Parshat Terumah 5784
Rabbi Jablinowitz
We read in this week’s parsha the command given to Bnei Yisrael to build the Mishkan. Moshe is commanded to speak to Bnei Yisrael and receive from them donations of the materials required to build the Mishkan. This command is expressed with the words, ויקחו לי תרומה. These words mean they shall take to me a donation when it should seemingly say they should give me a donation, ויתנו לי תרומה. The Medrash Rabbah on our parsha (33,1) teaches that the word ויקחו is referencing the Torah, as the pasuk says in Mishlei (Chapter 4, Pasuk 2), כי לקח טוב נתתי לכם. Bnei Yisrael gave donations, but they received Hashem and His Torah.
The Ramban explains this connection by teaching that the Mishkan was meant to replicate the experience of Bnei Yisrael receiving the Torah at Har Sinai. The same way the Shechinah came down to Har Sinai, it would now continually reside in the Mishkan. The experience of Har Sinai needed to be eternalized, and through the Mishkan Bnei Yisrael were able to maintain their connection to Hashem.
The Sfas Emes takes this idea to a deeper level by a quoting a different Medrash in the same section. The Medrash (33,3) quotes the pasuk from Shir HaShirim (Chapter 5, Pasuk 2), אני ישנה ולבי ער; I am asleep, but my heart is awake and aroused. I am asleep, the Medrash explains, I have despaired from the exile and given up hope from being redeemed. But my heart is aroused is referring to Hashem, as the pasuk states in sefer Tehillim (Chapter 73, Pasuk 26), צור לבבי וחלקי; Hashem is contained in our hearts. And as the pasuk in Shir HaShirim continues, קול דודי דופק; Hashem is knocking in our hearts and asking us to let Him in and build the Mishkan and make a place for Him.
The Medrash in Shir HaShirim Rabbah (1,15) teaches that when Hashem said at Har Sinai אנכי ד' אלוקיך, Talmud Torah was engraved in our hearts. This is the צור לבבי וחלקי; this is the קול דודי דופק. Matan Torah at Har Sinai was not an ancient historical event without ramifications for future generations. Rather, it impacted the hearts of all Jews for eternity. It engraved in our hearts a connection to Hashem and His Torah. And even after we sin, and even after the sin of the golden calf, Bnei Yisrael still have the longing and yearning in our hearts and feel Hashem knocking in our hearts.
This is the meaning of ויקחו לי תרומה. The word תרומה means to lift up. We need to lift up the longing in our hearts and “take Hashem” and His Torah by building the Mishkan. We need to move the feelings in our heart from the potential to the actual. These feelings are typically buried under a whole myriad of desires for pleasure and financial gain in the physical world. But we need to lift up our spiritual longing from under the other longings we have and actualize them. We need to give dominance to the תלמוד תורה and to the Divine connection engraved in our hearts from Har Sinai.
This is the meaning of the pasuk (Chapter 25, Pasuk 2), מאת כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו; the generosity of the heart is the willingness to subjugate one’s own personal desires to the desire to be connected to Hashem alone. And the Sfas Emes explains that this is done on two levels. One level is תקחו את תרומתי; take My Terumah. This is a very high level and it means to turn your desires into mine, as the Mishnah in Avos teaches (Chapter 2, Mishnah 4), עשה רצונו כרצונך; Make His will like your own. This what the Sefarim refer to as אתהפכיא; reversing your desire for sin into desire for only good. This is the level of תרומתי.
But there is also what the next pasuk teaches, וזאת התרומה. Even if you can’t remove your personal desire for sin and pleasure, contain it and control it. This is what the Sefarim refer to as אתכפיא; subjugate your own desire. This is what the same Mishnah in Avos refers to as בטל רצונך מפני רצונו; Nullify your desire before His desire.
These are the two levels of Terumah, of lifting up the desire in your heart to be connected to Hashem and build the Mishkan, the replica of Har Sinai where the engraving in your heart first took place. But it takes much effort to find those emotions and that connection to Hashem, for it is buried under so much nonsense. But if we listen carefully, we can hear the קול דודי דופק; we can hear the knocking in our heart and lift it up and actualize it by making the Talmud Torah in our hearts a fundamental part of our lives.
Good Shabbos
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