Dear TBZ community,
Parashat Terumah marks a turning point in the Book of Exodus. The drama of liberation is behind us, the revelation at Sinai has already taken place, and now the Torah turns to what might seem, at first glance, like an entirely different kind of project: the detailed and very physical work of building a sacred space. The long description of materials, measurements, textures, colors, vessels, fabrics, wood, oil, and stones is a blueprint for the collective act of construction that will allow the Presence of the Holy One to dwell among the people.
And it begins with an invitation:
דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְיִקְחוּ־לִי תְּרוּמָה מֵאֵת כָּל־אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר יִדְּבֶנּוּ לִבּוֹ תִּקְחוּ אֶת־תְּרוּמָתִי
Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; from every person whose heart so moves them you shall take My offering (Exodus 25:2).
And then, a few lines later, a verse that is very familiar to us and that we often sing at TBZ:
וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם
Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them (Exodus 25:8).
The Mishkan (dwelling, sanctuary) emerges from nedivut lev, from the stirring of the heart.
The Kedushat Levi, 18th century Hasidic master from Ukraine, understands these verses as the link between intention and action. Our heart moves us to give a contribution, but the mitzvah (commandment) is to give this tangible gift and not just rely on the intention or the feelings of the heart.
“Every person serving the Lord must do so also by something tangible in addition to the lofty thoughts that he entertains while doing so. Allegorically speaking, the performance of a tangible mitzvah, commandment, is considered as if one helps the Presence of the Lord to arise from the dust on earth.
When keeping this in mind we can answer the enigma posed by the words כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו, “each person according to how his heart moves him.”
These words form the link between the generous thought and the generous deed. By making a voluntary contribution, i.e., the size of the contribution is completely voluntary (it is not a tax as the half shekel in Exodus 30:13) the Presence of G’d on earth will become so much more manifest.
The words: וזאת התרומה (these are the gifts) may be understood as if the Torah had written: וזאת ההתרוממות, “and this will constitute the ‘exaltation, elevation.’”
The examples of the materials that were to be donated are symbolic of how lofty and generous thoughts are to be translated into lofty and generous deeds.
The Kedushat Levi insists that the Torah is equally clear that the stirring of the heart is only the beginning. Intention alone does not create sacred space. A sanctuary is built when what we feel becomes what we do, when generosity becomes tangible, when longing takes the form of wood and fabric and time and presence and commitment.
He plays with the word terumah (contribution) and hears it within hitromemut (elevation). The act of giving something real – something material, something embodied – lifts the world. Lofty thoughts are not enough; they must become action. The Divine Presence, in Kedushat Levi’s beautiful and daring language, is raised from potential into reality when our inner lives are translated into lived practice.
One way to understand this teaching is that intentions without actions cannot build the Mishkan. To build a sanctuary – and a world – where the presence of the Divine can reside, we need tangible, real actions, or, as the Kedushat Levi says, generous deeds.
Generous thoughts or intentions are important as a starting place toward a commitment to action. The Kedushat Levi says that when our intentions and our actions come together we are brought to a higher place. That is the meaning of terumah and hitromemut — the capacity to go higher and higher.
This past week we began the month of Adar, the month of Purim.
And we say:
מִשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אֲדָר מַרְבִּים בְּשִׂמְחָה
When Adar begins, we increase in joy (Ta’anit 29a).
To speak about increasing joy in the world we are living in right now is not simple. We are carrying the weight of so much, both personally and collectively: the deep anxieties in this country around democracy and human dignity, the fear for our future and the future of our children, the ongoing pain of war and loss, the fractures in the Jewish world, the very real struggles that many in our own community are facing quietly and with great courage.
So what does it mean – not in theory, but in practice – to increase in joy?
I want to suggest that in the same way that terumah is not about what we feel but about what we do, joy in Adar is not a mood. It is an act of spiritual resistance.
It is the refusal to allow despair to have the final word.
This is defiant hope: hope not as a passive emotion but as a disciplined choice to keep building, to keep caring, to keep showing up, to keep believing that our actions matter even when the results are not immediate and the path is not clear.
Without joy, the work of our hearts becoming deeds grows too heavy to sustain. Without joy, generosity becomes depletion. Without joy, we begin to protect ourselves by withdrawing.
Joy, in this sense, is one of the materials of the Mishkan.
It is what allows us to continue bringing our gifts.
It is what happens when, in the midst of everything, we still sing together and something in us softens; when we celebrate a simcha (a joyful celebration) and for a moment the world feels whole; when we study Torah and feel our minds and hearts expand; when we show up for one another and remember that we are not alone.
These are not small or secondary things. They are the spiritual infrastructure that makes sustained commitment possible.
And maybe this is also why the verse does not say “I will dwell in it” but “I will dwell among them.” The sanctuary is not the structure: it is the people who allow their inner life and their outer life to align, who allow prayer to become action, who allow hope to take form in the world, who insist on joy not as denial but as courage.
So as we have entered this new month, I find myself thinking that Adar and terumah are teaching the same spiritual practice from two different directions. Terumah teaches that what is in our hearts must become real in our lives. Adar teaches that joy is one of the forces that makes that possible, that protects the heart from closing, that keeps us able to give.
This is the avodah (the spiritual work) of this community: to keep building a sanctuary together. Not only in this space, but in the way we live with one another and in the world; to let our prayer move us; to translate our values into action; to hold onto joy as a sacred and necessary form of hope.
May this Shabbat bring rest and renewal to all of you and to those you love.
May this new month of Adar gently and insistently increase our capacity for joy, not because everything is easy, but because we refuse to give up on one another and on the possibility of a more whole world.
And may we continue to build together a Mishkan in which the Divine Presence can truly dwell among us.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rav Claudia