Parashat Terumah
February 26, 2025
Rabbi Mick Fine, Lower School Director of Hebrew & Judaic Studies
This week’s parashah begins a series of parashiot (weekly portions) devoted to the description of the Mishkan – a portable, beautiful, and complex temple and divine dwelling place. The Torah specifies later on – “This is what the contribution that you should take… silver, gold, fine linens, and gemstones.” The term used to describe the contribution is תרומה (terumah), from the family of words to lift or to raise up. How is giving a material object – a shiny metal or stone – a “lifting” or a “raising”? And just a few words later, the Torah specifies who should give: “כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו” – “every person with a willing/generous heart.” Why did God specify that only those who were willing should give? We are used to hearing “all the children of Israel” or “the entire community of Israel” but “all those with a willing heart”? That’s new, different, and interesting.
This is perhaps why God later on (in Parashat Ki Tisa) chose to describe those who gave to the building of the Mishkan – to be related to “כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו” – those with a generous, willing heart. This contribution was not to be demanded, enforced, or mandatory; this is a gift one gives willingly or not at all.
Imagine hearing these words as a newly freed Israelite. If you want to give, you may give; giving will show that your heart is generous – that you have crossed into a different headspace, not one of lacking and destitution, but rather a place of plenty and fruition. Imagine the joy of giving they felt, having potentially never donated, or had enough to donate, before in their lives.
The context for this divine request is, perhaps, the key. Bnai Yisrael just recently left Mitzrayim (Egypt), the place where they served as slaves for hundreds of years. Their experience, similar to any in abject poverty, is one of zero choices. Freedom implies choice – one chooses their profession, their partner, their path in life. The enslaved, on the other hand, choose nothing – not their profession, their food, their living arrangements, nor are they taught that their desires matter. Quite the opposite; violence is imposed in order to subjugate and minimize the enslaved’s sense of self, value, and ability to make their own choices.
This is perhaps why God later on (in Parashat Ki Tisa) chose to describe those who gave to the building of the Mishkan – to be related to “כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו” – those with a generous, willing heart. This contribution was not to be demanded, enforced, or mandatory; this is a gift one gives willingly or not at all.
Imagine hearing these words as a newly freed Israelite. If you want to give, you may give; giving will show that your heart is generous – that you have crossed into a different headspace, not one of lacking and destitution, but rather a place of plenty and fruition. Imagine the joy of giving they felt, having potentially never donated, or had enough to donate, before in their lives.
And when they gave, and they gave almost too much, it was a sign of power and status: I have enough; I can donate. Consequently, the item that required the donation, the building of the Mishkan, God’s earthly sanctuary and dwelling, was sourced by the community. The Ramban, living in Girona, Spain in the 12th-13th centuries, stated that there was an additional element that required “a willing heart.” He wrote: “They needed motivation from their hearts because there was no one who had any previous experience with the skills necessary for the Mishkan, and there were no teachers available to train them.” Therefore, the real challenge of building and fundraising for the Mishkan was a wholly new enterprise, one that required determination and self-confidence. Rabbi Yeruchem Levovitz, living in Poland in the early 1900’s stated: “…the people who were successful in building the sanctuary were successful because of their inner courage to come forward and volunteer to do what is needed.”
What lasting lesson might we learn from this week’s parashah? On one level, it is worth noting that the Torah takes care to describe giving as a kind of lifting up. When we give, even a small amount, it takes that material and raises it to a level of importance and value in which the total is greater than the sum of the parts. Think about passing around a tzedakah box in kindergarten. The pennies are unlikely to change the world, yet the experience of giving purposefully and personally can change the person and eventually the community. In addition, we can learn from the newly freed Israelites that sometimes we don’t know how it will all turn out. What’s important is that we show up, we give our all, and perhaps, in partnership with God, we can too build a place in which God will feel right at home.