Articles in Terumah
Shabbat Zachor: Memory Is A Bridge
Remember
Can you imagine driving down the street and suddenly realizing that you forgot where you are coming from? If you don’t know where you are coming from, you can’t know where you are going or why. Severed from the past, the present has no bridge to the future.
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Terumah: The Crown
For G-d
Three of the Temple’s sacred vessels had crowns around their perimeter. There was a crown around the incense altar, a crown around the show-table and a crown around the holy ark. Our sages taught, the crown around the altar was taken by Aaron, whose children were destined for the …
Terumah: The Sanctuary
Why the Replica?
Have you ever noticed that we go out of our way to turn the Sanctuary into a replica of the Bet Hamikdash, the ancient temple?
Our Sanctuaries have arks in which the Torah scroll is housed just as the Temple housed an Ark for the Tablets. The Ark is …
Teruma: Instant Forgiveness
The Pivot
How long does it take you to forgive? Small offenses are quickly forgiven, large offenses take more time to forgive, if at all, but one thing is certain, if someone betrayed you in the worst possible way you would hardly offer instant forgiveness the moment they displayed a desire …
Terumah: Escapism Is Not A Solution
Build A Sanctuary
There is not a neighborhood in the world without drawbacks, nor a community without problems. No matter how lovely the school, synagogue or organization appears on the outside its flaws and fissures are always discovered when we make its acquaintance from the inside. There are always those, who …
Terumah: How To Make A Sanctuary
Four Elements
The tabernacle Moses was commanded to erect comprised the four basic elements, inanimate, vegetative, animate and human. The floor was desert sand, representing the inanimate element. The walls were wooden, representing the vegetative element. The roof was of animal hide, representing the animate element and the people that worshiped …
Terumah: Mobilizing The Force
Affixing The Staves
The major artifacts in the tabernacle, transported across the desert by the Levitic tribe, were equipped with large staves by which they were lifted and transported. The Torah details precise instructions on how and when the staves were to be affixed and here we encounter a curious point. …
Terumah: Charity In A Failing Economy
Trimming Excess
For most of us the failing economy has translated only into worry and rhetoric. Though unemployment is up and many homes have been lost most of us still have bread on our tables and Cable TV in our bedrooms. But there one sector that is already feeling the pinch, …
