Make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst

(Exodus 25:8)

Adar 1, 5778/February 16, 2018

"And they shall make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst." (Exodus 25:8) What is the nature of this commandment, which appears in the preamble to this week's Torah reading of Terumah, which deals exclusively with the unfolding details of this far reaching commandment. In fact, the remaining chapters of the book of Exodus, the entire book of Leviticus, and major sections of the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy, dwell exclusively with this commandment and the hundreds of commandments which make up the working parts of G-d's visionary, history changing commandment: "And they shall make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst."

Is it an imperious demand, decreed by a G-d determined to establish His superiority and preeminence to His mortal subjects? Hasn't Israel already recognized G-d's sovereignty at Sinai, and weren't they already trembling at the foot of Mt. Sinai before G-d's fire and thunder? Isn't looking down from on high, from His celestial throne, good enough for G-d? Why is He demanding an earthly sanctuary, for what does He need a Tabernacle of wood and silver, and animal skins and gold? Just how will confining His immanent presence within four feeble man-made walls radiate dominion and authority? Is G-d simply intending to preoccupy His children with the daily regiment of maintaining a Temple service?

Or is G-d's commandment "And they shall make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst" not a demand at all, and not even a commandment in the commonly understood sense of a law laid down to be observed without exception, but instead a Divine proposal being made by G-d to His children Israel? The commandment itself is made up of two parallel components: "Make for Me a sanctuary," and "I will dwell among them." G-d's new relationship with Israel, established at Sinai, is a covenantal relationship in which both parties to the covenant play an essential role, and no commandment embodies this two-way commitment more than G-d's commandment to "Make for Me a sanctuary."You make for Me a sanctuary, a Tabernacle (a Mishkan), a Mikdash (a Holy Temple), and I will dwell among you, not to rule over you, (for I can do that effortlessly enough from above), but to be your neighbor and your guest in your world, in your every moment, your every movement. You, man, live in a world of finite time and space, a world that I created, and I want to share that world with you.

"And they shall make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst" is not merely one of hundreds of commandments that G-d presented to Israel at Sinai, but it is an insight into why G-d brought Israel to Sinai in the first place, why G-d delivered Israel from Egypt and why G-d created our world and placed man at its center on the sixth day. Wasn't it clear from the start that G-d wanted to share His creation with Adam? Is that not why G-d created Adam, breathed His breath into his nostrils and placed him in the limitless, above time and space environment of Eden and provided him with one single commandment?

We understand that when Adam defied G-d's wishes and opted for a material and finite world that G-d responded by ejecting Adam from Eden. But from G-d's vantage point it was Adam who, by eating from the Tree of Knowledge, effectively forced G-d from his new mortality-defined world, a world too small for G-d's limitless presence. G-d's nearness was forced by man from the world that He created! And G-d has been striving to re-inhabit His world, (man's world), ever since. It was Avraham who first invited G-d back into creation as a constant companion to man, but the logistics of effecting this new relationship, so longed for by G-d, needed to be worked out.

When G-d delivered Israel from Egypt, He commanded them to ask of the Egyptians silver and gold and fine fabrics. These were the "great possessions"that G-d promised to Avraham, (Genesis 15:14) even before Avraham had begotten Yitzchak! These very same "great possessions" are what G-d is asking Israel to employ in that fashioning of His sanctuary. G-d has been planning His sanctuary, His dwelling place among His children, from that moment that Avraham opened his tent and invited Him in!

But this leads to a great question: if G-d created time and space, and if G-d created the silver and gold and fine fabrics that He commanded Israel to take from Egypt, then He is the rightful owner of all these things. In calling upon Israel to "make for Me a sanctuary" G-d is merely calling upon Israel to return to Him what was His all along. Where is Israel's share in this enterprise? Just how is G-d going to "dwell in their midst" if He is merely taking back what is His?

The answer to this question is nothing less than the secret to everything! In Terumah's opening verse G-d precedes His commandment to "build for Me a sanctuary" with these words: "Speak to the children of Israel, and have them take for Me an offering; from every person whose heart inspires him to generosity, you shall take My offering." (Exodus 25:1) "Every person whose heart inspires him!" It's not the plot of land upon which the sanctuary will stand that G-d is asking for, nor the air that fills that Tabernacle courtyard, nor even the gold and silver that will cover the acacia wood beams of the Tabernacle structure. It is Israel's heart! It is man's desire that G-d dwell among us that G-d is requesting. Twenty six generations after Adam effectively said to G-d "I want to be alone," and six generations since Avraham said "my world is Your world" G-d is asking Israel, in the name of all mankind, to "make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst." This is not a Sinai one-time imposition of G-d's earth-shaking majesty into our world, but G-d's eternal presence among us, within us and between us, that G-d desires, made real and tangible by giving of ourselves and building for Him a Holy Temple, not just then, in the desert, but now and forever, in the place that He has chosen: Jerusalem!

-The Temple Institute