As Torah portions go, this is a big week. In Terumah we start getting the blue print for the Tabernacle. If that was not significant enough, the Tabernacle is itself the blueprint for our experience of Shabbat. The 39 categories of work that went into building the Tabernacle are the same varieties of labor that are prohibited on Shabbat. So while I don’t assume that we will return to the cult of the tabernacle or ritual slaughter in the third Temple any time soon, Shabbat with all of its assorted rituals is a fixture of my life. Here in Terumah there is a clear plan for what will be built and made, but that is not where they start off this large-scale project. Rather, they start off with themselves. As we read:
‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they take for Me an offering; of every man whose heart makes him willing you shall take My offering.( Exodus 25:2)
While their gifts are going to fit into a very clear and focused plan, their gifts were from the heart. At the center of our national narrative is a collaborative non-profit project that celebrates the diverse offerings of every individual while working toward a common goal. And about this project God says:
And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. (Exodus 25:8)
The text does not say “make this building so that I can dwell in it“- the Tabernacle, but rather in “them”. When building the Tabernacle we were building a place for God to be with us. When we made space for God to be our guest we were transformed into the host and in so doing God was in us.
In making the world God, the Lord of Hosts, was making a place for us to be. God rested on Shabbat from that work, so we could be together with us God’s guests. Similarly by instructing us to rest from our kind of work on Shabbat, we are invited to be the Host for God in our lives. At the core of the Tabernacle, the Temple, and Shabbat is a profound notion of hospitality.
This fundamental notion of making space for guests brings us back to the advent of Judaism. There we see Avraham in his post-op discomfort standing in his tent vigilantly looking out for would-be guests. From the beginning being Jewish is less a disposition toward God and more about behaviors that make us open to others in our lives. Maybe if we made enough room for all of the people we would have enough room for God in our lives. In this sense Judaism is less of a faith and more of a practice in hospitality.
Said to Myself 