Follow Me: A Sermon/Meditation

This week we read the Torah portion, Terumah, which means a portion set apart, or something lifted up. It is perhaps one of the more mysterious portions there is. It describes the design for the Tabernacle, the portable place of sacrifice used during the Israelite travels in the wilderness. Details are recounted that seem matter of fact. Give a freewill offering, Moses is to say to the people: a voluntary contribution of building materials. The specifications are very exact. Follow me, the Eternal seems to whisper. Gold for the Aron HaKodesh, the ark topped with angels having the faces of children, into which the holy tablets were to be put; a curtain with more angels woven into it, for the tent of meeting, to limit access to this most holy place, the holy of holies. Also in the tent: hidden from view, the golden Menorah, shining in the dark; and the table, more like a baker’s rack than a table, with twelve loaves of bread, the symbol of the Divine-Human partnership: God’s sustenance and our labor; and the incense altar, smoky and fragrant, its gold reflecting the flames of the menorah’s light, its cloud partially concealing what we believe is reality, softening its edges.
Outside the Holy tent, the large copper laver, the bowl almost as big as a man, for washing: the ritual of water purification that is as old as humanity itself; and the copper altar, topped with smoldering coals, for offering sacrifices, that ancient mechanism of life and death, whereby the people drew near to God. And everything enclosed in a rectangle by posts and white lace hangings, very like the size and proportions of this synagogue. It must have been very nearly sensory overload: the colors of red, turquoise, purple, white, silver & gold; primal sounds, light, darkness, aroma, sight, touch, and feeling.
Make me a sanctuary, a Mishkan, God says, that I may dwell, shakanti, among them. That word, Shakan, dwell, became Shechinah, the indwelling, holy presence, close as breathing: above us, within us, and all around us. Take these materials, God says: cast off metal gifts from Egypt: linen and colored wool, clothing, blankets, and carpets. They and you will lose their mundane shape and purpose. They and you will become holy. Follow me, God says in this text, “As all I will show you.” Can you follow directions? Are you willing to follow me? Can you follow me, God seems to say? If you can; if you will, great holiness and blessing await. If you do, I will speak to you, as the Apter Rebbe said, “in the quiet places of the heart.” Can you give up some of your desires, some of your will, to make a space for me, a place for me, in your heart? Take yourselves to me. Take this offering to me. I will take whatever you give: gifts and money; animals, symbolizing your wealth, your labor, and your very life; and what you give with an open heart I will take and I will give back the joy of my proximity, the elation of re-union; the certainty of my protection and care. If your inner light has been prepared; if you have kept it burning for me in the recesses of your soul, you can approach the golden ark of my holiness with the purity of children, with the wholeness of the angels who do my work and mediate between heaven and earth. You will do that work. You will serve in gladness, and I will give you my sustenance, but you will live on my love. Build me a sanctuary in your heart, that I may dwell among you, in your heart, in your soul, but also in your interactions with others, in your community, in your society, in your world. It will not be done alone. We will do it all together. Build a world for me. Build a world with me. Follow me, please follow me. Set yourselves apart, and be lifted up. Let us now begin.