Torah Posting: תרומה
Okay, I know I said this last week, but this is really where my favorite part starts. Whereas last week’s parashah began the work of parsing long lists of laws to discern their salubrious spiritual qualities, those were primarily laws of basic civil conduct — which, as we established, are necessary cultural prerequisites for an advanced religious society. This week, though, is when we get into that pure, trippy, the-Torah-is-a-book-of-magic stuff.
These are the laws of terumah, offerings to God. They’re very specific, material instructions, and the spiritual dimensions of them are mostly left up to context. But I think that’s actually the point; the material culture of Jewish religious practice is fully descriptive of the posture within which their essence is received and experienced.
All the people are invited to bring God gifts if their heart tells them to. That is to say, the first offerings described in law are only valid with full volition and consent. God asks for precious metals, fine textiles and animal skins (including dolphin skin, apparently? We don’t actually know what a תחש is), aromatic woods, oils, spices, incense, and precious gems. God specifies that the latter are for the mantle and breastplate of what we will later learn is the high priest’s ritual garb. And then, in a line so holy that I have chanted it a hundred times on a meditation retreat, God explains what these offerings are for:
וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם׃
“And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.”
It is time to receive the instructions for the Mishkan — the “Tabernacle,” but it really means “Dwelling” — the mobile spiritual power plant for Jewish community. It is a literal vehicle for God that parks where the people are camped, so that offerings may be made. All future permanent temples in the Holy Land, and even synagogues in exile, are based on its schematics. My feeling has always been that this period in the wilderness — the speaking place — where the people are learning how to be in God’s Presence and depending on God totally for survival — is the ideal, and so the Mishkan is the ultimate expression of Jewish ritual and worship.
The Hebrews are a people constituted in exile, wandering, and seeking home. Though our creation story ends with getting there, Mosheh — the guy who got us there — doesn’t make it. And the rest of the Bible is the story about how we had a home and lost it. We’ve been wandering ever since. You might even argue that the Talmud — the reconstitution of the context for all these teachings by generations of rabbis in exile — serves as a sort of second Mishkan, an earthly vessel made to exacting specifications in which the holy essence that holds our people together is carried with us wherever we must go.
That’s not to say we’ve returned to the ideal as a people, though. Not hardly. Let’s get into the design of the Mishkan, and we’ll see how resonant it feels with our current way of life — or not.
The first component is an ארון, an “ark,” which is now the word we use for the cabinet in every synagogue where the Torah scrolls are kept. In the Mishkan, it is a box of acacia wood overlaid with gold and carried on poles, and the stone tablets of the Pact are to be kept inside. On its cover shall be two golden כרבים — keruvim — angelic beings, facing each other, with wings spread to shield the ark.
Atop the ark, between the wings of the keruvim, is where God will appear and offer instruction from here on out.
In front of the ark shall be a table, also of acacia wood and overlaid with gold. The mechanics of its portability are also given. Upon it shall be bowls, ladles, jars and jugs of pure gold to contain the materials for offerings. The main purpose of the table is to display the לחם פנים — the “bread of appearances” — which is to be set there before God always. This is arguably the third form that sacred bread has taken in the birth of this people; the first is, of course, the unleavened bread of the exodus. Then God promises the מן, the magical flaky food that rains from the sky at the beginning of the wander in the wilderness, by calling it bread. Now we learn about the “bread of appearances,” and though its display and importance is given here, we do not yet learn how to bake it.
Next we get the מנרה, the seven-branched lampstand described in exquisite detail, with its cups shaped like almond blossoms. You may be more familiar with the nine-branched menorah used on Chanukah; I have expounded upon their relationship elsewhere. The menorah in the Mishkan is the primary lighting implement for the ritual space.
The final components of the inner sanctum of the Mishkan are tongs and fire pans, also of pure gold.
This chapter concludes with another pasuk I have taken as a mantra that perfectly sums up all this stuff I’ve been saying about the forms and practice instructions and whatnot:
וּרְאֵ֖ה וַעֲשֵׂ֑ה בְּתַ֨בְנִיתָ֔ם אֲשֶׁר־אַתָּ֥ה מׇרְאֶ֖ה בָּהָֽר׃
“Note well and follow the patterns for them that are being shown you on the mountain.”
Next, the designs of the fabrics of the tent for the tabernacle structure are given, as well as its dimensions. Specific numbers of loops and clasps on each cloth for the tentpoles are laid out. The structure is given covers and planks and walls. There are different instructions and elements for the sides of the structure in each cardinal direction.
Once the structure is set up, with the inner sanctum and its elements arranged inside, a blue, purple, and crimson curtain of fine twisted linen is described, with keruvim on it. This is a partition “בין הקדש ובין קדש הקדשים” — “between the Holy and the Holy of Holies.”
The ark is to be placed inside the Holy of Holies, and the table and lampstand are outside the curtain.
The entrance of the tent will also have a nice, colorful, embroidered screen hung in a frame of acacia wood.
Then the designs for the altar are given. It is to be a big square of acacia wood with horns overlaid with copper on the corners. It is to have ash pails, scrapers, basins, meat hooks, fire pans, and a meshwork grating, all of copper. The altar is also to be carried on poles.
Finally, the whole thing is to be circumscribed in a large outer enclosure.
I have summarized the key elements, but I really encourage you to read the whole parashah and steep yourself in the exactness of the details, the measurements, the directions. This entire parashah can be spent in a rhapsody of vivid visualization of this space. It is my opinion that the ability to spiritually inhabit the Mishkan and perform its rituals is the core of Jewish spiritual practice.
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