Weekly Passages: Exodus 25:1-27:19; 1 Kings 5:12-6:13; 2 Corinthians 9:1-15; Hebrews 9.
This week's Torah portion is called Terumah meaning contribution, gift or freewill offering. It refers to designating something for a higher purpose, or lifting a part of a quantity from a larger quantity.1 The passage is called Terumah because it describes the costly and precious items God's people need to provide for building the Lord's Tabernacle or Mishkan in Hebrew, which comes from a root meaning to dwell - a root from which the word shekinah is also derived, which denotes the presence of God among his people.
There are 13 types of costly material required for the Tabernacle: gold, silver and copper; blue, purple and red-dyed wool; flax, goat hair, animal skins, wood, olive oil, spices and gems.2 The Tabernacle was to be portable because Israel's God travelled with them. He is not a static idol. He moves with his people; he is carried in our hearts (if you are curious about the Tabernacle's assembly, you might enjoy this animation).
Dwelling with His People
The instructions are incredibly detailed but the purpose of all of it is so that God may dwell among his people: "Then let them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them" (Ex 25:8).
In Hassidic (mystical) Jewish tradition, it has been noted that God says "Build a sanctuary for me and I will dwell among them" (plural) rather than "in it" (singular). Some suggest that the reading should be 'within' rather than 'among' them.3
The late Dr Dwight Pryor (www.jcstudies.com) often made the point that Christians think we are making our way up to God's dwelling, but the Bible is all about God coming down and dwelling among us. In the beginning, God walked and talked in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. After the Fall he is searching for ways to dwell once more with his people. First through the Tabernacle, then the Temple, then in Jesus, now by the Holy Spirit, until the end of this age when "'God's dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death" or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'" (Rev 21:3-4).
The Mercy Seat
The beginning of this journey of God dwelling with his people is in Exodus 25:
There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites. (Ex 25:22)
Between the cherubim whose wing tips touched on the Ark's cover, God would be present. This place was also called the Mercy Seat. Like everything else in the Tabernacle, it would be sprinkled with the blood of animal sacrifices:
In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Heb 9:21-22)
Paul describes Messiah as a "sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood - to be received by faith" (Rom 3:25). The word for atonement in this verse is hilasterion which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew kapporet meaning mercy seat. Kapporet is derived from the verb meaning to cover and from which the word kippur (as in Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement) is derived. So atonement means that our sins are covered. Just as the wings of the cherubim arched and touched over the mercy seat providing a cover for the place beneath, so God in Messiah reaches out to humanity, to touch our hearts: "He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge" (Ps 95:4).
The rabbinic commentator Rashi said that the instructions about the Tabernacle were given to Moses on Yom Kippur itself when the Israelites were forgiven for the sin of the Golden Calf. The same material, gold, that had been used for evil would now be used for the highest good, to build the Ark. Rashi said this despite the fact that chronologically the sin of the golden calf comes after the instructions about the Tabernacle in Exodus.4 God knew in advance that a mercy seat would be required, that even as he gave these instructions to Moses his people were engaged in the vilest sin.
Intimacy Through Obedience
The Haftarah reading from 1 Kings 5:12-6:135 describes the building of the Temple by Solomon. Again the purpose of the Temple was for God to dwell among his people: "The word of the Lord came to Solomon: 'As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, observe my laws and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfil through you the promise I gave to David your father. And I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel.'" (1 Kings 6:11-13).
This promise has a condition attached: "if you follow my decrees...my commands and obey them". The way to know the indwelling presence of God is through obedience to his Word. When Jesus was asked that very Hebraic question, "What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?", he answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." Paul said that the majority of the Jewish people, "who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works." (Rom 9:31-32). They were seeking to do rather than to believe.
By Faith, Through Grace
Israel's relationship with God was never one of works but always of faith through grace. God's people never deserved to have him live among them or dwell within them, but Torah obedience brought holiness so that he could dwell among them. Salvation was never earned: God saved his people from Egypt and then made his covenant with them through Moses. Obedience to the Torah was a response to God's grace in rescuing his people. Similarly, the new covenant is mediated through God's grace. There is nothing we can do or bring to God to win his favour. We must simply believe in the one he has sent, the Messiah. Then we obey his Word in response to his goodness.
God does not need a building place to dwell in: he longs to dwell in our hearts. The Tabernacle and the Temple were not needed by God, but by his people as a reminder of God's kingship over them. They were places of lavish beauty and awe-inspiring dimensions to provoke longing for the divine presence. It was here that heaven would kiss earth: "Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other." (Ps 85:10). As Heschel put it, "There is a lifting of the veil at the horizon of the known, opening a vision of what is eternal in time."6
In Messiah, God tabernacles with his people by his Spirit. Gentiles have been invited to join with God's people Israel and "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." (Eph 2:19-22) We are God's Temple, the place where his shekinah or divine presence dwells.
What is in the Way?
So why do we not all hear God's voice clearly?
Is it because many of us are not moved to respond to God's goodness by obeying and giving in return? The Torah portion opens with: "The Lord said to Moses, 'Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering for me from everyone whose heart prompts them to give" (Ex 25:1-2). The Tabernacle was built by those who were generous and open-hearted towards God.
Generosity is a defining characteristic of the Lord and when we are generous, in gratitude for his mercy, we become more like him. This is why Paul exhorted the Corinthians: "Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously" (2 Cor 9:6), because it would lead to a "harvest of your righteousness" (v10).
The kingdom is built through the gifts of God's people – Tabernacle, Temple, Church. We cannot withhold our time, money and talents from the Lord and expect to hear from him. What is distracting us from giving and working for his kingdom with all our hearts? What drives us away from intimacy with the divine? What prevents us from saying wholeheartedly: "One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple" (Ps 27:4).
Author: Helen Belton
References
1 Heave offering / Terumah, Wikipedia.
2 Terumah in a Nutshell, www.chabad.org.
3 Rabbi Hyim Shafner, A Sanctuary Within. My Jewish Learning. Also Rabbi Alana Suskin, "That I May Dwell Among Them...". My Jewish Learning.
4 Zornberg, A G, 2001. The Particulars of Rapture. New York, pp318-319.
5 Note that the Jewish divisions of the Hebrew text differ at various points from those used by Christians. The Haftarah portion accompanying Terumah in Jewish Bibles is 1 Kings 5:26-6:13 whereas in Christian Bibles it is 1 Kings 5:12-6:13.
6 Heschel, A J, 1955. God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. New York, p138.
