Exodus Cycle Four Terumah

Terumah

In Exodus 25:2 God says: that they take Me as an offering.

What does this mean?

Let’s look and see.

We have journeyed a long way… from Mitzrayim through the wilderness to Sinai. We’ve crossed the Reed Sea and received the Ten Commandments. We’ve stood like angels in awe and heard God’s voice. Now, according to the Ramban, we are to make our revelation solid, permanent.

We are to build a Mishkan. How though?

By opening ourselves to the Mishkan-Vision. It is channeled through our hearts. We are to act on it. Once again the Vision isn’t ours. We don’t own it. It’s funneled through us, propelled by revelation, pain/joy, peace, loveliness. We are to be guided by this Vision. We are to pay close attention to what it reveals, all boundaries, measurements, materials. We are to look well at the edges of the circumference of this light-ray, know the limitations of our sight. Fear? Doubt? These we have embraced and they have dissipated within us. Our clothing? Our gold? Our most cherished materials and most vibrant colors? Our purple and blue and red? Our skin? Our organs and blood and bones? These we are to metaphorically offer to God.

We are to allow God to help us to sculpt this piece of our beings….all of our most cherished possessions… into His very home on earth. We are to honor each detail and build this construct with attention to that which is concealed or can conceal, to placement and order.

And in this Mishkan, this protected place, this vessel holding all possible beauty and compassion, we still have more to do. Within this home we are to build around the most cherished spot, the touch of holiness, the eye of the earth, the nexus of God and man, the channel in which we make God-love and man/woman-love. And One becomes the other and the other becomes the One. We are to build around it, pull back from it, so we can see this Vision within the Vision.

So we are to move towards this kiss of God/human knowing it is real, as real as laughter and rain, days on the river, roller coasters, stones in the pavement, redwoods, high rise buildings, birds diving into the ocean, a child reaching a hand. We feel the pull coming from it. This pull is so clean and clear. It’s the fire-tongue of purification….the one strong and singing cord leading us to the one small sound. And we are to walk on carpet or hardwood floor or a long quiet beach. We are to move slowly, carefully.

We are to help each other.

When I don’t hear, you are to guide. You are to touch. Your skin so gentle on mine. When you don’t hear, I am to guide. Our hands touching. And so we are to walk through our words, our confusion, our past and present, lives now finished and now beginning, the knocking on the door, the passing of days and nights. We are to watch as each step becomes more distinct. We are to feel the restraint, the teasing, the yearning as it rushes us. We are to trust the Mishkan, that it can hold us . And we are to want to run. Because we are almost impossible but possible, almost clinched. We know to move together, same rhythm, protecting the love-movement, each new fear-shadow, every bubble-dream.

There among the acacia wood and the cubits upon cubits and the mishpatim and the menorah with engravings like almonds and flowers and the ark and turquoise wool and curtains and loops and poles and partitions and covers and screens….all of this an elegantly woven illusion…we are to walk through and get closer to the space between the two cherubim the place from where God speaks His Torah., so we can receive God as He receives us.

This is what it means when God says in Exodus 25:2 that they take Me as an offering.

This is what it means in Exodus Rabbah when we read You are to take Me.

We are to be taken by Each Other through both words and white space.

This is a commandment.

May we have the courage to follow it.

As best we can.