Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19) Gifts Given and Gifts Received
This week Torah brings us to the instructions for the Mishkan. The extreme details of the portion beg the question of when this text was written and for what purpose. A temporary structure in the Wilderness or the building in Jerusalem. This portion also contains the famous verse: “They shall make a sanctuary for Me that I may dwell in it/in or with them” (25:8) Lots of ways analyze this.
But, I want to return to the very beginning of this portion and he word that gives the portion its’ name: “terumah”. In some translations this word is rendered as “offering”. In others, it is rendered as “gift”. That set me to thinking about this idea of gifts and to ask what have been, in our lives, the greatest gifts that we have been given, and what have been the greatest gifts that we have given to others?
Think back on our own journey. At the moment, a physical gift may have been overwhelming and powerful. Yet, in the clarity of time, many of those material gifts have faded. What have been the real lasting gifts? Have they been material or spiritual? Have they been a “thing” or have they been the impact of another human being, a moment shared that helped change a life or shape a relationship?
Likewise, what gifts that we have given to other have really made the kind of impact that, at the time, may have seemed small? Has it been the people we have touched in some way? The gift of time to friends and the gift of wisdom and love o children or grandchildren? These are the gifts the reward for which can never be measured, for these gifts are carried through time on the wings of memory. So often the greatest gift we give is our presence, not our presents.
So, I invite you this Shabbat, to reflect on the idea what gifts we have been given and what gifts we have given. How have those gifts changed and impacted our lives and how, in many ways, they still continue to be impactful?
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Richard F. Address
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