Parshat Terumah is one of those Torah portions people either love or hate. It mostly describes the the construction of the mishkan – the traveling Temple the Jews carried in the desert – as well as the holy vessels and alters. For those interested in practicalities, there are all sorts of debates to be had over exactly where the flowers were placed on the menorah and what a tachash skin even is. (Excellent discussion on the Tachash can be found in Rabbi Slifkin’s Sacred Monsters which is not this weeks book, but could have been!). For those more interesting in information relevant to the modern day world, this can seem like some pretty out of touch reading.
Personally, I don’t think anything in the Torah is unworthy of our attention, since there is always new meaning to be had, even when we are discussing the building of a gold plated wooden ark for use in the desert thousands of years ago. Some Jews believe that with the coming of the Messiah there will be another Temple. There are entire organizations devoted to figuring out if animal sacrifice will still be a thing, and if so, how in the world are we supposed to come up with that much livestock on short notice? Others think of the Temple more metaphorically, as a state of mind or place of peace for humanity to aspire to. Some, like Yishai Sarid, write an entire book about a fictional future featuring said temple. Not surprisingly, the book is named The Third Temple, and it is translated by Yardenne Greenspan for those who need to read it in English.
It’s fun to think about the what ifs of the future, and The Third Temple certainly provides a thought provoking warning. It’s a story both familiar and new. We’ve seen sons named Jonathan dealing with the fallout of their powerful father’s sacrilege before (if you haven’t, do not despair. We’ll get there when we read the prophets). We’ve also seen governmental leaders try to weaken or disband the supreme court in a variety of countries in recent days. Sarid mashing these things together, and adding his own unique flavor, with an entire temple thrown into the mix, produces a story that makes one think deeply about tradition and what exactly we are to do with the passages of the Bible that might seem outdated. How would we practice if we had full autonomy? How much should we be taking forward? How much faith in God is needed to stop a person from becoming a tyrant? The purpose of the mishkan was not just to show everyone that the God of the Jews has cool stuff just like all the other Gods. It was for God to dwell in our midst, so that we might never seek to put ourselves above them. If I was in charge, I’d vote that we could forget the animal sacrifice, and remember the humility.