February 8, 2008 - TERUMAH - (2nd of Adar I, 5768)

Moses comes to the people there in the desert and solicits them for contributions in order to build the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. From what they “borrowed” from their Egyptian persecutors on their way out of Goshen, the Israelites were able to pour quite an impressive collection of items into the fund. The list included gold, silver, copper, blue, purple and crimson yarns, fine linen, goat’s hair, tanned ram skins, dolphin skins and acacia wood, oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the aromatic incense, lapis lazuli and other stones for setting in the ephod and for the breast piece.

Torah, in very precise detail, explains exactly how the ark and its accoutrements were to be fashioned. This correlates with other descriptions of other temples in the Middle East that have been revealed through archeological findings. But given the state of this wandering, motley, Israelite group, one surmises that the building of the Mishkan was an attempt by God and Moses to unify the people through a massively expensive and ornate, collective project. Knowing the problems people have had throughout history imagining what God must look like, this Tabernacle came to represent the dwelling place of the Almighty in the midst of the people, the place where God would communicate with their leaders, Moses and Aaron. As peculiar as it is to think that God had chosen a particular place to dwell in, as opposed to the idea that God actually pervades the universe, the Mishkan idea gave the people something tangible to turn to when they wanted to invoke God and appeal to God’s presence.

As opposed to other fixed temples which pinned the Deity to a given land and location, the form and function of this mobile sanctuary were ideally suited to the journey that the Israelites were embarked upon. At a moment’s notice, the Mishkan could be lifted and carried to the next stopping point. It contained such beautiful items, molded with such fine craftsmanship, that it must have been a source of enormous pride as well as spiritual surety for the masses. They as individuals had contributed so freely that Moses had to call a stop to the collecting. This was a modern day, non-profit’s dream, to be overwhelmed without having to dun each person individually. But because they had come so far forward to donate their valuables, the Israelites, therefore, could claim their piece of this holy sanctuary they saw literally come together in their midst. Having given of their most valued possessions to have it built, they could claim a deeply personal attachment to the resultant creation.

If God, on the one hand, had given the people the gift of freedom from Egyptian slavery, the Mishkan represented the people’s return gratitude and their expression of their acceptance of the covenant between them and God. In fact, the very presence of the Asseret HaDebrot, the Ten Commandments, that rested in the Aron HaKodesh, reminded them of the ethical and moral obligations they were taking upon themselves to be covenanted with God.

As we think about the Israelites and their relationship with the holy and the spiritual which they were learning and experiencing along their journey, we can think about what we each bring to these services each week and how a synagogue-sanctuary ought to function in our lives. The Israelites gave the best of themselves to the sacred project. They placed love of God over love of possessions and it redounded to them as they marveled in great satisfaction over what they had helped to create. Obviously, they came with great excitement to share what was theirs in order to center themselves with the most wonderfully adorned objects, dedicated to God, that they could create. If this generation of Israelites have left us a legacy, part of the heritage has got to be their enthusiasm for their partnership with God and their passion to hold nothing back when serving their Deity.

The question for us today is what role does the synagogue play in our lives and what role ought it play?

Eventually, God convinces Moses that he is “the man!” God arms Moses with certain visual effects to amaze the Israelites and capture their attention. Moses goes to Egypt as a magician to do his magic act in order to engage and convince the Israelites, but these tricks are only to get his foot through the door, so to speak. The vision of freedom is what Moses must sow among the people, and to do this, he must depend on as much on God and God’s miraculous tricks…the plagues…as he does anything he might say or do himself. Those plagues, you see, cut both ways: negatively on the Egyptians, but positively on the Israelites.

The question for us today is what role does the synagogue play in our lives and what role ought it play?

Rabbi Morris Adler identified four “tasks” for both the ancient Mishkan and the modern synagogue.

The first is “to conserve, to guard against oblivion the great insights and concepts that have been developed by human beings through the ages. Adler points out that new generations often destroy their past, and it is the role of religion to preserve ‘the accumulation of insights’ of human wisdom. Our religious sanctuaries proclaim, ‘Do not destroy the ancient landmarks.

The second task of the sanctuary ‘is to scrutinize, to criticize, to evaluate.’ Religious sanctuaries, Adler argues, must constantly present ‘an ethical code that does not surrender to expediency, that does not give way to hysteria, that sees the problems of our time from the perspective of a great background of experience and faith.’

The third function of the sanctuary is ‘to enlarge the lives of people.’ Religion seeks to tell people, ‘Do not starve yourself by limiting yourself only to the struggle for a livelihood. Do not become a prisoner of your own ego.’

Finally, Adler says that ‘the Jewish sanctuary seeks to remind the Jewish community that what keeps Jews together is not a common sorrow…is not charity, not defense, but common history, common culture, and common hope.’ (Harvey Fields, A Torah Commentary for Our Times: Exodus, p. 66)

Throughout our history, the synagogue has served many different functions. It has been a bet midrash, a house of study, a bet tefillah, a house of prayer, and a bet k’nesset, a place of meeting. For those of us who like to travel and often include checking out the local temple or shul, we have witnessed ornate, awe inspiring sanctuaries that reflect the wealth and prosperity of their Jewish communities. But, for me, the most beautiful synagogues that I have encountered in my life were ones that were filled with the voices of hundreds of generations of Jews. These were often simple structures with little decoration, like the Synagogue of the Ari in Safed or the Rashi synagogue in Worms. Enter the portals of these humble places and you are virtually enveloped by the prayers of thousands of our people who prayed there. It was not the amount of gold or the quality of the woods or other materials that were used that made these places holy. It was the knowledge that our people had brought their lives to bare before God here and they received what they needed to live their lives and enrich their souls. This was the essence of what the Mishkan symbolized. It was the best that this band of refugees could muster…physically and materially rich. As they continued to wander, they would learn to bring other gifts to the Mishkan, gifts that came from within them, offerings so precious as to ennoble them then and, in their legacy, us today.