Terumah- Building a Home For God

Our parsha begins “Speak to the children of Israel, and have them take (for) Me an offering; from every person whose heart inspires him to generosity, you shall take My offering. And this is the offering that you shall take from them: gold, silver, copper…”

Shemot Rabbah, a midrash on Exodus, connects these verses with Proverbs 4:2 which says “I give you good doctrine; do not forsake my Torah.” How are these connected? It’s because the word “doctrine” in Hebrew is “le-kach”, which means something received or taken away. It is based on the verb Lakach, which means to take. This equates to the three times that Hashem uses the word take in the opening verses of the parsha. So the midrash sees the building of the Mishkan as an exchange of gifts. God gives us His Torah, and we build Him a home in the midst of the people.

 It is likened to a king who marries off his only daughter to a prince who will take her to another kingdom. The king says the prince, “I love my daughter so much and will miss her greatly. Please do this for me, build a wing onto your palace so that when I come to visit her I may stay.”

In this midrash, God is the king and his daughter is the Torah. The Mishkan is God’s place that Israel builds so that He can be near to her. So he gives Israel the Torah and Israel in turn builds Him a home. This is further indicated in that the word “take” is used in terms of marriage. For example, in one verse it says that when a man takes his wife in marriage, he doesn’t have to go to war.

But how do we build God a home? This, too, is hinted at in our opening verses. Rashi says that the three references to offerings (terumah) refer to three different donations given. The first, where God says “li terumah”, take for me an offering, is the half shekel donation to build the silver sockets that hold the walls of the tabernacle together. The second, where God says “terumati”, my offering, refers to the half shekel donation for communal sacrifices. The third, where God says “ha-terumah”, the offering, refers to all of the materials donated to build the Mishkan.

 But why does the third one only have details and the other two don’t? And why is there no mention of God with this third donation? It doesn’t say “take for me” or “my offering”, it simply says “the offering”.

 Midrash says that these three offerings refer to how we build a home for God in this world. The donation for silver wall sockets refers to the Torah. Just as the walls are the foundation of the Mishkan, so too Torah is the foundation of our lives. The donation for communal sacrifices refers to Avodah, prayer. Prayer is intimately connected with the sacrifices offered in the Temple. And finally, the materials used to build the Mishkan refer to the mitzvoth, commandments. It is the practical, everyday things that we do. This is why there was only details on this third offering. The observance of the mitzvoth are the detailed practices of our daily lives. And it is also why God is not mentioned with this third offering. God is hidden in the very details of the practice of mitzvot. As we go about our days saying a blessing over food, or washing our hands, these could be seen as just rituals that we are doing; it is not necessarily immediately evident that God is the focus of why we do these things to an outsider. 

So we build a house for Hashem in this world through the study of Torah, prayer, and the practice of mitzvoth.

 But I would like offer you a different take on the midrash about the king and his daughter. Usually Israel is referred to in Scripture in the feminine. It is Israel the woman wedded to Hashem. So I propose to change this midrash so that it’s not the king’s daughter, but his son; Yeshua whom He weds to the “princess”. Israel, and the Church, is wedded to Yeshua, the King’s beloved Son. And just as we build a house of Hashem, Yeshua has promised that he is building a house for us in Olam Ha-Ba!

May we build a house for Hashem thru Torah, Avodah, Mitzvot. May we be faithful marriage partners with our husband Yeshua. May we all be at that Great Wedding Banquet in Olam Ha-Ba!

Shabbat Shalom!