Parashat Terumah 5770
The Best Gift of All – Finding Our Lost Spirituality
I thank my teacher of Midrash, Uriele Brule, for the following insight into this week’s Torah portion about the giving of gifts for the building of the mishkan, a place (in our hearts) where God can dwell inside of us. Too often I have heard people complain that they have lost their sense of spirituality. When I ask them where they think they “lost it” or when they thought they had it last, I have received a myriad of responses, many of which claim a lack of attachment to worship and to the Torah in general.
Each week, I read a number of commentaries regarding the weekly parashah, choosing one as the message I wish to deliver as my connection to the Torah and to the community whom I serve. Often it is based on the human side of things as opposed to politics. Almost always there is a moral to be learned from the personalities that interact with one another and with God, and what kind of an example they set for us in our own generation. Times may be different, but the hidden messages of the Torah are timeless. They are true for every generation. So, we are not unique in that regard. However, it does connect us to a long tradition that has much to offer each successive generation who builds on the learning of the previous one.
This week, I was touched by what my on-line mentor was teaching regarding a midrash related to this week’s Torah portion. Rabbi Uriele repeats the story of a prince who has been taken captive across the sea when he was but a lad. Even after the lapse of many years he did not become ashamed by his absence. He consoled himself by saying, “I will return to the possession of my ancestors.” The midrash compares this to the scholar who abandoned his study of Torah for more worldly pursuits in the material world. After many years, he wished to return to his former studies. He, too, was not ashamed by his absence from his learning, because he was able to console himself with the same words, “I will return to the heritage of my ancestors.”
Now it is time to interpret the story. We are the prince and the scholar. We, too, have been captured, taken away from our destiny to study Torah and worshipping with our community expressing our gratitude and our desires to God. After a fashion, we have become tied up by our experiences in the material world, forgetting the spirituality that was once a part of our lives when we were younger and more open to the wonders of the world. Unlike the characters of the story, we lament that which has evaded us for so long. So, we need to take our direction from those characters, and find a way to make the claim that they had made, “(Someday soon) I will return to the heritage of my ancestors” – and not be ashamed by our absence.
Rescue from this type of “bondage” is possible when we set our hearts and minds to do what is needed to connect with the spirit of God that dwells inside of us, when we build upon that connection, as instructed to us by Moses. Although there may be times when making such a connection seems impossible, a rescue appears far too difficult and distant to achieve, it is in these moments that we must reach down deep into our souls and see the potential that lies hidden inside of us.
The good news is that each of us has been given a life preserver, in much the same way that each seat cushion on an airplane can become a flotation device in case of an emergency landing in the water. It has always been with us, wherever we have traveled just as the mishkan traveled with the Israelites wherever they may have wandered in the wilderness of becoming as well. Our heritage, our Torah, is our spiritual life. It is eternal and never diminishes! It is always there to save us in times of need. Rather than being ashamed about our need to be rescued, we ought to be rejoicing in our being saved.
On Purim, the Jewish Mardi Gras, we rejoice with abandon over the fact that the Jewish people had been saved from a villain intent on destroying us just because we were Jews. At the end of Shabbat when we recite the verses before the blessings of Havdalah, the service that pulls us reluctantly away from the holiness of Shabbat to the potential of the workweek days to become as holy, we recite the verse from Megillat Esther that reminds us of our moral obligation to rejoice in our spirituality – “Layehudim hayita orah v’simchah… — To the Jews of old there was light, and happiness, and joy, and love, — may it b so for us!” To this we raise our cup of wine to express that joy in blessing!
Another way of becoming reacquainted with our spiritual nature is through the listening of holy stories. According to the sages, this is equivalent to studying the deepest mysteries of God. What I have discovered in my own journey with others is that when we study Torah we often find ourselves to be a part of the biblical episode, upon which we add our own commentary through our personal experiences. We are taught by the sages that whenever two people engage in the study of torah, whatever it may be, the spirit of the Shekhina hovers over them. The Torah portion promises us that when we build a place for God in our hearts and in our homes, “v’shakhnati bitocham – I shall dwell inside of them,” – inside of us! We, too, will be saved!
So, the moral of the story is: We are never far away from the spiritual world of our youth, that we cannot get a taste of it, as Rabbi Uriel assures us, and dwell in the glory of the Divine Presence. He reminds us of the phrase, “without bread there is no torah and without torah there is no bread,” we rely on both for our sustenance, in the physical world as well as the spiritual dimensions of our lives. All that we need to do is “to establish a rhythm for those returns, and thereby find all the nourishment that we need.”
I invite each one of you as my personal guest to come to services on Friday evening and Saturday morning to engage in worship and the study of Torah, so that we may all find joy in the presence of the Divine Spirit that is within each one of us and whose feminine presence hovers over us.
