Parshiot for February / March
3 / 4 March – 5 / 6 Adar (TERUMAH) Exodus 25: 1 to 27: 19
In this section the Israelites are commanded to pool many of their luxury possessions as donation towards the construction of the Tabernacle and all
its
accompanying paraphernalia. It is ironic that most of the gold, silver, precious stones and materials collected for this task were most probably part of the gifts bestowed on them by the Egyptians at the time of the Exodus, now utilised for a very different purpose than no doubt originally intended. It is also interesting to reflect on the construction of the Tabernacle (and later the Temple), and wonder at its purpose. Perhaps the Israelites would have been inclined to abandon their faith if not for such a sumptuous visual reminder of God’s presence in their midst? Or perhaps the rigid rules of purification related to both the Temple and Tabernacle were meant to reinforce the crucial Jewish principle of sanctity via separation in the minds of the Israelites on a daily basis. Today, when we have neither Temple nor Tabernacle, the same notion is still instilled via the ritualistic aspects of Judaism, and it is perhaps no surprise that increasing assimilation into gentile society over the past few decades has been accompanied by a marked decrease in Jewish religious observance (or else a minimising of the ritualistic aspects of Judaism in favour of more moralistic ones). This raises the question as to whether we are increasingly in danger of losing touch with the most central values of the Jewish faith, or whether we are evolving towards an altogether different understanding of God, Judaism and the Jewish purpose on earth. (The haftarah is I Kings 5: 26 to 6: 13, and mirrors the description of the construction of the Tabernacle through a description of Solomon’s construction of the Temple in Jerusalem).
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