A Hidden Treasure: Terumah

A Hidden Treasure

D’var Torah for Parashat Terumah

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

In this week’s parasha, Terumah, the book of Exodus begins a new chapter, almost a new story.  Except that it’s the same story, only now moved on to its next level. 

In the first part of the book, God makes a personal appearance in history.  God, in person as it were, comes calling upon individuals and nations, asserting God’s authority and demanding reciprocal responsibility.

To Moses, God appears first as a voice from within a dry desert bush that doesn’t seem to be consumed by a fire that engulfs it.

To Pharaoh and all Egypt, God appears as a set of massive disasters, one worse than another, all proving that opposition to God leads to the utter collapse of even the proudest and grandest civilizations.

To the Israelites, God appears in a series of spectacular events that are as cosmic as they are precise.  The imagery is cemented in our imagination and tradition:  the Sparing of the First-born; the Parting of the Red Sea; the giving of the Ten Commandments.  

The imagery of the pillar of smoke which accompanied the Israelites by day, turning into a pillar of fire at night, is mighty enough.  So is the great wind that whirled in from the east, forcing the sea to part, causing an uproar that must have been heard around the globe.

Yet even greater than all these was the scene we call Ma’amad Sinai, our presence at Mount Sinai.  Crashing through the thunder, tearing the sky open with lightning, borne on the wings of a shofar blast that got louder by the minute, came God’s voice, proclaiming God’s presence, responding to Moses’s words—human to God and God to human. 

All these, however, were unique events, one-time happenings that would never repeat—at least not in the exact same way. 

The question that rises is, now what?  What do we do now that these events are behind us?  How do we see God in our day, today?  How do we perceive, in the midst of all the chaos around us, that there IS a God out there—or better yet—one that dwells among us?   It was easy enough to see God’s hand in those events, thousands of years ago. How do we know that God is here, with us, at this moment?  What we need now is something to represent God’s continued presence within us.

It’s easy to see God in miracles.  What we really want is to see God’s presence in the ordinary, real and gritty world that we are part of.

At this point in the story, the Torah is about to offer us two alternative versions of God’s presence.  In two weeks’ time, we will read about the wrong one.  This week, however, we are given the right formula. Terumah gives us exactly what we need when it says, “Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them” (Ex. 25:8). 

We are to build a House for God.  It’s a logical and simple answer, yet it’s also perplexing at the same time.

How could any physical dwelling be God’s house?  Could any structure, no matter how enormous and glorious, ever contain all God’s presence? 

The Torah’s intent, of course, is not that that this Tabernacle contain ALL of God’s presence, only those qualities which we expect—or pray for—in our God.  It isn’t the building that’s going to be valuable, but rather what’s inside it.  Yes, the Tabernacle is going to be constructed from the most expensive materials:  gold, silver and copper; expensive gems, furs and tanned leather; woven and embroidered silk, soft combed linen; spices and oils that would make it all shine and fragrant.   Yet the real value of this palace would not be in its form, but in its content.

To be sure, it wouldn’t be the physical contents, all tools and furnishings of the Temple.  Not the seven-branch menorah, made of one huge boulder of pure gold; nor the table, the altar, laver and even Holy Ark itself—all sculpted in wood and overlaid with gold; not even what the Ark held— hewn tablets of stone with words and laws inscribed upon them in ancient script.  None of these would even begin to contain the indomitable spirit of God.  They are only to give form to it.

So where would God’s holiness ultimately be found?  Where would be the safest, most sheltered and secure place for God’s presence to be nestled?

In our free will.

The key to this huge and magnificent Tabernacle, with its thousands of details of magnificence and splendor, is secreted within the word terumah.  This whole Tabernacle, along with everything that it is, both material and genius, is to be a donation.  Not a gift, not even a commandment, terumah implies uplift, a volunteering that must come from within, not from some outside source.  “From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering”  (Ex. 25:2). 

You have to want to offer it.

Freedom is the key; freedom to give, freedom to receive.  It’s the willingness, the open heart, that is God’s dwelling within us.

And in return, what do we get?

“My offering.”  God’s freely given uplift, God’s gift returned to us. 

By voluntarily offering the gifts of our hands, hearts and minds we allow God’s bounty to become part of our existence.  Each one of us can become part of the whole; each one of us can become part of the One that is God.

That, teaches the Torah, is the right choice to make.  Freely, not by coercion, we offer the best and most valuable of our resources.   We offer them not because of the inherent value of the material goods, but rather because of the true worth hidden within the structure we create, the most valuable treasure we human beings possess.

A gift given to no other creature other than us, a gift that flows from the most powerful source of life down to the smallest and meekest of us, it is the gift of free will.  The understanding that we can choose and are free to do so at any moment:  To oppress or to bring freedom; to destroy or to create; to be closer to the animal we are, or rather to the aspiring angel our soul yearns to be.

This is the first alternative, the Torah’s preferred one, as we begin to transform the one-time events of the Exodus into an eternal experience of God’s revelation, an ongoing process in which we, too, can play a part.  There is another—but that is for another discussion, in another portion.

©2014 by Boaz D. Heilman