Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

Sacred space

In Terumah, this week’s parashah, the Israelites are commanded to construct the Tabernacle (משכן/mishkan), the predecessor to the Temple, as a dwelling place/ושכנתי (veshakhanti) for God: ‘They shall make Me a sacred space (מקדש/mikdash)’.

From biblical times to the present, we hear and speak of sacred space.

At the ‘Burning Bush’, Moshe is told that he is standing on ‘sacred ground’(אדמת קודש/admat kodesh). The Temple, on ‘My sacred mountain’ (הר קדשי/har kadshi) is called the ‘sacred house’ (בית המקדש/beit hamikdash) and Jerusalem, in which it is centered, is the ‘sacred city’ (עיר הקודש/Ir hakodesh in Hebrew, and القدس‎ the ‘sacred one’ in Arabic).

At the same time, the Prophet Isaiah, in the name of God, questions why we seek to circumscribe God in a sacred space: “Thus says the Lord: ‘The heavens are My throne and the earth my footstool, what house can you possibly build (to contain) Me and what place (to delimit) where I might rest’.”

With the destruction of the Temple, the Sacred House, God’s prescription providing for the divine presence within a sacred space, that is found in our parashah, is conceived anew.

‘They shall make for Me a sacred space (מקדש/mikdash), and I will dwell within them’.  It says ‘within them’ and not ‘within it’; teaching that every individual is to create god’s in-dwelling within himself”.

This reading of the Kotsker rebbe, reflecting an earlier Rabbinic tradition, radically translates the divine indwelling from sacred space to sacred being.

The question is no longer where is God, but where are we?