Human Being or Human Doing? The Torah’s Radical Answer (Parshat Terumah) | Land of Israel Fellowship

Okay guys, so we are going into the portion of Tuma, the portions of the tabernacle. Huge amount of details, but there's one word that keeps jumping out at us. It's the word vasita and you should make and you know I read I read this great comparison somewhere. Uh it's like imagine that you're making a shopping list. It says this this phrase this word in Hebrew to make. you should make this and make that vessel and that vessel and make that and that and that and that. It says it like in the coming portion something like 200 times the exact same word. That's a lot of times. And I read somewhere it's like imagine that you're making a shopping list for the supermarket. Do you write buy milk, buy eggs, buy cream, buy fruits? No. You would write by colon milk, eggs, you know, bananas, and you write that. You don't have to write each time buy this, buy that. Why couldn't the Torah just say to us, make the tabernacle. Here's what you got to make. Number one, number two, number three, number four. Why does he keep saying make this, make that? It's like it's trying to draw our attention to this word. You know the one of the famous translators, one of the famous German translators of the Bible actually tried to jazz these portions up in his translation because it was so repetitive. He tried to sprinkle like different synonyms for the word for the phrase to make try to like sprinkle different words to make it sound better as if you're going to make Hashem's word sound better. It's not by accident that Hashem didn't like, you know, didn't for forget his thesaurus at the library and not know how to say other words. He is drawing our attention to this word. Literally hundreds of times. Why? So when do we hear this word first in the Bible? Obviously in Genesis it says God made this and God made that. And then at the end when there's Shabbat in Genesis uh chapter 2 right in the beginning it says then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work which God had created. So it says in this translation and made but that's not that that's a translation that's trying to get around the actual Hebrew words. The actual Hebrew word said which God had created to make. What does that mean created to make? Why do you need to say created and made? Created to make. There's a purpose here. What does it mean that God created to make? This is like the summary of creation. God created it to make. So, a lot of Bible stories are going to come until we finally get to our portion and understand what it is. Meaning, there was all of this creating in Genesis, but what was it for? God made all of this creation to make for it's it's like it's telling you there's a purpose to creation and it's in and it's hidden in this word vasita to make to make something. God created the world in order for us to be making and doing. Um you know what what is when you think about creation in its essence what was God doing? God was making a vessel for us to be able to reside in his world. What is the full circle? How does that how does that kind of come into its fruition? Is it not for us to make a vessel for God to dwell in our world? Because Hashem is essentially the wholeness of everything and fills everything. He draws himself back and makes a vessel, a space for little us, for little us to exist in. He sets aside this space and makes a little world with light and grass growing grain to make bread and winged creatures and separations so that we little us can exist in the world. And to what end? To just exist? God gives us the opportunity to have this doing that creating. And what do we create? a vessel for God with lights, with separations between different compartments, with bread made out of grain, with a sink for water to to be to be gathered into, with winged creatures in the Holy of Holies. It's like our ultimate use of our consciousness and our human capabilities is to make a vessel in our midst for God to dwell in us. That is the ultimate completion of creation. And pay attention that when we read about the dedication of the tabernacle, how many days does it take? It takes seven days to make the tabernacle and then the eighth day that's the dedication, right? It's like it's like adding a day on creation. This is the completion like God gave us the seven and we're adding the final level. So, you know, there's these words of like doing doing and maybe there's a message here. You know, Jeremy sometimes looks at me like running around doing doing and he's always like maybe take a little break. You're always running around and doing things. Are you a human being or a human doing? Because you don't really act like a human being. You act like a human doing. So, you know, I think the question is in some ways, well, maybe Shabbat is the time that we're meant to be human beings, but the rest of our life, we do all spend a lot of time being human doings, just doing and doing, but doing to what end? Doing. We're doing all these different things. But maybe the challenge of these portions is to ask us, what is your intention? Are you just doing for your own sake, for your frivolity, for your ego, for your for your, you know, respect or is your inner intention, whatever it is that you are doing to be building vessels for Hashem to dwell in our world because that is the way we are supposed to live. That is the true purpose of creation. And I want to finish with one last idea. You might say, "Wow, but it's so hard. How do I even know if I'm doing it right? I'm doing so much. Maybe I'm just churning water. I'm wasting my time. I might not even be doing all of this right. So, there's one interesting formulation of this word of doing in this week's portion. It's like 200 times saying you should do this. Do do. But in 2531, it says you should make the manora. But then it says it needs to be one solid piece of gold. In one solid piece it shall be made. That's a different form. up until now it was like make make do do and he says it will be made it will be done like in the it'll just be done the midash says that Moshe couldn't figure out how to make the manura cuz Hashem is saying put little flowers and little all these little decorations how do you do that in a solid piece anybody who's worked with metal you know you have to like kind of attach them how do you from one solid piece make all of these decorations without any kind of attaching of something to something it seems impossible And Hashem says, "Yes, you need to be doing, doing, doing, but don't worry when it seems like an Everest that you can't climb or it's just too much. It shall be made. It shall be done." Meaning, Hashem will make sure to fill in those gaps where we are doing our maximum. He will make sure to say, "Okay, but you got you hit a wall. You got to the place where you can't do anymore. That's where I'm going to meet you, and it also shall be done." So if you set your intention on making your life and the world around you and all of your doings directed at making a vessel for Hashem, Hashem will meet us and it shall be done. Hey, that was a highlight from this week's Land of Israel Fellowship. If you like that highlight, you'll love the Land of Israel Fellowship. Find out more on the landofisrael.com. Join our global community from over 50 countries around the world that gather together every Sunday live from Israel. Check it out on the link below. [music]