TERUMA_Exodus XXV – XXVII,19
The previous chapters enact some of the laws and precepts by which we must govern our lives. They serve to explain that the Ten Commandments are not the total of Judaism but that careful attention is required to the smallest details of personal and social life. (Some consider the Ten Commandments to contain, or constitute, the sum of all the mitzvot of the Torah).
It should be noted that the vast majority of these laws are instructions addressed to the individual. The Ten Commandments, for example, were not stated in the plural. “Thou shalt not kill,” instructs one of these commandments, using the singular in the second person. While we recognize the need to legislate for the community as a whole, as demonstrated by the establishment of arei miklat, cities of refuge for those who, without the intention of doing so, committed a capital crime. The overwhelming majority of laws, however, are addressed to the individual. In this way, Judaism points out that everyone has an inescapable personal responsibility in order to achieve the well-being of society.
This notion of individual responsibility is consistent with the biblical account of man’s creation. In Bereshit, God creates one man and one woman; they are the total of human society, who perceive the whole universe. Therefore, according to our jajamim, we must consider that the existence and future of the world depend on each of us’s individual actions. Perhaps this is the primary teaching of Judaism, except for our conception of the existence of one God. The most basic teaching is individual responsibility in the exercise of free will, which is a must to achieve individual holiness. In Judaism, one human life cannot be sacrificed for the benefit of many. Every human being has an infinite spiritual value, and therefore two lives are not worth more than one life.
Moshe tarries 40 days and 40 nights on Mount Sinai to receive the Torah with its detailed explanations. The people become troubled by Moshe’s tardiness and propose that a visible and palpable deity be built. The result is the eggel hazahav, a “golden calf.” This fact is detailed in later chapters. But in the wake of this rebellion that took place a few days after the Divine revelation comes a concession. God decides that a Temple be built, a visible portable tabernacle that will symbolize His Presence among the people. While this particular moment called for such a structure, our rabbis opine that it had lasting meaning. Centuries later, King Shelomo will build the first Beit HaMikdash, a permanent and solid edifice, a Temple for God’s service on the same mountain on which Avraham demonstrated his willingness to offer as a sacrifice his only son Yitzhak.
To build this tabernacle called Mishkan, God instructs Moshe to request the contribution of the required materials. Gold, silver, and copper were needed; blue and red wool; animal dyes and skins; woods and oils; species and precious stones. From the days of our people’s birth onwards, the notion of contributing, terumá according to the Torah text, will be part of the daily Jewish community life.
The notion of charity is alien to the Jewish vocabulary. The word tzedaka, which we usually use to translate the concept of charity, comes from the root Tzedek, meaning justice. In our conception, it is “fair and just” to share with the less fortunate. Tsedaka is mandatory and non-voluntary. Aid to others and sharing abundance are not based on the concept of “love” but on a sense of duty and obligation required by the notion of justice. Our jajamim says that the world relies on three pillars, and tzedakah is one of them.
In reality, the Jewish community’s social, religious, cultural, and educational life contains the tzedakah factor as an essential ingredient. The social structures of Jewish communities from the Middle Ages until the dawn of World War II emphasized helping the poor and needy. Some groups were responsible for providing a dowry to young women who lacked possibilities of extending interest-free loans to people with limited financial resources. Funding for the functioning of all these groups came from the resources of community members. The fundamental importance of tzedakah in every Jewish organized community in the world could be easily documented.
The word Teruma that identifies our weekly reading comes from the root meaning elevation. Therefore, contributing to a sacred and just cause is a way to ascend, to scale personally, because one transcends one’s immediate needs and enriches oneself spiritually by heeding others’ requests. To give is far superior and spiritually satisfying than to have to receive.
The Mishkan contained several elements that would later form part of the Beit HaMikdash structure, the Jerusalem Temple. There are specific plans and details for elaborating the utensils and objects housed in this Mishkan. There was an Aron, a wooden ark, covered by a sheet of gold that contained the stone tablets upon which were engraved the Ten Commandments. The cover of this ark, Kaporet in Hebrew, was solid gold and had the effigy of 2 keruvim at its ends. (According to our jajamim, this keruvim had the appearance of 2 human babies).
Shulchan, coated with a sheet of gold on a wooden table, the lechem hapanim were placed, the pieces of bread that were always present. A Menora, a lamp made of a solid piece of hammered gold, with 7 arms, one of which always remained on, completed an essential part of the Mishkan. In addition to the columns and fabrics that formed the outer structure, a Mizbeach, a wooden altar upon which were offered the sacrifices ordered by the Torah.
Our synagogues are built according to the essential plan of the Mishkan. The Aron haKodesh or Hechal contains the Torah’s scrolls (in the absence of the two original stones with the Ten Commandments that could not be present simultaneously in all synagogues anyway). The Ner Tamid, a light that always remains on, recalls the eternal light of the Menora’s arm, whose replica is present in most synagogues. A large replica can be found at the entrance to the Knesset, the Parliament in Israel. The table from which the prayers are directed takes the place of the Shulchan of the loaves.
Certain materials were deliberately chosen for completion of the synagogue of the “Union Israelita de Caracas.” The recently deceased architect and sculptor Harry Abend, many decades ago, selected stainless steel and bronze to allude by their texture and color to the Teruma, the contribution of gold, silver, and copper requested from our ancestors according to the text of our weekly reading. The synagogue’s dome is lined with elements symbolizing the “clouds” that pointed the way for the desert crossing. The emblems of the twelve tribes located in the surroundings of this dome are a manifestation of the essential unity between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, among those who hail from Central Europe and those who came from especially from Morocco, because we are all the descendants of the same patriarch Yaacov, father of those who gave name to the 12 tribes of Israel.
MITSVA: TORAH ORDINANCE IN THIS PARASHÁ
CONTAINS 2 POSITIVE MITSVOT AND 1 PROHIBITION
- 95.Exodus 25:8 To build the Beit HaMikdash (SacredTemple)
- 96.Exodus 25:15 Not to remove the rods from the Ark
- 97.Exodus 25:30 Fix the “bread of the faces” (lechem hapanim) and incense
