From the Bima Blog

God is in the Details - Shabbat T’rumah 2024

When I was a little girl, I loved building model train sets with my father. I would hang around near him and he would let me glue the roof on a tiny house or help paint the train depot a very deep shade of emerald green.  At first, I think I mostly wanted to be close to him. As I got older, I began to build on my own, model cars and airplanes. I could get lost for hours, focused only on the proper placement of the wings or ensuring the car’s brick red hood color was just like the color in the instructions. I loved the details and being immersed in them.

This week’s Torah portion, T’rumah, is about very specific details and very exact instructions for building the Mishkan, or Tabernacle, God’s portable dwelling place among the people. This sacred space, as envisioned by the Torah, was not exactly a house for God and not exactly a worship space and probably not intended for community meetings. More like an elaborate, expensive, beautiful guarantee of God’s constant presence. That was also full of furniture and tapestries and cooking vessels and clothing. And did I mention the Mishkan was supposed to be portable? That it had to be constructed and deconstructed every day?

Reading this portion today, the little girl who could get lost in model train sets and airplanes is delighted. Questions flood my mind as I imagine what I might need to build a modern version of the Mishkan. Would I use copper and gold and fine linen like the Israelites? What exactly would the right tool be for cubits, the measurement used by our ancestors to create the Aron, the holy Ark, which lived inside the Mishkan. And can the craft supply store Michael’s special order dolphin skins, the most outlandish material requested by God for the ancient dwelling. Also, while I’m thinking about it, where the heck did the Israelites get dolphin skins while wandering in the desert?

The adult in me envies the focus the Israelites had to build this magnificent holy dwelling space that likely lived only in their imagination. Scholarship suggests that the structure detailed in this portion and the remaining chapters of Exodus probably never existed. But wow, how wonderful to even set aside the hours, days, weeks, months, okay probably years to dream about the Mishkan, to consider how exactly we Israelites might build God’s dwelling place if we were so bold to imagine we could and should build it. To spend precious time figuring out the specific materials and exact measurements of this house, its elaborate decorations and detailed furnishings. The place the ancient Israelites wanted (or maybe needed) for the remarkable religion they practiced, and we inherited.

I’m honestly not sure we could do this sort of exercise today. Do we ever really give ourselves the time to sit and imagine like our ancestors? To luxuriate in an idea that may or may not ever come to fruition. To dwell in the important details instead of moving as quickly as possible. To slowly and deliberately pay attention to even the tiniest spark of an idea.

But friends, there is a very important lesson to be found in these exacting details. And we’ve missed it all too often because we skip over it with falsehoods like ‘we’re too busy’ or ‘we don’t have time right now’ or ‘details don’t really matter.’ As I read these verses this week, really read them, allowed myself time to take them in and imagine what a difference they could make if I gave them my undivided focus, I found that they actually matter so very much. The little things are what make a project extraordinary. Careless mistakes because we are moving too fast add up. We need to go slow, pay attention, cut once but measure twice.

T’rumah illustrates so clearly that God dwells in the details – in the ancient Mishkan with its specific measurements and colorful tapestries and patterned furnishings – and in our modern version of this Mishkan – beautiful, cozy, welcoming spaces filled with excellent coffee, delicious snacks and warm greetings of each person by name. And it takes real time – sometimes more than we think we have – to build these most important little things into the fabric of our community.

One of T’rumah’s most famous verses teaches: 

וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם

V’asu li mikdash, v’shachanti b’tocham. 

And let them make Me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them.[1]

If we desire to build today’s Mishkan, a place for God to dwell among us as we create and recreate our community, we must concern ourselves with attention to the details. Without them we are messy and lost and unconnected, spending our valuable time always cleaning up instead of imagining the possibilities. Details matter. And so do the systems we create to hold those details, like updated databases and clear communications and excellent organizational processes that support every member or potential member of this beloved community. We should make time for those as well.

Friends, let us take a page from our creative stories and learn to linger a little longer in the ideas. Let us open our imagination and make space to consider our wildest dreams and hopes for the Jewish today and tomorrow. Let us build something bright and colorful and elaborate. One that guarantees God’s presence and our continuity by making space for our most precious community details, those found deeply embedded in our sacred relationships with one another. 

Kein Yihi Ratzon. May this be God’s will.