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God is in the Building.

This week’s Torah portion is parshat Terumah. One of my very favorite Torah portions.  It is important because God instructs Moses to tell the Israelites to build the Tabernacle in the desert. This would become the place God would dwell.  But the Torah portion is very interesting because we assume we are building God’s home on earth.  But the Hebrew tells another story.  It tells us that God will dwell in our midst.  Not in it.  Thus the very project of building together. Of creating together is the place where the Divine dwells.  Not really in the Tabernacle.  This should teach us an important lesson that in our world we find God in the midst of action and creation.  We find God when we cooperate and collaborate together in a larger design, in building something that stand for goodness and holiness.

Perhaps this should be our approach to our world.  When we build a world filled with love as my friend and teacher Rabbi Menachem Creditor sings, Olam Chesed Yibaneh, this is really what God wants of us.  This is the example in this week’s Torah portion. We ought to strive for this together.