Can Humans be Divine? - Parshat Terumah (Shemot 25:1-27:19)

Some concepts I just don’t understand. The idea of God fitting himself into a Mishkan is beyond my ability to understand. And I'm actually okay with that. I know that there are things which I don’t understand. Im not talking about calculus either, although maybe even that. This concept is much higher. But it is really okay (mostly).

So what’s the deal with the Mishkan? We were asked to build a sanctuary in the desert for God.1 If we can't understand how God can fit Himself into a small room, how can we possibly relate to it? The Sfat Emet, quoting a Midrash, says that God actually asked for us to build the Mishkan – this reflects the version in the Torah saying that God commanded us to build the Mishkan. He continues to explain that when we are asked to build a house for God, we are actually being asked to elevate ourselves and our deeds to the highest level we can. We obviously cannot reach a divine level, but we can reach a higher human level. How high we go is dependent on us. The Mishkan then is not for Him. It is for us.

We are not gods. Nor are we even angels. But we are human and as such have the ability to live differently than we have until now. And that choice is ever present no matter what has happened until now.

In the Holocaust, people were aghast at the ability of the Nazis to create such a massive program of murder and genocide. How low humanity had sunk.  Doctor Viktor Frankl however, noted, that "We have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips."2

The level of humanity we reach is within our grasp. We can build gas chambers or a Mishkan.

We can be as close to divine as we choose.

 

*image by jdblack on pixabay

Notes

  1. Shemot 25:8-9
  2. Frankl, Viktor E.. Man's Search for Meaning (p. 134). Beacon Press.

 

Have A Great Shabbat!laughing

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