Terumah
How do we touch infinity?
Reflection by Ariel Hendelman:
“This week’s Torah portion, titled Terumah, means `donation` or `contribution.` It refers to the various and nuanced contributions made in service of the building of the Mishkan (the tabernacle).
After the awe-inspiring expansion of mystic encounter at the foot of Mount Sinai, we are faced with the shock of the material – an inventory of metals, wools, woods, skins, oils, spices, and stones, all culminating in the Divine demand, `Let them make for me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them` (Ex. 25:8).
This is the unspoken covenant of the Jewish people – we create dedicated space, and then the Infinite dwells within it. We see this in our meditation practice. We make space inside by allowing the mind to settle; allowing thoughts to rise and pass like waves in the ocean, inhabiting the great expanse of our inner being. In this way, we become a sanctuary for the Divine to dwell.
In the words of Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg*, `The secret of the Mishkan is to be a version of Mount Sinai that they can carry with them on their travels…The Mishkan is to provide a solution to the problem of retaining Revelation – how is Sinai to remain with them, part of them, central to them?`
The answer is simply that Sinai never leaves. Sinai is now embedded in our collective experience. In mythic time, we are continually standing at Sinai right here and now.
For many who are beginners to meditation, there is an assumption that the practice is trying to eradicate thoughts altogether in order to attain enlightenment for the practitioner. As you deepen in your practice, you come to understand that neither of these goals are possible in an absolute sense. Through sustained practice, however, we find pockets of peaceful stillness in between thoughts that feel like arms stretched out to hold us, and experience blissful realizations of an endlessly loving consciousness that is there at the center of all.
In the Mishkan of mythic time that we build and rebuild each day, a moment can last forever."
* The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus