A Dynamic Relationship
A Message for Parashat Terumah 2017
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Parashat Terumah is the
first of several parashot that describe the Mishkan. What was the
purpose of the Mishkan? R. Moshe b. Nahman (Ramban) suggested that it
was meant to shift the public manifestation of God’s glory at Sinai into the
private domain of a sanctuary. He noted the similar descriptions of Sinai –
“And God’s glory abode on Har Sinai” (24:16), and the Mishkan – “And the
glory of God filled the Mishkan” (40:34),[1]
and pointed to the similar restrictions of entrance and prerequisite
purification of each.[2]
Building upon Ramban’s explanation while
viewing the command to build the Mishkan in its broader context may shed
light on its vital role in the developing relationship of God and Am Yisrael
at that time. Whereas Ma’amad Har Sinai ended with fear and recoil, the
command to build the Mishkan encouraged approach. The end of Parashat
Yitro described the shaken nation’s request of Moshe, “Speak you with us
that we may hear, and let not God speak with us lest we die” (20:19). The
distance then intensified with the description of a cloud-covered mountain, at
the end of Parashat Mishpatim.[3]
But God then turned to Moshe and demanded, “And they shall make Me a Mikdash,
that I may abide in their midst” (25:9). By continuing His presence in the Mishkan,
God was setting the stage for resumption of a forward-moving relationship with
the nation.
Ha-Rambam famously located this “back and
forth” relationship with God in the precepts of love and fear of God. He first
wrote:
And what is the way to the
love of Him and the fear of Him? At the hour that man contemplates His great
and wondrous works and creatures, and from them obtains a glimpse of His wisdom
which is incomparable and infinite, he will straightaway love Him, praise Him,
glorify Him, and desire with an exceeding desire to know His great name, even
as David said, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Tehillim 42:3).[4]
The approach of God, an appreciation of His
might, and the desire to know His great name was intensely experienced during
the theophany at Sinai.
Ha-Rambam then continued:
And when he ponders these
very matters, he will straightaway recoil and be frightened, and realize that
he is a small creature, lowly and obscure, endowed with slight and slender
intelligence, standing in the presence of Him who is perfect in knowledge. And
so David said, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers – what
is man that You are mindful of him?” (Tehillim 8:4-5)[5]
The fear of God and recoil from His
overwhelming presence was Am Yisrael’s immediate reaction to Ma’amad
Har Sinai.
Seeking God’s presence in the Mishkan
represented the next step in a relationship best defined as a continuous
“approach and recoil.” Ha-Rambam later delineated this condition, and wrote:
When
one reflects on these things and comes to know all created beings…and sees His
wisdom in all created things – his love for God will increase, his sould will
thirst, his very flesh will yearn to love God. He will be filled with fear and
trembling because of his lowly condition, his poverty, his insignificance…[6]
The Torah’s description of Ma’amad Har
Sinai, its aftermath, and the Mishkan are representative of our own
relationships with God. They are far more complicated than a one-word
description and instead exist as a constant flux between love and fear, back
and forth, and approach and recoil.
[1] Commentary of Ramban
to the Torah, Shemot 25:1.
[2] Ibid.,
Introduction to Vayikra and Introduction to Bemidbar. See, as well, e.g., Nahum
M. Sarna’s Exploring Exodus (New
York, 1996), 203-4.
[3] See last week’s devar
Torah, “Boundaries.”
[4] Mishneh Torah, Hil. Yesodei ha-Torah 2:1.