Friday, February 23, 2007

DVAR TORAH S2: Terumah ("What if God were one of us?")

This must be short as I am about to drive up to Palm Springs for Shabbos to celebrate my Sabbah's second Bar Mitzvah. However the topic I am going to start requires much more than the little time I am able to provide right now, so I will merely lay the groundwork for something I plan on, bli neder, continuing when I get back to LA on Sunday.

It is hard to glean expoundable gems from the torah portions for, say, three more months, until we get to Bamidbar (with some exceptions). But there is one line that is a red flag: Build me a Mikdash so that I may dwell in it". Whoa! We try to deanthropomorphize our transcendent God, but it is hard to remedy with a bombshell like this. Does God need a place to dwell (see book of Kings where God asks the very same question)? Or is it for us that God decides to have a centralized place for worship? So this is something you can discuss this Shabbos and I will get back to it when I get back.


Shabbat Shalom,
Matt

1 comment:

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