|
 |
|
|
Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Terumah
Exodus 25:1-27:19
By Shlomo Riskin
Efrat, Israel: “Speak to the children of Israel: 'Let them take for Me a gift-offering…’” (Exodus 25:2)
The central commandment of this week's Biblical portion and indeed for the last five portions of the Book of Exodus is: "They shall make for Me a Sanctuary so that I may dwell in their midst" (Ex 25:8). Our sacred text exquisitely describes in the minutest detail the manner and the materials of construction employed for the outer building of the Sanctuary as well as its sacred objects. This entire Sanctuary enterprise was completely "funded" by voluntary donations of the Israelites (25:2), and proved to be the most successful fundraising campaign in history; Moses even had to ask the people to cease bringing gifts because the supply had exceeded the need (Ex. 36: 5-7). Apparently, the desert generation had not yet heard about endowment funds!
There is, however, one difficulty in the textual expression: G-d tells Moses to ask the Israelites to "'take' for Me a gift-offering" (v'yik'hu). Ought not the word have been to "give" rather than to "take" for Me a gift-offering?
The Italian commentator Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno (1470 – 1550) writes that G-d was saying to Moses, "Tell the Israelites that I would like the gabbaim, or trustees of the Sanctuary, to collect gifts from each individual." Rav Haim of Brisk adds that the trustees would then take the donated materials and properly dispense them for use in the Sanctuary.
This procedure, rather than having the people themselves give directly to the Sanctuary, was necessary in order to teach the Israelites that no one individual privately owned any specific "piece" of the Sanctuary, which belonged in a certain sense to the entire nation of Israel – and really, to G-d, for whom the gifts had originally been made.
The importance of this teaching was brought to my attention in my former community in New York when a disagreement erupted over the right of a synagogue member who came late to the service to ask a visitor who was sitting in his seat (marked with his name) to please vacate it. As there was no other vacant seat in the Sanctuary at that time, the argument became very intense and almost led to a fistfight!
The lesson was strengthened when a member of one of the synagogue communities in Efrat removed "his" bima (the Torah table which also served as the Cantor's lectern) from the Sanctuary, because he felt that the individual in whose honor he had dedicated the bima had been wronged by the shul's gabbaim.
No accoutrement of a Sanctuary may belong to any individual, no matter how large a donation he or she might have made in order to dedicate it. The donor gives his offering to the trustees, and they then take from the Sanctuary funds to provide whatever objects are necessary.
Allow me to suggest an alternative explanation for the command, "Let them take for Me a gift-offering." One of the outstanding disciples of Rav Yisrael Salanter, (1810-1883), initiator of the Ethicist (Mussar) Movement, was Rav Yosef Yoizel of Novardok. This great Talmudic sage began a network of yeshivot throughout Europe – there were 180 of them before the Second World War and only one survived the Holocaust – dedicated to teaching the students to denigrate fashion and popular opinion in favor of total dedication to following G-d's “wishes.”
Rav Yosef Yoizel had a student who seemed impervious to the unique spiritual and even iconoclastic attitudes of the Yeshiva, and was asked to leave. He was accepted to another yeshiva in a neighboring town, where he managed to remain for the required period of study. Upon leaving that yeshiva, he became a very successful businessman.
Rav Yosef Yoizel asked to meet with him – and emerged with a million-ruble donation to start a new "Norvadok" yeshiva. The Dean of the yeshiva who had accepted Rav Yosef Yoizel's "reject" excitedly made an appointment with his former student, expecting to receive at least two million rubles; after all, he had looked after him when the student had no place to go. To his chagrin, he received a mere 36-ruble donation. In perplexed disappointment, he requested an explanation. "I will explain the matter to you," said the businessman. Rav Yosef Yoizel came to my home in the midst of a snowstorm. He walked straight into the salon, paid no attention whatsoever to the elegant furnishings, dirtied my expensive carpet with his muddied shoes, and immediately began to speak of the spiritual and ethical power a new Novardok yeshiva would add to the Jewish world. In his presence, all of my material wealth seemed meaningless unless it could be used to enhance our Jewish mission. I felt that he was giving me a gift; an opportunity to use my money wisely, and so I gladly took the opportunity to make my donation.
"When you entered my home, on the other hand, your eyes widened as you looked around at my art collection and my thick carpets. You removed your boots at the door and seemed to walk on eggshells so as not to damage in any way my furnishings. You prefaced my name with the title Reb, not because of my learning, but because of my money. In your presence, beloved Rebbe, I came to value my money even more, and so I was loathe to give away any more than 36 rubles…"
A number of years ago I visited a congregant in a hospice. He was a well-known philanthropist, whose many material assets could not bring him good health. “Apparently,” he said, in the full knowledge that he would soon be leaving this material world, “the only money I really have is whatever I gave away to good causes.” Many investors in the stock market or with Ponzi-like scheme investment brokers are not coming to the same realization. To give to a good cause is really to "take" on the highest level, because it enables our assets to live even beyond our lifetime.
Click to support OHR TORAH STONE Institutions or contact
parshat_hashavua@ots.org.il
to sponsor a shiur in honor or memory of a loved one.
Return to Ohr Torah Stone
|
