Parashat T'rumah

Intentionally Encountering the Spiritual

January 31, 2014

Rabbi Mark H. Levin, DHL

This week's Torah portion famously states: "Let them build for me a sanctuary, that I may live within them."  God chose Moses for Moses' humility, according to the Torah.  (Number 12:3)  It's Judaism's way of telling us that ego is the enemy of spirituality. As Thomas Merton wrote, "Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul.”

Judaism developed ways to experience God's presence.  Direct revelation is not possible.  But we long for God.  The soul thirsts for God's assuring and emotional companionship within, without being scorched like Aaron's sons ministering at God's altar.

So we arrive at Exodus 25, this week's portion of Torah after revelation on Sinai:  the building of God's earthly home, the tabernacle, God's indwelling presence on earth. I don't know that this structure actually existed.  I believe it's a metaphor for a necessary fact:  God must be found in the world.

Nineteenth century commentator, the Malbim, gets it exactly right when he says, "That each one [of us] will build a holy place in the rooms of his heart and prepare an altar to raise up all of the parts of his soul to God..." 

So how do we build that holy place in the heart?

The Talmud makes a very interesting comment  on the phrase, "Let them make for me a sanctuary..."  It says, "The holy things used in making repairs to the Temple may be used to pay the artisans who make the repairs.  As Rabbi Elazar said, 'Scripture says, Make for me a sanctuary, for me, from that which is mine.'"

Now think about this.  What are they discussing?  A Jew dedicates an animal, something he has raised but which is property, the work of his own hands, and contributes that animal to the support the sanctuary.  Normally that animal would go to pay the priests for their service.  But the Talmud teaches that those dedications may be used to pay the workers who use their skills to repair the sanctuary itself.  An animal, or anything dedicated to the sanctuary, goes from being secular to becoming holy.  And the production, from the raising of the animal to building of a piece of furniture for the sanctuary, becomes a mitzvah:  something commanded by God.  And what transforms it from the secular to the holy?  The intention of the donor to use it for holy purposes.  Then, even though this animal has been dedicated to be given to God and therefore assumes the holiness of the sanctuary, it can be used instead to keep the Tabernacle or sanctuary in working order and can become payment for the workers, who will then transform it back into food for their families.  The entire matter rests upon the intention to dedicate something to God and thereby, because of human intention, make it holy and a piece of God and God's work. 

The Talmud is telling us that once it is donated to be used in the sanctuary and for God it is God's property and therefore God-like.  Once dedicated, it no longer belongs to the owner, even if it has not yet been transferred to the Tabernacle or the Temple.  It assumes a different quality, the quality of God's property, partaking in God's holiness.  In other words: it no longer adds to the glory of the person who raised the animal or constructed the article given to God. It is now for God's glory, not the person's ego.

But this transformation requires work.  On this point, the book Avot d'Rabbi Natan, a parallel book to Pirkei Avot, explains, "Rabbi Tarfon says, 'Work is great, for even the Holy One did not spread his presence over Israel until they did some work [building the Tabernacle]...'"  In other words, the creation of holiness and bringing that holiness into our lives has several steps:  1) Physically creating something that requires our work; 2) Mentally transferring ownership of that something to a higher calling, to support that which we call holy, connected to God, and 3) Sacrificing that which we have created in order to support our personal lives to be used instead for God's benefit, no matter when that may occur and no matter what the ultimate use of that object or animal may be.  It's dedicating our work and the product of our hands to a higher calling. 

Our first midrash instructed that we are taking our stuff to give to God as a form of sacrifice.  But this begs a question. Doesn't the Bible say in many places, "The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and they who dwell therein?"  (Psalm 24:1)  Doesn't God already own it?  Rashi, the most famous biblical and talmudic commentator, therefore understands the words in our parashah, "Make for me a sanctuary," not as the Talmud says, "from my stuff," but instead, "For the sake of my name." But I would like to combine the two interpretations:  make a sanctuary for me from my stuff and for the sake of my name." 

Why, because when we make stuff:  grow it, manufacture it, whatever, we are dedicating them to our own purposes. Work rightfully gives ego satisfaction. We grow things to eat. We build homes to live in. We work to purchase all of those things today. And we tend to make ourselves the center of the world we construct with our own hands and minds.

But holiness requires something else: the humility of a contrite spirit. So again we turn to the Malbim and to psalms.  The ashes of the personal sacrifices we make are strewn over the altar of the contrite heart, as portrayed in Psalm 51:  "(Adonai s'fatai tiftach u'fi yagid t'hilatecha) O Lord, open my lips, that my mouth may declare your praise.  You do not want me to bring sacrifices; You do not desire burn offerings; True sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; God, You will not despise a contrite and crushed heart."

Malbim portrays this wilderness sanctuary as existing within each of us, if we construct it in the heart.  How do we do that?  We must transform that which places us in the center of our own lives, the things we produce, into that which places God in the center of our lives. We do that by taking that which is most precious and dedicating it to God, a real sacrifice, a real giving up.  When we truly say to God, "This for which I worked and which I intended for myself, I give to you and your purposes," then we empty ourselves to allow God to fill the sanctuary of the soul, God's true tabernacle on earth.  That's the reason the true spiritual journey is quiet: it's just between you and God, the dedication of self to a higher existence, to furthering God's purpose for our lives.  As this week's Torah says to us, "Let them build for me a sanctuary, that I may live within them."