EXODUS XXXV:1-XXXVIII:20

THE PRESENCE OF GOD

The details of the construction of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle that accompanied the Hebrew people during their long journey through the desert, are contained in many chapters of the Torah, and are also the subject of this section. Beginning with Parsha Terumah, which reads, “And they will make me a sanctuary so that I may reside among them,” a debate has been created about the meaning of God’s expression “residence” in a sanctuary. Avigdor Hurovitz recounts the different interpretations of the exegetes. 

According to Sa’adiah Gaon, the verse can be read as: “And they will make me a sanctuary and I will make ‘My Glory’ among them.” Abarbanel offers a detailed explanation: “And they will make me a Sanctuary… so that ‘My Presence’ will be felt among them, just as I appeared before their eyes on Mount Sinai as the Glory of the Lord, a consuming fire and an enveloping cloud.”

Rashi interprets it this way: “For the glory of My Name, make a place of holiness.” According to Ibn Ezra: “It was called a shrine because it was the dwelling place of the Holy Name.” Indeed, we read in a later chapter: “And the cloud covered the ‘Tent of Meeting’ (Ohel Moed) and the Glory of the Lord filled the Mishkan. And Moses could not enter the ‘Tent of Meeting’ when the cloud rested on it, for the Glory of the Eternal filled the Mishkan.” According to these verses, the Presence of God totally invaded the sacred precinct, in such a way that it prevented Moses from entering. 

The same thing happened centuries later with the Beit HaMikdash, the Temple of King Shelomo. It can be deduced from the above that the “Presence” or the “Glory” of God are not allusive or abstract words; It is perhaps a kind of “spiritual energy” that has consequences in the material realm, because it occupies “space” and does not allow anything else to enter it.

Having an encounter with God, Moshe (Moses) leaves the Ohel Moed with a “radiant” face (karan or panav), a fact that Michelangelo, in his famous statue of Moses, translated into the “horns” he placed on his head. The result of a misinterpretation of the Hebrew root “krn” which means a “ray of light”, but which can also be translated as “horn”. 

However, by being in the “Presence” of God, Moshe acquires the reflection of the “radiation” emanating from the Deity. In other words, an “encounter” with God produces not only a spiritual transformation, but also has a visible physical aftermath. Even after the revelation on Mount Sinai, Mosheaddresses the people and exclaims, “The Lord, our God, has just shown you His majestic Presence (kevodo vegodlo) and we hear His voice from the fire,” as if the Divine could be perceived physically or visually. 

The Psalmist exclaims: “The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, and he has given the earth to the children of man,” with a clear allusion that God resides in heaven, in the infinity of space. On the other hand, when King Shelomo inaugurated the Beit HaMikdash, he initially exclaimed, “I have built for You a majestic House, a place where You can reside forever.” But after the introduction of the Ark into the Temple, Shelomo said, “Will God reside on earth? If the confines of the heavens cannot contain it, still less the House I have built.” He then continues with the prayer that God will look from his “residence” in heaven toward the Temple, thus revealing that God is not really in the Beit HaMikdash. 

We find in the Torah that Moshe heard the voice of God coming from the keruvim that adorned the solid gold lid of the Ark. Rashi explains that God’s voice really did come from on high and that it ‘reverberated’ in the ears of Moshe, who was standing between the two keruvim. 

There are those who consider that the Presence of God is circumscribed to the sacred precinct; a second verdict postulates the impossibility of “containing” God, and therefore, the impossibility of fixing His location to a certain place.

In one vision, the prophet Yeshayahu describes a middle position: God sitting on a throne raised in the Temple, while the Seraphim claim that God’s glory fills the earth. In another chapter, Yeshayahu testifies to God’s word: “Heaven is My throne and earth is My footstool. Where can you build a house for Me, and what place can I live in? Another verse reads, “I will bring you to My holy mountain and you will rejoice in My House of Prayer.”

It should be noted that during the inauguration of the Second Beit HaMikdash, there was no mention of the introduction of God’s Glory into the Temple. This time there was only the reference to the Korbanot, the sacrifices. Perhaps, the absence of God’s Glory reveals a perception of God’s Presence everywhere, and not confined to a specific enclosure. For this reason, says Hurovitz, the notion of the synagogue, a house of God that can be built anywhere, a fact that allowed Judaism to continue after the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, makes sense. However, there are sacred places and objects that invite the Presence of God. By reciting Birkat HaMazon, by raising the prayer in the surroundings of a Minyan, the Shechinah is present, God is “felt”.

MITZVAH: ORDINANCE OF THE TORAH IN THIS PARSHA

CONTAINS 1 PROHIBIITON

114. Exodus 35:3 A court shall not execute capital punishment on Shabbat.