Refining our Life Energy

This week’s Torah portion is Terumah, which means portion or contribution. It also means lifting up or separation. Terumah contains God’s request for the Israelites to give a freewill offering of materials needed for the construction of the Tabernacle, the portable site of worship and sacrifice that the Israelites carried with them in the wilderness. All the many detailed instructions for building it are also in this portion. Toward the beginning of the portion the text reads: "V’asa li mikdash v’shachanti b’tocham." Rashi translates this as: “they shall make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them.” (Ex. 25:5) This can also be translated, they shall make for me holiness and I shall dwell within them.

There is a long rabbinic tradition that we are the place of holiness, that we should make a dwelling place in our hearts for God’s Presence to lodge there. There is a line in Deuteronomy that says, “But God has taken you, and brought you out of the iron crucible, out of Egypt, to be for God a people of inheritance, as you are this day.” (4:20) A crucible is used to refine metal. The metal is melted in the crucible and the impurities are poured off, leaving only the pure substance. The Torah is telling us that we were taken out of Egypt to refine, to purify ourselves. A crucible also is the place where what was hard becomes soft. This can be a metaphor for ego, which the Torah describes as being stiff-necked: intractable and resistant to change. We know that the priests had to purify themselves before they could approach the holy areas and holy furniture of the Tabernacle. The people had to purify themselves for three days before they could hear God speak the Ten Commandments to them; and Moses had to purify himself for six days before he could enter the cloud on Mt. Sinai and dwell with God’s Presence for 40 days and nights. So in order for us to experience God’s Presence in our lives, we are being asked to undergo purification too. The Zohar (I: 88b) tells us, “…when a person exerts himself to purify himself and to draw near to God, then the Shekinah rests on him.”

How is purification accomplished? The Tabernacle, as a place for sacrifice, always involved confession and atonement. So this is the first step: recognizing and acknowledging our faults: all the things we could have done better, all the things we did wrong. Rabbi Schneur Zalman, as quoted by Rabbi Shachter Shalomi, (Wrapped in a Holy Flame P. 195) wrote, “in this arousing of mercies following the contrition, evil and the other side are no longer nurtured from the life energy.” But there is a next step. The Chassidic masters spoke about three realms of action: thought, word, and deed. Our actions are probably the easiest of the three to purify. We can set about doing the right thing and try to carry that out. Words are harder: we slip and say things we shouldn’t say. We become annoyed and answer too quickly. We forget to take the time to be gentle with each other. Rabbi Gelberman wrote: “A word is an outer symbol of an inner feeling.” This shows us that the real work of purification should concern our thoughts.

There is an inner fine-ness that we are capable of achieving, stemming from the love and real compassion we can feel for others and for the Divine. Rebbe Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev wrote, “One should never think evil thoughts for in the mind of each individual is the holy of holies.” (Soul of the Torah, P. 154) This fine-ness is something to be sought, because as we journey toward it, the change in us activates change above, as the Zohar says,( I:77b) “…whoever makes an effort to purify himself receives assistance from above…for the upper world is not stirred to act until an impulse is given from the lower world. ” As we strive for inner purity, inner fineness we will find many levels and opportunities because we are shown the areas inwardly, that we are expected to tackle. The Apter Rebbe, Abraham Joshua Heschel of Apt wrote, God will communicate with the Jewish people in their closed, private, and protected selves, in the deepest depths of their hearts.

This is what spiritual striving is all about: the burning desire for union with the beloved Divine, that which poet Chaviva Pedaya expressed in this way: “One thing have I asked and it I seek: Your dwelling in me…”(Women’s Torah Commentary (P. 472). Our task is to lift ourselves up, by refining our life energy, our thoughts, words, and deeds, to make a dwelling place for God’s Presence. Just because we are human, we are capable of achieving it, not for its own sake, but to heal and help, to be a gift and experience God’s gifts. This is what all kabbalah is about: the thirst for spiritual love, and even ecstasy, that can be experienced when we make for God holiness, that the Divine may dwell within us.