Original Torah: Ancient Words in a Modern Light

Read the reading online at:

http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/parashah/jpstext/terumah.shtml

God instructs Moses “have them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among
them”

(25:8), then proceeds to make a box to contain the Presence (such as used for

Eastern gods to this day), and hut, and a house. Moreover, there is bread and

light. But it is explicitly stated that the bread is not for God to eat

(25:30), but for the priests (Leviticus 24:5-9). So what of the light? It comes

to teach that even when we build a home for God on Earth, we are truly building

a home for ourselves, to illumine our lives. In concrete terms, building for

others ultimately builds for ourselves.

Have a caring week!

-Shabbat Shalom!

This week’s bootleg dvar torah comes from the University of Judaism’s Rabbinic

School. http://38.246.89.29/Content/ContentUnit.asp?CID=845&u=1925&t=0

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Jews have always been a community drawn together by virtue of Torah. No matter

where you may be, we welcome you to the Ziegler community through Today’s Torah

e-mail.

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Shabbat Parashat Terumah

February 16, 2002 – 4 Adar 5762

The Menorah: Let Your Light Shine

By: Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Everyone knows that the principal symbol of Judaism is the six-pointed Star of

David. But did you know that the

Magen David only became a Jewish symbol in the Middle Ages? Despite its

prominence on the flag of Israel and kiddush cups, the Magen David is a rather

late representative of Judaism and the Jewish People. For most of our history,

and certainly in antiquity, the preeminent symbol of the Jewish religion was

the Menorah, the seven- branched candlestick which was found first in the

Tabernacle of Moses, and later in the Temple of King Solomon in Jerusalem.

That menorah is mentioned for the first time in today’s Torah reading, when God

tells Moses to “make a lampstand of pure gold…its base and its shaft, its

cups, calyxes, and petals shall be of one piece. Six branches shall issue from

its sides.” In reading the description of the Menorah, the confusion is

overwhelming–the details are so complex that it is easy to despair of ever

visualizing it correctly.

That same confusion must have overwhelmed Moses as well. An ancient midrash,

recorded in the Talmud as well, states that “three things presented

difficulties to Moses, until the Holy Blessed One showed Moses with His

finger:…[one was] the menorah, as it is written, ‘and this was the work of

the menorah.” According to another ancient tradition, not God but the angel

Gabriel drew a picture so that Moses could see the image that God was

portraying in words.

Yet another tradition, found in Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah, holds that Moses kept

confusing the details each time he returned to the camp. After forgetting for

the third time, God told Moses not to worry, since the artist Betzalel would be

able to remember the details correctly, which indeed he did. Why were those

details so impossible to retain? What is the Torah teaching us about human

beings and about being human? After all, Moses is able to remember the entire

Torah (according to one tradition of how the Torah was recorded), and according

to Mishnah Avot, he was able to remember the entire Oral Teaching as well! How

could such a skilled and gifted mind have trouble remembering the details of

the Menorah?

Perhaps the Torah is telling us that even the most gifted of minds is stronger

in some areas and weaker in others. Moses was a great role model for our entire

people, yet he too was imperfect. Betzalel, who made no great contribution to

Jewish law or Jewish literature, was able to make a timeless contribution that

was beyond Moses’ abilities. Each of us has some special talent or gift that is

our unique strength. No matter how special other people may seem, you are able

to bring your unique perspective and insight and talents in a combination that

no one else can reproduce. In the words of the Mishnah, “there is no one
who

doesn’t have their hour, and nothing which does not have its place.” Each
one

of us, in our own ways, can add something irreplacable to the luxurious weave

of humanity.

Every individual person, like each glistening thread, makes the cloth that much

more shimmering and durable. No one can replace you. Perhaps that is also why

the Menorah has so many lights. Each one of the seven lights shines in its own

uniqueness. In fact, the only thing that can make a menorah treif (ritually

impermissible) is if the lights are not all on the same level–precisely

even–so that no two lights can be confused as one. So too, the Talmud

instructs that no replicas of the Temple menorah can be made or displayed

anymore. Perhaps this too is an assertion of the importance of each individual.

Just as the Temple Menorah cannot simply be replaced, so too no human being can

simply be replaced. Instead, those seven burning flames testify to the shining

light within each human being: “the human soul is the lamp of God.”
The light

of God’s love, justice, and concern can only illumine the world throught the

individual light that we shine through our deeds, our communities, and through

our performance of mitzvot.

Like the Menorah of old, we can illumine the world.

Shine brightly. Shabbat Shalom.

Have a caring week!