This week’s Torah portion begins, “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him.” (Exodus 25:1-2) Each of us has a special gift to contribute to our community. Those gifts may be money, artistic talent, organizational ability, or the time to drive someone to synagogue or adult ed. That gift may be the commitment to cook a meal for someone in need, the talent to teach our children, or the generosity of preparing a meal. Or it could be the skill to keep our myriad electronic devices functioning or making sure our building is maintained. The list is endless because we need everyone’s unique talent to sustain our congregation. A few lines later our portion continues, “And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” (Exodus 25:8) Why does the verse read, “that I may dwell among them,” rather than, “that I may dwell in it?” The answer is that holiness is found among people who are engaged with each other, not in a structure. When we each bring our special gift to build and sustain this sacred community of Temple Beth Hillel, we make a space where holiness can be found and sustained.

~Rabbi Dean

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 9:05 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.