Terumah: One Lesson the World Needs to Hear

In this week’s Torah portion of Terumah, we read about how God gives Moses the intricate details and instructions about how to build the Mishkan, the portable Sanctuary that would accompany the Jewish people on their journey through the desert. Among the items that are described are the Menorah - the seven branched candelabrum - and the Ark. Each of these items contains a powerful message for us as a Jewish people today, especially within the context of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

The Ark

We read in Exodus 25: 16 that “Inside the Ark, place the tablets of the Covenant that I will give you.” This command is then repeated again a few verses later in Exodus 25: 21 when it says: “Place the cover on top of the Ark, and inside the Ark place the tablets of the Covenant that I will give you.” Why is this command repeated? 

One possible answer is that, according to the Talmud in Bava Batra 14b, the Ark contained two sets of the tablets: the pieces of the first set, broken when Moses smashed them after witnessing the sin of the Jewish people with the Golden Calf; and the unbroken second set that replaced the initial one.

Rabbi Shai Finkelstein, who among other roles is the senior editor of the Koren Mikraot Hadorot at Koren Publications, offers two wonderful interpretations of why both the broken and unbroken sets of tablets existed side-by-side in the Ark. He writes:

This combination symbolises the fact that Israel both endures failure and possesses the ability to recover from their missteps. This concept holds within it the understanding of what it means to cope with tragedy and destruction. The Ark of the Covenant represents the dwelling of God’s presence within the community of Israel. And yet it holds both the shattered and complete tablets.

Continuing his explanation, Rabbi Finkelstein asks why the broken pieces of the first tablets were not simply discarded or buried forever. He explains that the answer to that question relates to “the nature of human beings and our ability to manage the experiences of trauma.” As he writes:

It is not necessary or indeed wise for a person to banish unpleasant memories, nor to attempt to lead one’s life as if the difficult episodes one has undergone never really happened. Suppressing such thoughts might succeed for the short term, but the reality is that impressions are never addressed in the way they must be. These have a tendency to surface later in life, occasionally in an even more bitter fashion. On the other hand, a healthy approach to emotional wounds, to catastrophe and loss, is to view them in the context of the advancement and progression of life.

Argues Rabbi Finkelstein, this is how God wanted the Jewish people to remember the episode of the Golden Calf and the consequences of that event. This is why, therefore, the broken pieces of the Ark were not discarded, but carried alongside the complete set. They served as a reminder to the Jewish people of the struggles they had to endure to achieve spiritual greatness.

Since the attacks of the 7th October, the Jewish people worldwide have had to carry with them both the fragments of those lives that are broken with those that remain. We’ve seen our brave soldiers be killed or captured, and some of our innocent hostages rescued or redeemed. We’ve seen families destroyed by death, individual lives - especially women - forever damaged by traumatic experiences, and new babies born to mums who have lost husbands, and into an increasingly challenging world. We’ve seen the joy of weddings and of individuals coming together exist alongside the pain of funerals and of lives torn apart. 

And across the Diaspora, we’ve seen protests of hate directed against Jews alongside acts of love and generosity by Jews for their brothers and sisters in Israel, and from non-Jews towards Jews in the Diaspora. We have learnt, in a more painful way than at any other time in my life, how things that are broken can coexist with things that are whole. We shouldn't have to experience suffering alongside joy, but perhaps, that is, and has always been, the Jewish way. 

As Rabbi Finkelstein suggests, we would be wise not to banish the memories of 7th October and the weeks and months since from our minds. To be honest, that would be impossible anyway. Instead, they will become a chapter in a larger story. As the survivors of the Nova music festival massacre said, in words that have become a motto of the Israeli people, “we will dance again.” 

The Menorah

The second item of particular interest was the Menorah, the six branched candelabra that stood in the Mishkan. We are told that the Menorah was to be made of “pure gold” and that: 

Its base and shaft, cups, knobs, and flowers shall be hammered from a single piece… The knobs and their branches shall be of one piece with it, the whole of it a single, hammered piece of pure gold… (Exodus 25: 31 & 36)

There is an obvious question one can ask about the Menorah. Why did it need to be hammered from a single piece of gold? Surely it would have served its purpose just as well had it been welded together from multiple pieces? What is the symbolism behind this particular aspect of the Menorah?

One answer, relevant throughout Jewish history but especially today, is that the Menorah symbolises the relationship the Jewish people have with one another. There is a well-known Jewish saying that Am echad b’lev echad, “we are one people with one heart”. No matter where we are in the world, we are connected. This can be physically through family relationships or at a more spiritual level. When one of us cries, we all feel the pain. It has certainly felt this way since the 7th October. The trauma being experienced is not Israel’s alone; it is deeply felt throughout the Jewish people.  

A second answer, connected to the first, is again about unity. Like the individual branches of the Menorah, as Jews we may live in different places, believe different things politically, observe different things religiously (or not observe anything at all). In Judaism we seek diversity and unity, not uniformity. Even the furthest outer branches of the Menorah remain connected to the whole, making their individual contribution to a collective light. That is a powerful symbol of who the Jewish people are. 

A third answer builds on the second. The individual branches are not just part of the whole. They are intrinsically connected to the central shaft. Jews are not just connected to each other. Each of us is connected to the State of Israel in a deeply meaningful and powerful way, whether directly through the way we live our lives, or indirectly in terms of how others perceive the Jewish people to be. Israel is the focal point of our faith, the land to which we travelled, where the dreams of creating a homeland, both ancient and modern, became a reality. That is why the branches are born out of the central shaft, the central light to which all others turn.

Yet there is a broader explanation about the Menorah that is particularly relevant today. Rabbi Sacks brilliantly explains this through the concept of “servant leadership”. In an essay commenting on the Torah portion of Korach, he points out how the famous buildings of the ancient world - the Mesopotamian ziggurats and Egyptian pyramids - were more than just buildings. As he writes:

They were statements in stone of a hierarchical social order. They were wide at the base and narrow at the top. At the top was the King or Pharaoh – at the point, so it was believed, where heaven and earth met. Beneath was a series of elites, and beneath them the labouring masses. This was believed to be not just one way of organising a society but the only way… Some are born to rule, others are born to be ruled.

This is the way of the modern authoritarian and dictatorial regimes. They are narrow at the top. Think of Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s, and think of the leadership of Hamas in Gaza since it gained control of the territory in 2007 until today. The small rule with an iron fist and with terror over the many. Minority rules. That is how, over a span of 16 years, a network of terror tunnels, larger in size and distance than the London Underground network, can be built at least 25 metres below Gaza by the Hamas leadership whilst the Palestinian people are left to suffer with little aid, infrastructure or support. 

Says Rabbi Sacks:

Judaism is a protest against this kind of hierarchy. Every human being, not just the king, is in the image and likeness of God. Therefore no one is entitled to rule over any other without their assent. There is still a need for leadership, because… without government, a nation would lapse into anarchy… In a social order in which everyone has equal dignity in the eyes of Heaven, a leader does not stand above the people. They serve the people, and they serve God. The great symbol of biblical Israel, the Menorah, is an inverted pyramid or ziggurat, broad at the top, narrow at the base.

The modern State of Israel, whose national emblem carries the Menorah, is certainly not perfect, but it is definitely a modern liberal democracy. It has free and fair elections - some would even say too often. It has a free press. It has an independent judiciary - and the enormous protests that took place before the 7th October, almost splitting the country in two attest to the importance the Israeli people place on that.

Am Yisrael Chai

The light of the Menorah is a light that has shone brightly since the days of the Mishkan and remains so today in the form of the State of Israel. The faith in God symbolised by the two sets of tablets that were placed in the Ark in the days of the Mishkan can still be found in the Jewish people, despite the moments of suffering and trauma that have occurred throughout our history and continue today. 

Our light, our faith, will not - will never - be extinguished. No matter who tries to do so, wherever they are in the world. That is one of the many lessons contained within this week’s Torah portion of Terumah, and it is one lesson the world needs to hear.

Shabbat shalom.