likens them to components of the human being. The gold corresponds with the soul, the silver with the body, flax with the intestines, and on and on. This evocative midrash clearly equates the house of God with the human being. Indeed, one of the most commented upon lines in the parsha is, “And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell – b''tocham – within them.” (Exodus 25:8) Grammatically speaking, one would expect the text to say ''build me a sanctuary that I may dwell within it.'' But let there be no mistake, the simple read of text is clear, God will dwell within each of us. Build it and He will come – right into our very selves! The parsha''s barage of details about an external building project all point to a quintessentially internal domain. But how do we Torah-readers of today fulfill this injunction for internal construction? How do we create God''s abode within us? I think one hint is in the fact that the very first appearance of the mishkan in the Torah is explicitly linked with the people bringing offerings.1 The concept Mishkan is necessarily linked to the idea and ideal of ''giving''/teruma. It is the act of offering which moves God to dwell below. God promises that when we give the best of ourselves...then we will come to enshrine divinity. And more than that – this is not merely individuals making their contributions in a vacuum. No, this is an overtly communal endeavor. The Torah teaches a timeless model of the sanctity born from a communal pooling of each person''s gifts. Mishkan is a Biblical model for conscious community where its members are actively offering up their best, whether through artistry, wealth, knowledge – in acts of gracious contribution to the whole. Lucky are we who find ourselves in such consecrated communities. This week''s parsha invites each of us to look at our lives and decipher what offering are we destined to bring to the communal pool of sanctity. What is it that you and you alone can offer to your community, your people, our shared world? What is your unique contribution that throws up the walls for a dwelling-place for God? The teruma challenge – to chose one thing you can do today to actualize that divine injunction of offering from the generosity of your heart and the creative ingenuity of your spirit. The Offering List here Under 'gifts' - the donations of my lips You want blue – have my veins Purple, take this flesh The soft of my face – your ram skin dyed red My scalp - the tachash hide The shittim wood - my bones Oil for lighting – take these eyes For sweet incense – my nose Take spices from beneath my tongue My kidneys - shoham stones place these upon the altar of community with tithe of blood, edom Set my heart like gemstones Upon the priestly breast Take flax from these intestines for goat hair, take this tress The copper is my calling voice Silver, are my limbs The gold, bestowed with all my soul that God might dwell within And with these sinews lodging light I donate every breath to house the gusty word of God in sanctuaried dress and let us dwell well on these words that tether us to sky to ground the clouds in temple''d shrouds to bound the boundless light with tangled wools of what to give with talents on display through artistry, ingenuity in gemstone states of grace God''s firey image on the mountain chiseled into life reified and actualized tactile and enshrined Palpable and muscular expressive, copious God is sparked in all our arts when we wield our will to give So grant the gemstones of yourself an airing among friends and God''s best garment and blessed apartment will be your life and limb 1 God instructs people to give ''asher yedvenu lebo'' – ''according to the generosity of their hearts''.
(photo credit: The Jerusalem Post)