Here is the d’var Torah which Rabbi Rachel prepared for yesterday’s Shabbat morning services (cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.)
God spoke to Moshe saying: tell the children of Israel that they should bring Me gifts…from every person whose heart is so moved.
This week’s Torah portion, Terumah, begins with this instruction to bring gifts for use in the construction of the mishkan, the portable sanctuary intended to be a dwelling-place for God. Terumah, the name of the Torah portion, is usually translated as “gifts.”
Earlier this week I studied a Hasidic text written by the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim of Sudilkov. In his book the Degel Machaneh Efraim, he offered a fascinating interpretation of the word terumah.
Terumah, he said, can mean more than simply gifts. The word terumah can be deconstructed, the letters rearranged, into תורה מ / “Torah Mem” — the Torah of forty. (Remember, Hebrew letters double as numbers.)
What is the Torah of forty?
Torah was revealed atop Sinai over 40 days, he writes — just as a human being, in ancient rabbinic thought, achieved its form in the womb over a period of 40 days. He’s drawing on a longstanding rabbinic interpretation which connects the number 40 with the time it takes for something to go from beginning to fruition. The rabbis also taught that 40 are the days between planting and harvest, and 40 are the weeks between conception and birth.
So Torah comes to us through 40 (days), and a human being comes to us through 40 (either days or weeks.) What happens if we re-read the opening lines of this week’s Torah portion through this lens?
God spoke to Moshe saying: tell the children of Israel that they should bring Me the Torah of completeness and fruition; the Torah of every human being.
Human beings and Torah both require 40 units of time to emerge into this world. Ergo, each person is a Torah! This is a radical teaching, because in Hasidic thought the Torah is the most valuable thing imaginable — it’s a direct transmission of God’s essence.
Later in this week’s Torah portion we read:
Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell within them.
What can it mean to say that God dwells within us? The Degel teaches that that we bring God into ourselves when we study Torah, because Torah is one long and complex Name of God.
“God and Torah are one,” says the Zohar — so if we study Torah, and bring Torah into ourselves, then we are also bringing God into our hearts. The Zohar also teaches that God, Torah, and Israel are one, which is to say: we, and God, and God’s Name as expressed in Torah, are all part of the same unity. In the language of the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, we and Torah and God “inter-are.”
The gifts we’re called to bring before God are gifts of ourselves; gifts of our own completeness; gifts of new creation which only we can bring. The root of the word terumah is רם, which connotes raising something high. When we understand that we, and God, and Torah “inter-are,” then we can bring our most unique personal gifts, and in so doing be elevated to the highest of spiritual planes. May it be so!
My infinite thanks are due to my hevruta partners Rabbi David Markus and Rabbi Cynthia Hoffman for translating this text with me, and especially to R’ David for helping me tease out its deeper spiritual implications.
If the idea of “inter-being” is new to you, read this tiny excerpt from Thich Nhat Hanh — from his book The Heart of Understanding, which R’ David and I also studied together some 25 years ago!
From the Rabbi
