Written February 20th, 2021.
This week’s Torah portion is Terumah, in which God commands Moses to tell the Israelites to shower God with lavish gifts, including precious metals, stones, goat’s hair, tanned ram skins, dolphin skins, linens, wood, and oils.
God commands the Israelites to build the Tabernacle with these gifts, also known as the Mishkan, a precious and portable tent in which the stones of the Ten Commandments will be housed and rituals can be performed. The majority of Terumah covers the instructions for building the Mishkan, which are similar to an IKEA instruction manual, filled with cubits and poles and rings fitting together.
When I first read this portion, I thought about the power of gift-giving. God tells the Israelites to give God gifts, but it’s not, technically, a command. The portion says “Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him.”
It’s like saying, “You don’t have to bring gifts to my birthday party, unless you want to, and it would probably be a good idea if you did.”
But still, the choice remains. God does not want the Israelites to bring gifts if they don’t want to, only if their hearts are moved to do so. But God wants the most luxurious, ridiculous gifts - like a Biblic self-care package with dolphin skins and gold and silver. So how do all these pieces fit together? Why would people give up their precious items and luxuries to the Divine?
To me, the importance of the gift-giving is not in the gifts themselves, but in what they make possible. If everyone donates gold, silver, copper, wood and cloth, they can construct the Tabernacle, a space of communal worship.
Yes, this space brings them closer to God, but more importantly, in the process of building it, brings them closer to each other, allowing them to co-construct something sacred as a community. The divinity lies in their relationships and their shared vision, values, and mission.
So when God urges the Israelites to bring gifts so they can build the Tabernacle, to me, it’s more like God is urging the Israelites to recognize the power in a shared sense of purpose. But God cannot make the Israelites recognize the power of building their community. It has to be organic and internal, only if their hearts wish it, as the text says.
So as we move into the restful period of Shabbat, I wish everyone a chance to reflect on what gifts we can bring into the spaces we share, and how and what we are building together. Whatever we have to bring into this shared space is meaningful, powerful and useful. Not because we are being asked to, but because we recognize our community and shared sense of purpose as powerful and sacred, an embodiment of the Divine.