(1) ה' spoke to Moses, saying: (2) Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart is so moved. (3) And these are the gifts that you shall accept from them: gold, silver, and copper; (4) blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair; (5) tanned ram skins, dolphin skins, and acacia wood; (6) oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the aromatic incense; (7) lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece. (8) And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.
(1) Thus said the LORD: The heaven is My throne And the earth is My footstool: Where could you build a house for Me, What place could serve as My abode?
(12) “With regard to this House you are building—if you follow My laws and observe My rules and faithfully keep My commandments, I will fulfill for you the promise that I gave to your father David: (13) I will abide among the children of Israel, and I will never forsake My people Israel.”
(27) But will God really dwell on earth? Even the heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this House that I have built!
The secret of the Tabernacle is that the Glory which abode upon Mount Sinai [openly] should abide upon it in a concealed manner. For just as it is said there, And the glory of the Eternal abode upon Mount Sinai, and it is further written, Behold, the Eternal our G-d hath shown us His glory and His greatness, so it is written of the Tabernacle, and the glory of the Eternal filled the Tabernacle. Twice is this verse, and the glory of the Eternal filled the Tabernacle mentioned in connection with the Tabernacle, to correspond with His glory and His greatness. Thus Israel always had with them in the Tabernacle the Glory which appeared to them on Mount Sinai. And when Moses went into the Tabernacle, he would hear the Divine utterance being spoken to him in the same way as on Mount Sinai.
The image of God self-constricting to fit in such a small space is reminiscent of the idea of tzimtzum described in Lurianic Kabbalah, a school of thought based on the teachings of Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572). It posits that God, who is infinite, filled all space at the beginning of Creation. But the Creation of the world necessitated empty space, so to make room for the world, God self-constricted, taking up less than infinite space for the first time. So while we typically think of creation as a process of making more of something, we see in God's act oftzimtzum, "drawing in," that sometimes making less is the first step to enabling creation. In the midrash, and perhaps also in the Lurianic myth, God self-constricts because of the Divine desire to be close to human beings. While Moses imagines that God is too exalted to be constrained within such a small physical space, God is undeterred, concerned only with dwelling among the Israelites.
דְּתַנְיָא: ״זֶה אֵלִי וְאַנְוֵהוּ״, הִתְנָאֵה לְפָנָיו בְּמִצְוֹת: עֲשֵׂה לְפָנָיו סוּכָּה נָאָה, וְלוּלָב נָאֶה, וְשׁוֹפָר נָאֶה, צִיצִית נָאָה, סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה נָאֶה, וְכָתוּב בּוֹ לִשְׁמוֹ בִּדְיוֹ נָאֶה, בְּקוּלְמוֹס נָאֶה, בְּלַבְלָר אוּמָּן, וְכוֹרְכוֹ בְּשִׁירָאִין נָאִין.
What is the source for the requirement of: “This is my God and I will glorify Him”? As it was taught in a baraita with regard to the verse: “This is my God and I will glorify Him [anveihu], the Lord of my father and I will raise Him up.” The Sages interpreted anveihu homiletically as linguistically related to noi, beauty, and interpreted the verse: Beautify yourself before Him in mitzvot. Even if one fulfills the mitzva by performing it simply, it is nonetheless proper to perform the mitzva as beautifully as possible. Make before Him a beautiful sukka, a beautiful lulav, a beautiful shofar, beautiful ritual fringes, beautiful parchment for a Torah scroll, and write in it in His name in beautiful ink, with a beautiful quill by an expert scribe, and wrap the scroll in beautiful silk fabric.
What is the source for the requirement of: “This is my God and I will glorify Him”? As it was taught in a baraita with regard to the verse: “This is my God and I will glorify Him [anveihu], the Lord of my father and I will raise Him up.” The Sages interpreted anveihu homiletically as linguistically related to noi, beauty, and interpreted the verse: Beautify yourself before Him in mitzvot. Even if one fulfills the mitzva by performing it simply, it is nonetheless proper to perform the mitzva as beautifully as possible. Make before Him a beautiful sukka, a beautiful lulav, a beautiful shofar, beautiful ritual fringes, beautiful parchment for a Torah scroll, and write in it in His name in beautiful ink, with a beautiful quill by an expert scribe, and wrap the scroll in beautiful silk fabric.
תרומה is something set apart (cf. Onkelos); the meaning is: let them set apart from their possessions a voluntary gift in My honour.
When a central power – even when this is God Himself – does everything on behalf of the people, they remain in a state of arrested development. They complain instead of acting. They give way easily to despair. When the leader, in this case Moses, is missing, they do foolish things, none more so than making a golden calf. There is only one solution: to make the people co-architects of their own destiny, to get them to build something together, to shape them into a team and show them that they are not helpless, that they are responsible and capable of collaborative action. Genesis begins with God creating the universe as a home for human beings. Exodus ends with human beings creating the Mishkan, as a ‘home’ for God. Hence the basic principle of Judaism, that we are called on to become co-creators with God. And hence too the corollary: that leaders do not do the work on behalf of the people. They teach people how to do the work themselves. It is not what God does for us but what we do for God that allows us to reach dignity and responsibility.