Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.
Sometimes we don’t have to dig too deep to recognize the parallels between parshat hashavuah the Torah portion of the week, and our lives. At Mount Sinai, Moses had been given explicit instructions on how to build the mishkan- the first sanctuary. The people are asked to give rare and luxurious materials in order to consecrate the space. Being a nomadic people, God specifically tells Moses how to construct the holy dwelling so that it can be easily dismantled and taken on their journeys in the desert.
Temple Emanu-El, as we prepare for the move of our sacred home and work together in building our new sacred space, we are in good company with our ancient ancestors. The namesake of this week’s Torah portion, Termuah, is translated as gift or offering because of the material goods the people of Israel were asked to contribute in order to build the Mishkan. While we won’t be requesting donations of gold, silver, animal skins or dyed wool, we do need intangible offerings.
When we think about what it takes to create holy space and building sacred community, what intangible offerings do we need? What values make a place holy and what ideals must it hold to be Jewish? (Seriously, what do we need?)
I would say perhaps most importantly, we need metaphorical wide doors.
If you paid attention to any sort of news outlet or social media this week, you know that Whoopi Goldberg was all over the headlines. In suggesting that the Holocaust was not about race, she inadvertently ignited a national outcry. This controversy raises important and complicated questions: Are we a race? An ethnicity? A religion? Some form of all of the above? While the old adage of there always being more opinions than there are Jews in a room certainly applies here, a key takeaway from this controversy is just how complex Jewish identity is.
This sermon was presented at Temple Emanu-El of Edison, New Jersey.
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