"I Shall Dwell in their Midst"
Student Summaries of Sichot of the Roshei Yeshiva
Yeshivat
Har Etzion
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Yeshivat Har
Etzion invites you
to join us for its Annual Dinner
which will be
held Tuesday, March 21st
at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in
NYC.
Rabbi Ari
Berman - Rabbinic Tribute Award
Dr. Mark and Brenda Gardenswartz - Parents
of the Year
Elana Stein and
Tova Warburg Sinensky - first American alumnae
of the Stella K. Abraham Beit Midrash for Women in Migdal
Oz,
Yeshivat Har
Etzion Classes of 1985 and 1986
For more
information contact the NY office at [email protected] or call
1212-732-4874
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Dedicated
in memory of Matt Eisenfeld z"l and Sara Duker z"l whose 10th
yahrzeit is this motzaei Shabbat. Though their lives were tragically cut
short their memory continues to inspire. Yehi zikhram
barukh.
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PARASHAT
TERUMA
SICHA
OF HARAV AHARON LICHTENSTEIN SHLIT"A
"I
Shall Dwell in their Midst"
Summarized by
Shaul Barth
Translated by
Kaeren Fish
"Let them make
Me a Sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst." The Rishonim debate the
purpose of the Mishkan. Rambam maintains that the Mishkan
offers optimal closeness to God, and is a special place dedicated to His
worship. Ramban, on the other hand,
argues that the Mishkan is a continuing symbol of the revelation at Sinai
and the acceptance of the Torah. In
order to verify Ramban's approach, we must investigate whether the
characteristics which lent the events at Sinai their unique nature, existed in
the Mishkan and the Temple, too; this will clarify whether the
Mishkan indeed symbolizes a return to that awesome experience at the foot
of Mount Sinai.
When we examine
the revelation at Mount Sinai, we see that its most significant feature is the
attainment by Am Yisrael, at its finest hour, of the greatest possible
measure of closeness to God. This
closeness is characterized by two seemingly contradictory aspects, which in
truth complement each other.
The Midrash
(Shir Ha-shirim Rabba 6:3) recounts that, with each Commandment that
issued from God, the souls of Israel departed, and were returned to them for the
next Commandment. Clearly, when the
midrash speaks of their souls "leaving them," it does not mean merely that they
fainted. Rather, they experienced a
desire for absolute cleaving to God a sense of such powerful yearning for
closeness that each and every Jew was elevated to the extent that his or her
soul could no longer exist within the body, and it departed: "My soul departed
as He spoke" (Shir Ha-shirim 5:6).
In contrast,
the Gemara (Shabbat 88b) tells us that with each and every Commandment,
Bnei Yisrael moved twelve mil backwards. Why, at their greatest moment, would
Am Yisrael distance themselves to the very outskirts of the camp? This
seemingly puzzling retreat is, in fact, an expression of the greatness of Am
Yisrael at this most auspicious time.
The feeling that led the nation, on the one hand, to come close to God
and to cleave to Him – a desire that, in its highest form, caused their souls to
depart, so intense was their desire and love – was accompanied by an opposite
yet complementary feeling: awe of God and His greatness, which moved them to
distance themselves.
These two
emotions – love and awe – characterize every person in the course of his or her
coming close to God. When they
prevail simultaneously, they are the best possible reflection and expression of
the situation in which man, finite and mortal, encounters the immortal God Who
"fills all worlds."
This feeling –
which so typified the revelation at Sinai – was experienced again, in a somewhat
diminished form, in the Mikdash, which was indeed intended to re-enact the
experience of receiving the Torah.
The Gemara (Yoma 54a) describes that the two poles on the sides of
the Ark in the Holy of Holies protruded into the curtain separating the Holy of
Holies from the Holy, looking to the kohen standing in the Holy "like a woman's
two breasts." This description, astounding in its power, tells us that when the
Kohen Gadol approached the Holy of Holies for the most intimate possible
encounter with God, he would feel such closeness to God that it could be
described only by employing imagery from the love between husband and wife. On the other hand, when the Kohen
Gadol entered the Holy of Holies, he proceeded in fear and trembling. These emotions, although opposites,
accurately express a person's feelings as he or she draws close to God. Thus, as stated, they recall the
experience of Sinai.
The
Mishkan existed not only during the course of the Jews' wanderings in the
desert, nor only in the form of the Temple in Jerusalem, but – in a certain
sense – is meant to exist within each of us, as the poem says, "Bi-levavi
Mishkan evneh," "In my heart I shall build a Sanctuary." Each one of us is
meant, in the course of his inner service of God, to come close to God and
cleave to Him. This attempt
manifests itself, in each of us, in the form of these two emotions – awe and
love. Each one of us must try to
relive the experience of Sinai within himself and to hear the voice of God. On the other hand, we know that we are
unable to do this; ultimately, we are forced to hide from God's glory and
acknowledge the distance between ourselves and Him. "Let them make Me a Sanctuary, that I
may dwell in their midst" – within each and every person.
[This sicha was
delivered on leil Shabbat parashat Teruma 5763
(2003).]