Last week, we had the pleasure of welcoming visiting scholar Rabbanit Nechama Goldman Barash to Kehillat Nashira. In her sermon on Parashat Terumah, she showed how the Tabernacle reveals God's changing relationship with Israel, from public to intimate, highlighting God's vulnerability and desire to dwell within us, using the father-daughter metaphor. Read on below:
עשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם
Make Me a Sanctuary For Me to Dwell In
Parsahat Teruma comes after the Torah has been given at Sinai and after Mishpatim which is the first exposure to the legal system we will call halakha. In the parashat we have a detailed description of the building of the Tabernacle which will be repeated after the sin of the golden calf in the last two portions of Shemot, Vayakhel and Pekudei.
One of the major questions that arises in the commentaries around the Tabernacle is whether the physical space with its opulence, precise dimension and sacrifices represents an ideal framework for worship or a de facto framework as a result of the sin of the Golden Calf. Both interpretive directions make sense: The sin of the Golden Calf revealed an intense need on the part of the people to have some sort of manifestation of the Divine in their midst in order to have a focal point for their worship. The Tabernacle with all of its gilded accessories and rich fabrics provides such a framework but it is a concession to the weakness of human need for physicality.
On the other hand, given the milieu of the ancient near east with its temples and sacrifices, perhaps, as with many other parallel commandments, this was God’s way of reinforcing the chosen-ness of his people by opening a similar vehicle for worship, but, towards one God. The Tabernacle was singular – there were no other options for sacrificial worship and in this way, ti could be tightly contained and overseen by Moses and Aharon and his sons. The earthly residence would mirror the heavenly one in which God was presumed to dwell.
There are a number of midrashim I would that reflect the relationship between God and Israel as manifested in the Tabernacle. The metaphor of father and daughter is explored. While the father is always God, the daughter is either the children of Israel or, interestingly, the Torah.
Song of Songs 3:9
“King Solomon made himself a palanquin” (SoS 3:9).
R. Azariah in the name of R. Judah ben Simon interpreted the verse as applying to the Tabernacle. “A palanquin” refers to the Tabernacle. Said R. Judah ben R. Ila’i: It is as if a king had a young daughter and before she grew up and reached maturity, he used to see her in the street and speak to her in public, in an alleyway or in a courtyard, but after she grew up and reached maturity, he said:
“It is not becoming for my daughter that I should converse with her in public. Make her therefore a pavilion and when I need to converse with her, I will do so within the pavilion.”
So it is written:
“When Israel was a child, then I loved him” (Hosea 1:1).
In Egypt, the Israelites saw God in the open…At the Red Sea, they saw Him in the open…At Sinai they saw Him face to face and said,
“All that the Lord has spoken will we do and obey” (Exodus 24:7)
and they had become a whole nation, the Holy One Blessed be He said:
“It is not becoming for My people that I should speak with them in the open. Let them therefore make for Me a Tabernacle and whenever I need to speak with them, I shall speak with them from the midst of the Tabernacle.”
And so it says,
“But when Moshe went in before the Lord that He might speak with Him…”
In this very rich metaphor, the author distinguishes between the relationship a father has with his daughter before and after sexual maturity. In rabbinic halakhic literature, the father is responsible for caring for his daughter until puberty. After that, she becomes a legal adult. In this metaphor however, the author does not reflect on how marriage changes the relationship between father and daughter. That will be explored in the next midrash. Here is the idea that sexual maturity changes the relationship. While in the beginning, while the daughter is a child, the king would engage with the daughter whenever and wherever they would meet. The child needs constant encouragement, tangible expressions of love and reinforcement of that love with each encounter. At sexual puberty however, the king does not want to relinquish the relationship but recognizes that it has changed. His daughter is a legal adult. She is of marriageable age. It is no longer appropriate for him to greet her and embrace her publicly. But he does not want to lose all contact with her so he creates a private space where they can meet and preserve the closeness and intimacy. This is then applied to the evolving relationship with Israel. It cannot remain in initial stages of grand gestures and miracles. There must be a diminishing to allow for the daughter – meaning the nation – to grow without the all-seeing all-knowing eye of the father meaning God in direct view. The midrash suggests this is a healthier and longer lasting model for closeness, similar to the shift that happens as child grows into adult.
Exodus Rabbah 33:1
“And this is the offering you shall take” as it is written “For I give you good doctrine, forsake not my Torah”….God however said to Israel: “I have sold you my Torah but with it as it were I have also been sold,” as it says, “that they take me for an offering” (Exodus 25:2).
It can be compared to a king whose only daughter married another king. When he wished to return to this country and take his wife with him, he said to him:
“My daughter whose hand I have given you, is my only child. I cannot part from her, neither can I say to you, “Do not take her” , for she is now your wife. This favor however, I would request of you: wherever you go to live, have a chamber ready for me that I may dwell with you, for I cannot leave my daughter.”
Thus God said to Israel:
“I have given you a Torah from which I cannot part and I also cannot tell you not to take it; but this I would request: wherever you go, make for Me a house wherein I may live, as it says (Exodus 22:8, ‘And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.”
The next midrash uses the father-daughter model in an even more unusual way. In this midrash the vulnerability of the father is emphasized. The daughter is to be married to another king which is the way of the world and what a father would want for his only daughter. Marrying her off ensures her protection and continuity. However, a daughter, once married, now belongs to her husband and her husband is returning to his country which will result in great separation from the father. The king, who is now the son in law, was once the equal of the father. Now he is his superior in one significant way – he has claim to the daughter who is now his wife. If the father wishes to maintain this relationship with his only daughter, it is at the mercy of his colleague, now his son in law. He puts in his plea: He desperately wants to stay close with his daughter. He cannot stop his son in law for taking his daughter away from him. He asks only for a chamber in which he can dwell with them so that he not be separated. It will be an act of mercy and hopefully of love as well for his wife, if the king/son in law acquiesces.
The message to the parable is clear: God gives the Torah to the children of Israel. This is an amazing comparison. The children of Israel are the king who becomes the son in law. God is their partner! And then God is at their mercy when He gives them His daughter the Torah! They can choose to include God in this marriage or exclude Him. The Torah like the daughter now belongs to the children of Israel. Bringing God into their lives of Torah is at their jurisdiction. God’s vulnerability is exposed! And He asks to dwell among them so that He can remain close to His beloved Torah and not be forgotten by the children of Israel when they depart Sinai.
Leviticus Rabbah 30:13
I said to them
“And you shall take for me an offering so that I may dwell with you and you shall make me a Mikdash”
It is as if to say that the Holy One Blessed be He said,
“take Me and I will dwell among you.”
It is not written “take an offering” but rather “Take me – it is Me that you are taking.”
The final midrash we will look at it in this sequence also plays with the vulnerability of God once the Torah has been given and the Tabernacle built. In this reading of the text, God asks not for an offering to build the Tabernacle but that He be taken as the offering when building the Tabernacle. Again, the author seems to recognize that the Tabernacle can be devoid of God’s presence unless we as a nation consciously bring Him into our worship.
We have not had the the Temple for 2000 years and yet, we have managed to maintain, foster and nurture this relationship through communal structures such as synagogues and houses of study and through personal structures within the family and the home and the study of Torah and prayer. Without a deliberate choosing to bring God into our rituals, prayers and study, God and His people would be distanced and remote. This parasha with its wonderful midrashim teaches us that to paraphrase Abraham Heschel, while we are in search of God, most revealingly, God is also constantly in search of us.
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