Scrollers Preview - Parashat Terumah

In its introduction to the Haftarah portion this week (which is about the building of the First Temple), the Etz Hayyim commentary points out an interesting difference between the account of the building of the Tabernacle in the desert and the building of the First Temple in Jerusalem. 

In our parasha, the Israelites are asked to bring gifts so that they might make God a sanctuary that God may dwell among them. It seems that all they need to do is build it, and God will come J  But the instructions to King Solomon are different. In our haftarah, from I Kings, God’s word comes to Solomon,

With regard to this House you are building –if you follow My laws and observe My rules and faithfully keep My commandments, I will fulfill for you  the promise that I gave to your father David: I will abide among  the children of Israel, and I will never forsake My people Israel. (6:12-13)

Here, keeping the covenantal laws is what will bring God to dwell among us and will keep God’s presence in our midst.

May of the rabbis argue that the Torah is out of order, and that the instructions for building the Tabernacle actually came after the sin of the Golden Calf, as a way for the Israelites to make it right with God. The building of the Tabernacle would cleanse them of their idolatrous sin and will bring God’s Presence back among them. In this light, the building of the Tabernacle in the wilderness is a way of showing loyalty to the covenant.

The prophet Ezekiel, with the exiled Jews in Babylon, also invokes the rebuilding of the destroyed Temple as a way for the people to make up for all of the sins that led to the destruction and the exile in the first place.

Tomorrow, we will read the parasha, and then look at the haftarah and Ezekiel together. As we study, I want to keep this question in mind: is the building of the Tabernacle and then the Temple(s) a way to make things right with a God whom we’ve betrayed? Or are these instructions here simply to help us make a home for God among us? Must the construction of this holy space be linked with our sin – our tendency to stray?