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Parashat Terumah: What Exactly Is The Torah?

Starting in high school, I was a particularly devoted fan of two television series.  One was M*A*S*H, the comedy set in a medical unit during the Korean War.  The other was Hill Street Blues, a drama set in an urban police precinct.

One thing I started to notice after sticking with each, was how much delicious and wry comedy there was in Hill Street Blues.  Yes, it was a drama involving assault and murder.  But there was Detective Belcker, the almost animal at times undercover cop, sitting with a scowl at his desk typing up a bust.  He'd be typing with one finger at his typewriter, and the phone would ring, and his face would change:  "Hi, Ma."  (The character was Jewish, of course.)  On M*A*S*H, there was a great deal of serious social and political commentary.  (Parenthetically, one of my favorite comments in a documentary about M*A*S*H came from William Christopher, who played the army chaplain:  "I thought of M*A*S*H as primarily a show about a priest in Korea.")

Anyway, from these two shows I learned that some of the best comedy could be written by dramatic writers, and vice versa.  It's an insight that the editors of the Torah would have mightily appreciated.

When we're little, we think of the Torah primarily as one thing -- as a book of stories, with the Ten Commandments thrown in.  That's what kids usually learn, the Torah up until about two weeks ago in the annual cycle.

But these recent weeks, what a range of things we have had in the Torah!  Three weeks ago, Parashat B'shalach was the dramatic story of the final escape from Mitzrayim and Pharaoh.  Two weeks ago, Parashat Yitro captured the encounter with God at Mt. Sinai and the proclamation of the Ten Commandments.  Last week, Parashat Mishpatim was a sudden shift -- almost entirely a listing of specific laws.  And this week, with Parashat Terumah, we start an entirely different kind of section:  words that spell out an architectural diagram of the new desert sanctuary.

What is the Torah?  What do you call a book that is stories, laws, pictures, anthems all wrapped in one and intertwined?  In the scroll, it's all written the same, in letters and words in neat columns, chanted to the same melody.  But I don't think there's another work like it.

It's an everything-book.  Because the call of Torah comes to every facet of life.  Because as humans we learn by rules and by stories, by words and by pictures and by song.  Because God has too many facets to be captured in just one kind of text.  It doesn't have to be just one thing, or another.  It is everything.  What kind of book is it?  It is one of a kind.  There's no other book like the Torah.

Parashat Terumah: Special Places, Sacred Places

Parashat Terumah begins a sequence of many chapters detailing the Mishkan, the "tabernacle" or literally "dwelling place" representing the presence of God as our ancestors traveled the desert.

We all have special places in our lives -- locations infused with memories and feelings connected with important times and people.  Many of us have spiritual places as well.  Sometimes these are the same places.  Or we have mountains, lakes, paths or woods where we can reflect or meditate, feel awe or calm.

The Mishkan was of course a standard place, not a personal place.  But the Torah says, "Let them make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst" (Exodus 25:8).  Not "I will dwell in its midst" -- in the sanctuary -- but in their midst.  The official place was not meant to be God's only place.  Instead, the Mishkan was a vehicle to help everyone feel God's presence personally, and in the community.

Synagogues have certain features patterned on the Mishkan.  The aron kodesh (ark) with the Torah corresponds to the ark that contained the tablets of the Ten Commandments, for instance.  Like the Mishkan, the synagogue is a certain kind of spiritual place, but not the only kind.  For many of us, there are things we can only experience at the lake or by the sea. But only in the synagogue can we experience, week in and week out, the presence of other people who are also seeking God, or searching for insight, joy, or tranquility.  A synagogue as lovely as Beth Abraham warms us together in its space, and surrounds us with images of holy days and Torah.

The verse -- "Let them make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell in their midst" -- supplies another essential element of the synagogue.  A shul is only a sanctuary when the people there truly feel God in their midst.  We all contribute to each other's feeling of holiness, if we come there with a sense of holiness, or at least a search for it.  It's not just the building's job, but the community's as well.  In the synagogue, we always pray not only as individuals, but as helpers and supporters to other people.  By singing, or simply standing quietly and soulfully, we make it possible for one another to find something spiritual in a sanctuary.

Parashat Terumah: Fundamentals First

Parashat Terumah lays out the first details of the Mishkan, the portable dwelling-place for God's presence that goes with the Israelites through the desert.  If we read the Torah straight through, these details seem to be what Moshe went up to the mountain to get for forty days and forty nights after the Ten Commandments.

Some midrashim suggest that the Torah should not be read in sequence.  Instead, we should understand the Mishkan instructions as a response to the Golden Calf incident that follows.  The thinking is:  After God learned that the people craved a physical symbol of God's presence, God relented and gave them this building so that they would not be tempted to build idols.

Either way, our attention is drawn to the contrast between the careful, disciplined details of the design of the Mishkan, and the spontaneous, raucous creation of the Golden Calf.  So which interpretation makes more sense?  Which should have come first?

We are a week into the Winter Olympics this year as we read Parashat Terumah, and some of the interesting commentary on TV has been about the evolution of the sport of figure skating.  I remember how it used to be.  First, each skater had to perform "compulsories" -- a series of figures and jumps that would be standard.  Then there was the opportunity for the original program.

It's similar now -- rather than have a separate compulsory phase, there have been more and more requirements that are built into the short and the long programs.  One purpose is to make the judging and comparing more fair, more standard.  But I think the other insight is that even the most creative and individual expression is built on a careful, disciplined foundation.  You have to master the figure-eight before you can choreograph a series of dances and jumps.

Parashat Terumah is like the compulsory elements in skating.  The Torah says that spirituality is not built by each of us individually from scratch.  In the parasha, each person gave a voluntary contribution (terumah) for the construction of the Mishkan, but the contributions were then channeled into a specific structure.  When the building was completed, in all its intricacy, then at the end of the book of Exodus the presence of God, the Kavod, would appear there.  And then creativity, spontaneity, and even questioning could begin.

So I like the interpretation that all of these instructions came after the Golden Calf was built, not before.  Spirituality doesn't work when you do it from scratch every time.  The Calf led to conflict, anarchy, disillusionment, and burnout within the group.  Then came the Mishkan -- a foundation, a discipline, a better way to begin. 

Ask the ice skater, or the writing and the entrepreneur and the scientific researcher:  You can't reach the heights until you're comfortable with the discipline.  With prayer and mitzvot it is the same.  If we had to write our own prayers, we couldn't keep it up.  If we had to derive the mitzvot, we might not get past the first twenty, let alone come up with 613 opportunities to enhance the world and our lives.

So appreciate the figure-eights, the compulsories.  You wouldn't want to get there and stop there, but they are the first step toward climbing the spiritual heights.