Shalom everyone, sorry for the lack of blogs lately, things have been pretty busy (thank G-d) at the yeshiva. This week is parshas Terumah, the parsha which explains how the Jewish people were to build the mishkon, a sanctuary for G-d, in the desert. At the beginning of the parsha, there is a verse which sets the tone for our entire service to Hashem: "They should make a Sanctuary to Me and I will dwell among them." What makes this verse interesting is the use of the plural "dwell among them"; this is meant to indicate that Hashem would dwell in each and every Jew in the desert. What exactly does this mean?
The Mishkon is where the ark of the covenant was to be held; it says in the Torah that Hashem would speak from on top of the ark, indicating that an intense revelation of G-dliness would take place there; in a sense, it was the place where G-d was dwelling. According to the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok, by saying "They should make a Sanctuary to Me" means that we should symbolically make ourselves into a Sanctuary. The idea of Hashem dwelling in the Mishkon carries over into our own self-building, meaning that if we do what it takes to make our bodies into a Sanctuary, then Hashem will dwell within us.
So what exactly does it take to turn our bodies into a Sanctuary? We can find out from looking at how the Mishkon was built. The Mishkon was made out of physical materials (wood, copper, earth, etc.) For something so incredibly spiritual, one would thing that physicality would run contrary to that. However, the idea was this: the greatness of G-d is not bound to the upper realms, to some distant, abstract cloud perched above our mundane, physical plane of reality. G-d dwells within all of physical creation, permeating existence, yet He is hidden by the coarseness of this physicality. This is not, G-d forbid, to say that we should worship nature; this would constitute idolatry, which runs exactly opposite to what G-d wants. By going contrary to what our eyes perceive and seeking to find the G-dliness inherent inside everything, we are recognize the true greatness of G-d, that His greatness is found in His humility i.e. His ability to come to our low level. Therefore, we see that by using the physical materials to build the Mishkon, we were making a statement. We don't see G-d as being distant and lofty, we also don't see nature as a end unto itself, rather, we see the physical as a means unto an end, the end being to elevate this reality up to the union of spiritual and physical, to the realm of holiness.
Now we can see how this parallels in our Divine service. We must use our physical "materials" (i.e. using our physical impulses and desires) to build our Sanctuary. We have to recognize that our body is not really ours, it's on loan from Hashem. We only have a certain amount of time here on this Earth and to navigate through this life, G-d gave us the ultimate power: the power of choice. We can choose to dwell in physicality as if it's the end all be all of life, we can go to parties where habitual drinking and intimacy takes on the nature of desperation, we can listen to our more animalistic side and indulge in fleeting instant gratification, or we could turn them over into good by just saying "no". Everything decays; fancy BMW's rust away, food rots, even we go back to the dust, yet truth is eternal. By attaching ourselves to this truth and deciding to live our lives according to G-d's universal message for the world, the Torah, we transform our limited physical existence into an eternal edifice. When we do this, them Hashem will dwell in each and every one of us, dwelling in this world as it's supposed to be. May the day when we finally see G-dliness with our own fleshly eyes come immediately, bringing with it the eternal Sanctuary for the world.
With all my love,
Zach
(Based on the teachings of the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe)
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