Terumah: The Sanctuary as the Connection with God's Love

The Torah, Israel, the Promised Land, and the Temple of Jerusalem are the essential elements to reveal God's presence in the material world. They are parts of the same entity we call consciousness, and they are also the means to achieve its purpose.

The Torah is God's master plan, the Promised Land the material and spiritual space to implement the plan, and the Temple of Jerusalem our highest knowledge and awareness of God's love as the level to connect with Him. In this Unity we fulfill our mission to reveal and proclaim His kingdom over all His creation.

With Torah study we learn to know the Creator through His ways and attributes, which we as Israel are entitled to emulate. As our divine legacy and inheritance, the Torah defines our identity as Jews. We are Jews because the Torah tells us what we are. We have spent hundreds of generations immersed in Torah study just to define for us and future generations, who we are.

The result of this long journey is the volumes compiled by the oral Torah [the Talmud]. Ironically, after so many centuries and lifetimes devoted to such monumental task, we still debate what defines the Jewish identity. This indicates that one of the major challenges and endeavors we have to engage into in the dawn of the Messianic era is to discover and embrace who we truly are, based on the definition that the Creator gave us in His Torah.

As long as we don't realize our Jewish identity we will never know our purpose in the material world. Knowing or ignoring this identity has determined our fate as individuals and as a nation. If we are willing to learn from our history, the expected obvious and “logical” conclusion would be to embrace our real identity, though it seems that our common predicament is to rebel against who we are.

We rather assimilate to other “cultures” or lifestyles. The main criticism to non observant Jews is their lack of interest in knowing their Jewish identity. If they, out of individual desire, would inquire about it probably would leave behind what doesn't define who they are.

It's interesting to note that in these times thousands of people from all over the world are embracing Judaism as their material and spiritual identity. This fulfills the prophecies about “the gathering of the exiles” as the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, for whom we pray three times a day when we stand before our Father and King.

The land of Israel is the geographic space in the material world chosen by the Creator for His people, to fulfill their destiny according to His will. The Torah describes this land both as a physical and spiritual place to exercise our identity, because this identity encompasses material and spiritual qualities.

Judaism conceives life and the physical world as part of a unity from which nothing is separated, because our destiny is to make both the spiritual and material as the combined means to reveal God as the Creator of all. This comprises all levels and dimensions of consciousness that must be conducted and guided by God's will.

This is what we call here God's love as the cause and effect of what we conceive and experience as love in our human comprehension. The more we discover, experience, learn and share love, the more we know God's love.

In this sense, the land of Israel encompasses all manifest and potential facets of human consciousness under the awareness of God's love. We have mountains, valleys, deserts, beaches, sea, lakes, hills and plains that represent thoughts and ideals, imagination, insight, expression, sensitivity, austerity, and character traits that expand or limit the way we conceive life, the world, and how we interact with our fellow man.

Hence we are gifted with a land that enlarges the human potential in every dimension of intellect, thought, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts. This land, as a special quality in consciousness, endows us to fulfill God's will. In other words, as long as we do not dwell in it (meaning not living consciousness in its full potential), we are not able to fully manifest God's ways and attributes in the material world.

The Sanctuary, as the Tabernacle and the Temple of Jerusalem, is also the anchoring physical and spiritual place in which our consciousness reaches the full awareness of the Jewish identity. By realizing God's love as the essence of who we are, through the awareness of His ways and attributes, we ascend to Jerusalem (the highest awareness of God's love).

Thus we will be able to enter the most sacred place in consciousness which is our connection with God. We pray daily for the reconstruction of Jerusalem, and this process we do only with the help of God's love. This is how we understand terumah as the elevation process through which we offer our life to God's will.

The offerings we elevate in the Temple are all facets, aspects, traits, qualities and dimensions of consciousness under the guidance of love as the material manifestation of God's love. See our commentary on Parshat Terumah: “Elevating Life to God's Love” in this blog on January 30, 2011 for more details.

Only love meets love, and nothing else. Thus we understand that our offerings must be unblemished and whole, meaning that in them there is nothing but love.

“(…) and have them take for Me an offering [lit. uplifting] from every person whose heart inspires him to generosity (…)” (Exodus 25:2)

When love inspires us and fills us, generosity follows and our love meets God's love.

“And they shall make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell among [in] them” (25:8)

The Torah is the means to establish this Sanctuary.

“And you shall place into the ark the testimony, which I will give you.” (25:16)

Our sages debate on the allegorical meanings of every part and utensil of the Tabernacle and compare it to the human body, and all that God created in the seven days of His creation. These comparisons teach us that the Sanctuary encompasses all the elements of the material and spiritual Creation.

As an allegory of the human body, it means that all the body contains must be consecrated to its Creator. Hence we proclaim what king David's stated.

“Happy are those who dwell in Your house, they are ever praising you.” (Psalms 84:4)

After all, we are God's creatures, and our destiny is to know Him and unite with Him. That's the legacy of the Torah, Israel, the Promised Land, and the Temple of Jerusalem.

“Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion. For He has strengthened the bars of your gates; He has blessed your children within you. He makes peace in your borders, and fills you with the finest of the wheat.” (147:12-14)

Parshat Terumah: Elevating Life to God's Love

“Speak to the children of Israel, that they should take to Me an offering from every person whose heart inspires him to generosity, you shall take My offering.” (Exodus 25:2)

Our sages question this request from the Creator, considering that He is the owner and master of all His Creation. They conclude that His request is about us in our relationship with Him. This offering is actually something we have to elevate to Him. This elevation is necessary because it comes from the material world, and must be sublimated in order for us to be united with Him.

We call God's ways and attributes the means by which we conceive Him and relate to Him. We do this when all aspects, levels and dimensions of consciousness act according to those ways and attributes. God's love is our essence and through this essence we are able to relate and communicate with Him, for love is the means and the message in our hearts that inspire us to elevate what comes from His love as the offering that He asks from us.

Is this offering something ethereal and abstract like our soul in order to be sublimated to Him? Not really, because all aspects, levels and dimensions of our existence are as spiritual as our own Soul. This is what the Creator wants us to be aware of. Hence asks from us that every part of our being must be essential elements in our offering, which is our elevation in order to be with Him.

“And this is the offering that you shall take from them: gold, silver, and copper (...)” (25:3-7)

Our sages reveal that the items mentioned in those five verses represent particular traits and qualities of every part of our being. Gold symbolizes the highest level of consciousness as the Soul through which we conceive and know the Creator. Silver represents our awareness of the material world and the means to grasp His ways and attributes.

Copper symbolizes feelings, emotions, passions and instincts bound to the material aspects of life. Similarly, “blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair” (25:4) represent spiritual inspiration, creative material thoughts, as well as revitalizing emotions, feelings, and passions.

In this context soul, mind and heart encompass multiple levels and dimensions inherent to their own nature. These, from the children of Israel, are summoned by the Creator to ascend to Him.

“And they shall make for Me a Sanctuary, and I will dwell amid them [lit. in them].” (25:8)

The Sanctuary achieves a dual purpose because by elevating our lives to the Creator we simultaneously fulfill His desire to dwell (be revealed by us) in the dimensions of the material world.

Our sages teach this as the entire task of man in the world: to reveal the hidden Divine Presence in every aspect and dimension of God's creation. After all, His Presence pervades everything and it is our endeavor to make it tangible for us [Israel] in order to proclaim His oneness.

This is the profound meaning of His words, “and I will dwell in them”, which means within each one of us and also in our midst, in our surrounding reality. The Sanctuary represents the highest awareness of our connection to God, and the Torah within the ark is the means to connect to Him.

“And you shall place into the ark of the Testimony, which I will give you.” (25:16, 21)

Once the connection is established, “I will arrange My meetings with you there, and I will speak with you, (…) all that I will command you unto the children of Israel.” (25:22). We mentioned in previous commentaries that Moses symbolizes our highest knowledge of the Creator, and only through it we communicate with Him. In this capacity Moses directs the construction of the Sanctuary, and also guides all aspects of consciousness (the children of Israel) for that purpose.

One of the fundamental elements of this awareness is the manifestation of divine consciousness as the guiding light in our life, and the tasks and duties in every aspect of our relation with the material world.

“And you shall make a menorah of pure gold (...)” (25:31)

Pure gold is the way we grasp the pristine quality of our awareness of God. Let's remind ourselves that silver and copper are also fundamental parts in the construction of the Sanctuary. We are not made only with a soul but also with body, mind, thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts, symbolized by silver and copper.

In the entire chapter 27 of the book of Exodus, copper is highlighted as the metal for the base of the altar where the Ark of the Testimony rests, and the metal for its utensils. This is later emphasized in the last verse of this portion.

“All the implements of the Sanctuary for all its labor, and all its pegs, and all the pegs of the courtyard [shall be made of] copper.” (27:19)

Let's be aware that besides our soul and intellect, our body is mostly dominated by the senses, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts we can't put aside or separate from us. These are clearly the foundation where our higher consciousness rests, and as such we must integrate them under the guidance of love's ways and attributes as the harmonized unity we need to permanently connect with our Creator.

Some of our mystic sages advice that instead of fighting darkness our duty is to create light, as it is commanded to kindle the menorah every day in the Sanctuary. Living in the light of God's love is the way to create a place for Him to dwell (to be revealed) in the world.

The haftarah for this portion reminds us how to do it.

“(…) if you walk in My statutes, and execute My ordinances, and keep all My Commandments to walk in them; then will I establish My word with you, which I spoke to David your father. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and I will not forsake My people, Israel.” (I Kings 5:12-13)