G-d’s House; Our House

“Speak to the Israelites and take a contribution for Me. ‘You must take the contribution for Me from every man whose heart prompts him to give.'” [Exodus 25:2]

After G-d gave the Israelites everything that a mortal can want — freedom, food, water, clothing, shelter, riches — He lets out that He wants something in return.

A house.

The divine sanctuary would be built from the mundane and the special. There would be wood, hides, copper as well as gold and silver. Other elements would include wool, linen, oil, spices and precious stones.

“They must make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst. According to all that I am showing you — the form of the Tabernacle and the form of all its furnishings.” [Exodus 25:8-9]

Moses cannot believe his ears. He’s no builder. He never went to architecture school. He’s a simple shepherd thrown into the deep end, now serving as prophet and leader of the Jewish people.

But even a graduate of Rice University wouldn’t respond much differently. His questions would reflect that of any mortal asked by the Almighty for something physical.

First of all: Why does G-d need a house in this temporal world?

If G-d wants a house, let him do what he did with the rest of creation — build it himself?

What’s the purpose of giving us all the measurements of His house? After all, G-d isn’t actually going to live there? Or is he?

Is there a connection between G-d’s house and our house?

It doesn’t help that some of G-d’s instructions are cryptic as well. First the Torah uses the word “sanctuary,” in Hebrew mikdash, to describe the divine residence. In the next verse, however, the name of the edifice turns to “tabernacle” or mishkan. In requesting the building of the vessels, the Torah speaks to the individual. But in forming the holy ark, the Torah uses the plural.

Chaim Ibn Attar lived his life as a fugitive. The man who would be known as the Or Hahayim, or the Light of Life, was born in Morocco in 1696 and nine years later fled with his family to escape the anti-Jewish vizier. As an adult, he left Morocco for the Land of Israel, making a detour in the Italian city of Livorno. He had two wives, the last one named Esther Bibas, who bore him several daughters. Every Friday night, the sage would study the weekly Torah portion with his girls, which later formed the basis of his famous commentary. By age 47, he was dead.

In this week’s Torah portion of Teruma, the Or Hahayim tackles the switch in terminology. He writes that the mishkan represents a divine structure for a limited period — whether in the Sinai Desert or later as the first and second temples in Israel. In contrast, mikdash marks a permanent commitment as well as commandment in the Torah to establish a home for the Almighty anywhere at any time. For nearly 2,000 years, this has been a synagogue or seminary.

You wouldn’t think it logical but the most threatening thing to the nations of the world has been the sight of a Jew praying or learning Torah — even if this took place in the tiniest of shacks. Virtually every occupying power, whether Christian or Muslim, has outlawed G-d’s house. Over the last century, the Soviet Union turned synagogues and yeshivas into communist installations. The Germans would gather all the local Jews into a synagogue and burn the place down.

In the Land of Israel, synagogues sprang up everywhere in Tel Aviv, the bastion of secularism. As late as the 1970s, there were some 600 synagogues in the city as well as 50 hasidic courts. Rabbi Aharon Rokeach, known as the Belzer Rebbe, arrived in 1944 and preferred “the shining Tel Aviv,” where there were no churches, to Jerusalem. Even in his later years, he would maintain the title of the “Rebbe of Tel Aviv.”

But all this has been a poor substitute for the real thing. G-d has no need for a house on earth. We do. Because without a divine temple we have no home either. We cannot forget that the long exile began with the destruction of the Second Temple, as corrupt as it was. Since then, we have had no peace wherever we went.

Three times a day, we appeal to G-d to give us sustenance, health, justice, peace and anything else we desire. But there is no clear reference in the Shemoneh Esreh, or 18 Benedictions, to the temple. After the prayer, composed more than 2,300 years ago, the sages attached an addendum from Ethics of Our Fathers.

May it be your will, O my G-d and G-d of my fathers, that the Temple be rebuilt speedily in our days, and give us our portion in your Torah, and there we will worship you with reverence as in ancient days and former years.

Notice the order: First the building of the temple, then the giving of the Torah, and finally worship. Without the temple, we might try hard, but the results are bland and incomplete. Without G-d’s house, there is existence but not genuine life. For a real change for the better, we need to move back to when G-d had a small apartment in our neighborhood. And that is how the prayer ends.

And may the Mincha offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasing to G-d, as in ancient days and former years.