By Rabbi Abraham Unger, Ph.D.
Executive Director
This Week’s Torah Portion
Spiritual Beauty
We live in an age of informality. “Dressing down” and casualness are a cultural norm, and that has seeped into our religious lives. The Torah though has a different perspective. This week’s Shabbat Torah reading emphasizes the detail and formal structure of the aesthetic side of faith. We learn of every ornament, every finely crafted object, used in the traveling Tabernacle in the desert, and intended as the design blueprint of the Jerusalem Temple. There is nothing casual about the place where Divine worship takes place.
As G-d states in the Torah, “They [the Jewish People] must make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst.” Rashi explains that means the Children of Israel were commanded to make a separate, or holy, space for prayer. Indeed, the very next verse of the Torah uses the word “form” when delving into the details of the Tabernacle’s design. We will soon be provided with the details of the religious service itself, in all its wondrous formality.
Our tradition is teaching us that true spirituality – reaching inward – starts with outward dignity and effort in decorum. Praying in a beautiful space, acting as a true servant of the Divine Law, requires a kind of formality. Not a stuffy aloofness, but a dignified honor befitting someone worthy of sharing in holy space. Just think of the magnificence of the Bet HaMikdash, the Jerusalem Temple, of which every synagogue is a miniature version, and every worshiper a participant in its spiritual purpose.
Weekly Parenting Message from the Parsha
Rights and Responsibility
We live in a society that speaks the language of rights. Indeed, it is a longstanding tradition of Western civilization to argue for the rights of the individual. However, Judaism starts from a different vantage point. While we all certainly have the natural right to pursue our potential according to the Torah’s ethos, the Bible and Talmud emphasize our responsibilities more than our rights. There is a vast literature comparing this stress on duty instead of expectation in classic Jewish teaching.
I think of this becuase of the opening of this week’s Shabbat Torah portion. It references the mandate to give charity to the community’s projects. However, Jewish law also states that even those in poverty should give tzedaka, charity. The sages of our tradition suggest it is a fundamental human responsibility that everyone offer something, and even more so, view themselves with a dignity that speaks to the honor of being a contributing member of society.
This is a core foundation of the Jewish perspective on parenting. We are advised to teach our children that responsibility runs deep. It is an integral part of what it means to be an individual. Each of us is obligated to provide for the other. No one is exempt from a role in the public square. After all, society is really just made up of people, such as you and I, linked together to form a whole. That goodness of the whole depends on the character we each bring to the table. Indeed, the next generation will be the community of tomorrow.