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So, Parshat Trumah begins with G-d telling the Israelites to donate (terumah) their finest goods to the building of a migdash, of a Sanctuary.

The parsha then gives a set of very specific instructions to the building and furnishing of this migdash. Everything is spelled out, how things are to be made, where they are to be placed, the exact decorations on the menorah, the colours of the drapes: everything. On the surface, it is both dry and somewhat irrelevant. Okay, here are G-d’s remodelling plans. How is the building of a sanctuary for the Israelites to carry around the desert relevant to us, here and now??

There is one line that’s just a bit juicier, and Rabbis throughout the ages have picked it apart and gone over it again and again: Exodus 25:8. “And let them make me a Sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.”

Among us! G-d wants to come on down and hang out with us!

Rashi says that the meaning of this line is to make a house for my name. That is, that this Sanctuary is for G-d, and G-d alone. No multipurpose community centre, as many of our shuls are, but solely for the Divine Presence. Made with our finest materials in the most thought-out, detailed way.

An interesting concept, but a question must be asked here. Why does G-d need a migdash anyways? Isn’t She everywhere, isn’t the world supposed to be Hers?

The hassidim have a bit more of a radical answer. The 16th century hassidic commentator Moshe Alshich said:

As for the commandment, “make me a Sanctuary, that I may dwell amongst them,” behold, a person is like a small world, which can hold a Sanctuary and a Tabernacle… so a person must make himself into a seat for the dwelling of the Divine Presence, in his heart and in his mind.

Woah, right? G-d dwelling in each of us? This far away, unreachable divine being, in little old us?? That seems just right to me. If each human is precious, as Buber tells us, doesn’t it seem right that G-d can live in us? That in every soul there is a Holiness? A place where G-d sits. Maybe that’s what G-d is, the possibility of Goodness and of Creation in each of us.

Now, that’s a rather secular interpretation, and whatever spark of truth that may hold, I don’t want to diminish the importance of physical spaces either. After all, the rest of the parsha is all physical descriptors of what the migdash should be. And places do matter. A place can be a symbol, a home, a haven, a Sanctuary.

Our machanot are places, our kenim are places. What we do in them has a Holiness, does it not? We foster the Goodness and the possibility for Creation in our chaninichim. That’s pretty rad, important work. How are we building these divine places? Are we using our very best materials in the most thought-out, detailed way? And can we fill it with some aspect of G-d? Some sense of Holiness.