Parshas Terumah
In Rich Concentration
By Rabbi Label Lam
They should make for Me a sanctuary and I will dwell amongst them!
(Shemos 25:8)
They should make for Me a sanctuary: They should make for My Name a house
of holiness! (Rashi)
What’s the key ingredient of the Tabernacle or any subsequent Mikdash
Me’at- Synagogue? Amongst the many specifications for constructing the
Tabernacle one detail supersedes and precedes them all. What is that?
On our way home from a glorious community Shabbaton in Providence Rhode
Island we decided to take a detour and visit the famous Touro Synagogue.
It was a rainy day and a few brave souls signed up for the tour. It was
quite fascinating to be in contact with a relic where Jewish and American
History intersected so strongly. In the middle of our guide’s presentation
a woman raised her hand and asked, “Why is-that the women sit up stairs in
the balcony and the men sit down stairs? Is it because of distraction?”
The poor tour-guide got all flustered and rambled for a few moments
before, in desperation, she turned her attention to me and asked, “Is that
right Rabbi? Is it because of distraction?”
It was my day off. I was just spending time with my family. I must be some
kind of antenna for these things. I guess it comes with the territory and
the garb. I didn’t like the tilt of the question and I was afraid of where
it might go. So, with help from heaven, an answer flashed into my mind
and out the mouth that I think they appreciated. I told them, “It’s not so
much about “distraction” as it is about “concentration”. If one takes
prayer seriously and we do, then it’ critical to create a place where one
can focus. Prayer for us is serious like surgery.”
It occurred to me that to see the building as a social center or an
architectural landmark is to miss the essence. It’s a place where one
actually comes to meet the Divine Presence. It might be that simple and
that profound.
When the Kotzker Rebbe was himself a lad his Rebbe asked him, “Where can G-
d be found?” The precocious young Menachem Mendel answered, “Everywhere!”
The Rebbe repeated the question and the young future rebbe repeated his
answer with ever more insistence until he broke down and asked his
teacher, “Where can HASHEM be found?” The rebbe answered, “Wherever He is
allowed to enter!”
A young Rabbi asked his student, “How come you have never come to my house
for Shabbos? The student looked at the Rebbe with a wondrous look! The
Rebbe asked his student again. This time the student worked up the courage
and answered, “Rebbe, you never invited me!” The Tabernacle, like any
other future Synagogue, is not merely an address for mortal meetings or a
structural expression of our “edifice complex”. It is a rather
sophisticated invitation.
In the last two stanzas of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “The Jewish
Cemetery at Newport”, he writes, “And thus with reverted look/ The mystic
volume of the word they read/ Spelling it backward like a Hebrew book/
Till life became a Legend of the Dead// But ah! What once has been shall
be no more!/ The groaning earth in travail and in pain/ Brings forth its
races, but does not restore/ And the dead nations never rise again…
Longfellow had obviously underestimated that invisible quotient the Jewish
Nation would find in such structures such as these in rich concentration.
Text Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Label Lam and Torah.org.
