D'var Torah

This week’s Torah portion contains a sentence that is near and dear to hearts of all members of Temple Rodef Shalom. In Exodus chapter 25 verse 8 we read: “Asu li mikdash, v’shochanti bi’tocham” – make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among you. These are the words on the lintel above the our own sanctuary doors. In my opinion this pretty much sums up our religious goal: we have to do something so that God, who may not be present yet, can be present. The sanctuary is a metaphor for the religion we ‘construct,’ for the world we strive to create which invokes and includes the Divine presence.

Rabbi Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl and so many other rabbis teach that God is everywhere; specifically that the presence of the Creator is within each created thing. And yet, sometimes we can’t find God anywhere. We have this nagging suspicion that God is ubiquitous; we just can’t seem to locate God ourselves. Some rabbis have a different view, such as Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyadi, who suggests that it is not that there is a world and God is everywhere within it; rather there is a God and the world is everywhere within God. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that is not God. You, me, the trees, the bluebirds, and even the toxic waste dumps.

In either theology, we are left to ask how we get to a sense of awareness of all of this Divinity.  I think it has to do with how we behave as human beings. Being a decent human being increases the chances that we’ll find God, that through your actions something greater and more important than yourself may dawn upon you—just as cruel and hateful actions gradually seal us off from that which is sacred, righteous, and holy.  But suppose you want this awareness more often.  Suppose you want to actively seek this sense of the Divine in your life. What does one do?

That’s where I believe religion, and for us specifically, Judaism, comes in. That’s where constructing the metaphoric sanctuary becomes the goal. Religious deeds, mitzvot, upright acts, even rituals provide a framework for a righteousness that brings God into the world.  The purpose of building a sukkah is not only to connect with our ancestors wandering in the desert, but to experience or at least imagine what is like to live outside with little shelter. Through this activity we are compelled to act to help the homeless. Giving tzedakah is not something we should do in December when we assess our savings and decide what’s available for others. It should be a commitment we make now, at the beginning of the year, that we have to work with all year long to make sure we can give to others, even before we know how successful we will be. Our dinner tables can become a small sanctuary when we choose to bring ethics into our eating habits through kashrut or some other form of thoughtful food choices.

During these days when the world around us seems more and more intolerant and unjust, when there is so much happening that we can’t control, we might work harder to control this aspect of our personal lives. Build me a sanctuary that I may dwell among you is a commandment instructing us to choose to construct sacred opportunities in our daily lives. God may be everywhere, but it is through our upright deeds that the spotlight shines on the Divine presence. Perhaps there is something new that you can begin to build that will help you to feel God’s presence each day.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Amy Schwartzman