As I mentioned yesterday, this week's Torah portion (Terumah) opens with God describing to Moses the gifts that the Israelites should bring for the construction of the Mishkan. The portion opens, "Adonai spoke to Moses, 'Tell the Israelites to bring Me a gift; from every person who has a willing heart, bring My gifts.'" (Exodus 25:1-2).
There's a problem with this passage. How can anyone give a gift to God who is "koneh shamayim va-aretz," "The Possessor of heaven and the earth" (Genesis 14:19)? What do we truly posses that is not God's already? What does one give to the deity who has everything?
There is a possible answer to this question in rabbinic tradition. In the Talmud, Rabbi Haninah says, "Everything is in the hand of Heaven except for the fear (or, 'awe') of heaven" (B. Berachot 33b). The teaching is understood to be a statement about free will. God does indeed have control over all of space and time, yet God gives us the ability to make our own choices. We can choose to act with a reverent heart, or we can defy our own conscience and act as if there were no ethical constraints.
Our conscience and the conscious decisions we make are all we have to call our own. We have nothing to offer to God but our own willing hearts. The choices we make in life are the gold, silver and copper we bring up to God.
If the wise choices we make are the material that builds the Mishkan, the place where God presence dwells on earth, those choices are the very purpose of life. In the Tanya, the great work of early chasidic philosophy, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi states, "This is what humanity is all about. This is the purpose of God's creation and of the creation of all the worlds, higher and lower—that there be made for God a dwelling in the lower realms."
Other Posts on This Topic:
Shemot: Midwives, Morality and MeaningFearing God
There's a problem with this passage. How can anyone give a gift to God who is "koneh shamayim va-aretz," "The Possessor of heaven and the earth" (Genesis 14:19)? What do we truly posses that is not God's already? What does one give to the deity who has everything?
There is a possible answer to this question in rabbinic tradition. In the Talmud, Rabbi Haninah says, "Everything is in the hand of Heaven except for the fear (or, 'awe') of heaven" (B. Berachot 33b). The teaching is understood to be a statement about free will. God does indeed have control over all of space and time, yet God gives us the ability to make our own choices. We can choose to act with a reverent heart, or we can defy our own conscience and act as if there were no ethical constraints.
Our conscience and the conscious decisions we make are all we have to call our own. We have nothing to offer to God but our own willing hearts. The choices we make in life are the gold, silver and copper we bring up to God.
If the wise choices we make are the material that builds the Mishkan, the place where God presence dwells on earth, those choices are the very purpose of life. In the Tanya, the great work of early chasidic philosophy, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi states, "This is what humanity is all about. This is the purpose of God's creation and of the creation of all the worlds, higher and lower—that there be made for God a dwelling in the lower realms."
Other Posts on This Topic:
Shemot: Midwives, Morality and MeaningFearing God
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