Parshas Teruma: The Foundation of a Jewish Home

“They shall make a Sanctuary for Me, then I will dwell in their midst” (Exodus 25:8)

“Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and gaze upon king Solomon, even upon the crown wherewith his mother hath crowned him in the day of his wedding, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.(Song of Songs 3:11)

“Day of his wedding” refers to the giving of Torah, and “the day of gladness of his heart” refers to the building of the Temple. (Talmud Taanis 27a)

The blessing most bestowed upon newlyweds is to merit building a home faithful to Jewish values. (bayis ne’eman biyisrael) Why is such an emphasis placed on building a Jewish home? This young couple just got married, let them be blessed with a loving and blissful marriage. Why is their introduction to married life focused on the home?

To understand the contemporary Jewish home, we must first look at the blueprint of all Jewish homes. This blueprint is found in Parshas Terumah and the subsequent five Torah portions. G-d commanded the Jewish people to build a Sanctuary as a receptacle for the Divine Presence. The Torah’s command is in the plural as a commandment to each individual. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 16b) tells us that this is also a commandment for all generations. How could each individual in every generation be commanded to build a new Temple?

The Slonimer Rebbe, Rabbi Shalom Noach Barzovsky (1911-2000), in his Torah commentary “Nesivos Shalom”, explains this commandment as both an obligation to build the original Temple, and as an additional obligation to build a sanctuary for G-d’s presence in every individual’s home for all generations. Every aspect of the Tabernacle and Temple serves as a prototype for our homes. The Talmud (Yoma 72a) informs us that the original foundation beams of the Tabernacle will be around for eternity, and will eventually be used in the Messianic era (they are hidden for the time being). What is so special about these beams?
Rabbi Shalom Schwadron in his commentary “Lev Shalom” explains that the Midrash tells us that Abraham planted trees in Be’er-Sheba, Jacob cut them down and brought them to Egypt, and the Jewish people brought them out of Egypt and used them as the beams in the Tabernacle. Abraham wanted to ensure that the Tabernacle will be built with the roots planted and watered by our ancestors. Jacob even delayed going to Egypt immediately to see his long lost son Joseph, in order to ensure the foundation for the Tabernacle will be built on the holiest foundations. That is also why the Jewish people took the beams out of Egypt with them in the dead of night. These beams survive throughout our exile because of the tremendous effort put into them. Such a foundation will surely last forever.
In building our own spiritual homes, we focus on the foundation on which we are building: our grandparents, who sacrificed everything to ensure that we remember our Jewish heritage. The home is where the religious buck stops.

Most importantly, the home is the rearing ground for the next generation. This is best represented by the cherubim who were atop of the Ark in the Holy of Holies. We are told that the cherubim in the Temple represented the highest level of connection to G-d, whereas the cherubim were also the satanic angels preventing Adam from returning to the Garden of Eden. How can the same cherubim be so drastically antithetical to each other? The cherubim had faces of children. This is teaching us an extremely important lesson. Children are very impressionable. It all depends on the atmosphere provided. If they are raised in the Holy of Holies, then they will become holy. However if they are raised at the entrance of purgatory, that's exactly where they'll end up! We must create a Holy of Holies in our homes for our children.

The following two stories show us the two extremes of the Jewish home.

When Rabbi Mordechai Gifter (1915-2001) was the rabbi in Waterbury, Connecticut, he would often host visiting Torah scholars. He would always implore them to look around his house to ensure that it remained a proper Torah house, with all the necessary trappings, and to ensure that no improper matters entered his home. Although Rabbi Gifter was one of the Torah leaders of the generation, he wanted to insure that the spiritual foundation of his home didn’t weaken over time.

A Yeshivah student, studying overseas, asked his mother in the States to deliver mishloach manos on Purim to his secular camper stricken with cancer. Being a respected communal leader, and both the daughter and the wife of very prestigious rabbis, she surrounds herself with people of her own interests, so she had no clue what as to what she was about to face. On Purim she drove over and was sure that the address was wrong. The door was still adorned with an Xmas wreath. Not to be deterred, she built up the courage to knock. She approached the door and was greeted by a dog and two cats. The camper's mother opened the door and this holy lady was in for a shock of a lifetime. She saw a huge plasma screen television with a fireplace and couches nicely arranged, but for all she knew, this could have been the McCormick residence in Ireland or the Stephanopoulos household in Greece. There was absolutely no Jewish presence whatsoever in this home! Being accustomed to the Jewish presence of Holy books, or at least some Judaica, this home had nothing identifying it as Jewish. Not even a mezuzah. She was absolutely shaken to the core for quite some time afterwards.

By definition, a Jew has a Jewish home, but it is our decision on how Jewish that home will be!

King Solomon in Song of Songs deliberately mentioned the building of the Sanctuary after mentioning receiving the Torah. The Torah which is considered the wedding is only the first step. However, without the next step of building the sanctuary the accomplishments of the wedding could easily dissipate. The Torah is a visit from G-d, but the sanctuary that we provide for the Divine presence insures that G-d remains in our midst. The Talmud (Sota 17a) tells us that a meritorious Jewish couple merits having the Divine presence among them. That is why the blessing we give a young couple is to build that home for the Divine Presence. Building such a home takes years, but the first step is to reevaluate the current state of the home, and then to plan the renovation of the future Jewish home. May we all merit renovating, rebuilding, and renewing our own Jewish homes!

-POINTS FOR DISCUSSION:
1) What (aside from the mezuzah) identifies our home as a Torah household?
2) What would we change in our home if a respected Rabbi would visit for a week?