CAS - Holy Stuff by Rabbi Walk, February 6, 2008

Walk Through the Parsha by Rabbi David Walk

Holy Stuff
Teruma 5768
February 6, 2008
One of the most perplexing problems for readers of the Torah appears right in the very first chapter of our Bible. When God creates humankind there is the statement, “Let us make human in our image after our likeness (Genesis 1:26).” Since we don’t believe that God has any physical image, what do we mean that we are created in that image? My favorite answer to that question was given by Reb Chayim Volozhin (1749-1821) in his famous work on Jewish thought, Nefesh Hachayim (The Soul of Life). The great Rabbi explains that just as in poetry, a metaphor works when there is only one point of overlap between the two items being compared. So, too with humans and God, we only have one little area in common. Of course that just leads us to the next question: What, pray tell, is that one feature?

Well. Reb Chayim goes on to explain that he believes that the one aspect of commonality between God and people is our capacity to create. Even though we can’t produce universes, we can invent well enough to keep the patent office busy (Did you know that the head of the U. S. Patent Office in 1900 wanted to close it down, because everything important had already been invented? If there were no patent offices, where could Einstein have worked and still have enough free time to think up relativity?). Others think that it is our power of free choice that separates us from the animal kingdom and connects us to God. There is also the popular approach that just as God rules in heaven, mankind dominates on this globe. On the other hand, I believe that the best answer to this question is found in this week’s Torah reading.

In this week’s parsha we have the apotheosis of humanity’s potential. We are informed that we can make things holy. That’s pretty amazing. Reb Chayim had already pointed out that people are the connection between this physical realm and the heavenly domain. He goes on to describe that this role as bridge to holiness isn’t totally passive. It involves bringing God’s bounty and spirit into this world. We act as the conduit for Godliness to enter this world. Without humans acting spiritually, there would be none of God’s gifts in our neighborhood.

Our parsha adds another dimension to this concept of people having a Godlike position on earth. We can actually raise physical things up to a new existence on a sanctified level. We can bring things into the holy sphere. The simplest example of this phenomenon is the writing of God’s name on a surface. That changes the reality of that medium. What was formerly a mundane object which could be treated in a cavalier manner has now become an object of veneration which must be treated with great respect and eventually disposed of with the same respect as the burial of human being. In our parsha there is an even more remarkable case. We can take already existing objects and raise them to a sanctified status, without any visible change in the item. Right at the beginning of our parsha it says, “Take for Me an offering (Exodus 25:2).” The word which we translate as ‘offering’ is teruma and is the name of our Torah reading. The real meaning of this word is to raise up. When we give money or any other donation to the Temple or to charity we raise that article to a new level, which we call holy. This power is unique to humans. Angels can’t do it, because they don’t relate to the mundane; animals can’t do it because they only connect to the mundane. Only we interact with both.

These offerings were intended for the building of the Mishkan or portable Temple, which accompanied the Jews through the 40 year sojourn in the desert. Normally we view this Mishakan as the interface with the divine realm, and only we can build this gateway. What if the nexus is actually in the Mishkan itself, perhaps the tapestry hanging between the outer room of the Mishkan structure called the Holy and the inner chamber called the Holy of Holies? Then we have a different reality, where we have not only contacted the heavenly side but actually brought a piece of it into this world. Under those circumstances humans can enter into heaven itself. This exact potential reality is described in the first two chapters of Genesis.

In the first chapter of Genesis we have the description of human beings created along with the animals and all the other stuff of this world. People rule over the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, but we are a part of them sharing this world and most of our DNA. However, in chapter two of Genesis our primordial ancestors inhabited the Garden of Eden or Paradise. They weren’t like the other living things at all. They weren’t created as part of the process of making everything else. Adam and Eve were tenderly crafted after everything else was in place. They were Godlike. Until they sinned. So, we exist in both realms. We not only connect the worlds we bestride them both. The part of us residing in this world is very similar to the other creatures around us, but we have another aspect which is very other worldly. It’s up to us to decide which side, the earthy or ethereal, predominates.

Now we have an inkling into the importance of the Mishkan and Temple in our tradition. Like so many other mitzvoth, this one has a pedagogic goal. This mitzvah teaches that our souls can soar above the humdrum world around us and that we can raise up the otherwise profane material around us. We can reproduce the Paradise and even re-enter it, even if only vicariously through the high Priest or in our mind’s eye today. However, ultimately it is this mitzvah which provides the answer to that most burning question: What makes us human? The full answer can’t be found in a biology text; it can be discerned in the holiness we create.