Terumah: (Di)Visions of Holiness

Moshe has ascended Mount Sinai and is receiving instructions from God. Beginning with our parsha this week, the narrative of Sefer Shemot, the book of Exodus, shifts its focus to the building of the mishkan, the Tabernacle that will serve as God’s dwelling place as the Israelites journey in the wilderness. Shemot goes into very specific details about how this mishkan is to be built. 

Among the items in the mishkan is the parochet, the curtain which is situated between an area which is defined as kodesh--holy--and an area defined as kodesh ha’kodashim--the Holy of Holies, or Most Holy. The reason the parochet is the dividing line between these two areas--as we’ll see in the verses themselves in a moment--is because of the presence of the Ark of the Covenant behind the parochet. (For those of us visual learners, here is a helpful image.)

וְעָשִׂ֣יתָ פָרֹ֗כֶת תְּכֵ֧לֶת וְאַרְגָּמָ֛ן וְתוֹלַ֥עַת שָׁנִ֖י וְשֵׁ֣שׁ מׇשְׁזָ֑ר מַעֲשֵׂ֥ה חֹשֵׁ֛ב יַעֲשֶׂ֥ה אֹתָ֖הּ כְּרֻבִֽים׃ וְנָתַתָּ֣ה אֹתָ֗הּ עַל־אַרְבָּעָה֙ עַמּוּדֵ֣י שִׁטִּ֔ים מְצֻפִּ֣ים זָהָ֔ב וָוֵיהֶ֖ם זָהָ֑ב עַל־אַרְבָּעָ֖ה אַדְנֵי־כָֽסֶף׃ וְנָתַתָּ֣ה אֶת־הַפָּרֹ֘כֶת֮ תַּ֣חַת הַקְּרָסִים֒ וְהֵבֵאתָ֥ שָׁ֙מָּה֙ מִבֵּ֣ית לַפָּרֹ֔כֶת אֵ֖ת אֲר֣וֹן הָעֵד֑וּת וְהִבְדִּילָ֤ה הַפָּרֹ֙כֶת֙ לָכֶ֔ם בֵּ֣ין הַקֹּ֔דֶשׁ וּבֵ֖ין קֹ֥דֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִֽׁים׃

“And you shall make a curtain of indigo and purple and crimson and twisted linen, designer’s work it shall be made, with cherubim. And you shall set it on the four acacia posts overlaid with gold, their hooks gold, upon four silver sockets. And you shall set the curtain under the clasps and you shall bring there, within the curtain, the Ark of the Covenant, and the curtain shall divide for you between the Holy and the Holy of Holies.¹ (Shemot 26: 31-33)

The Meshech Chochma picks up on the importance of the differentiation between Holy and Holy of Holies. 

והבדילה הפרכת לכם בין הקדש ובין קדש הקדשים. יתכן שכוון ע"ד מה שאמר בדברי הימים ויבדל אהרן להקדישו קודש קדשים כו'. וזה שאמר כי הפרכת הוא יבדיל לכם בין הקודש ובין קודש הקדשים, שאהרן שמצוה לבוא מפנים הפרכת הוא קדש קדשים, אבל מי שהוא קדש לבד אסור לבוא מבית הפרכת, וזה שאמר והבדילה כו' לכם או והבדילה לכם, שמצד הש"י השוכן בין הכרובים אין הבדל כי הוא מלא כל הארץ כבודו רק מצדכם הוא הבדל. ודו"ק.

And the curtain shall divide for you between the Holy and the Holy of Holies. Perhaps this is according to the verse in Chronicles, “And Aharon was set apart to be consecrated for the holy of holies” (I Chronicles 23:13). This means that the curtain is that which divides between Holy and the Holy of Holies, since Aharon, who was commanded to go inside the curtain, was a Holy of Holies. However, someone who is only holy is forbidden to enter within the curtain. This is why it’s said that “the curtain shall divide for you.” Or( alternatively), it “ shall divide you” could mean that since from God’s perspective sitting between the cherubim, there is no difference at all because “the fullness of all the earth is [God’s] glory” (Yeshayahu 6:3) and only according to your perspective is the curtain a divider.

The Meshech Chochma presents us with two possibilities for what this verse could be teaching us, taking the perspective of us as human beings and the perspective of God. 

The first perspective divides between the High Priest, who is permitted to enter the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, and the remainder of the Israelites, who are only permitted to be in the Holy area outside of the Holy of Holies (here’s another helpful image). We learn this from a verse in Divrei Ha’Yamim, I Chronicles, which uses the same root for “to divide,” ב.ד.ל (known to many Jews as the root for Havdalah, הבדלה, the separation ceremony between Shabbat and the remainder of the week). Because of the use of the same root, the Meshech Chochma suggests that the division of areas of the mishkan is also a division of the Israelites. 

There is something slightly bothersome about this division in the human realm. It appears that a caste system is being created, separating who is holier than whom. 

But then, the Meshech Chochma brings an alternative. If, he says, we look at the area of the mishkan from God’s perspective, there is no difference at all. We learn in Yeshayahu, the Book of Isaiah, that “the fullness of all the earth is [God’s] glory.” If the fullness of the earth is God’s glory, then there is no difference between one area and another. It is all God’s glory, and neither a curtain nor any human-made barrier can create a division that is consequential in God’s eyes. 

There is something significant we can learn through the Meshech Chochma’s juxtaposition of the two ways to read this verse and the holiness division within it. We as human beings may erect all kinds of barriers, physical and spiritual, between us and other people. In the eyes of God, though, those barriers are invisible. The Meshech Chochma says we can read this verse as saying that the parochet is a division for you, meaning it is viewed as dividing between space for human beings, but not for God. God simply can’t tell or is uninterested in the difference.

I think there are still important outstanding questions here. If God does not distinguish between something that we see to be Holy and the Holy of Holies, what exactly does that make the space around us today? Is it all holy? Is none of it holy? Who gets to make the decisions about how to classify all that is around us?

Ultimately, maybe the answers to these questions aren’t necessary. Maybe our recognition that the entire earth is God’s is enough to help us see past the need to categorize the land around us. Holy, Most Holy, not holy. It may be difficult for us to look around our world and see borders and barriers disappear. We should keep in mind, though, that that’s already how God sees things. 

1. All translations of Tanach verses are borrowed from The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, by Robert Alter.