Portion of the Week / Between heaven and earth

In the opening lines of the Torah, we read: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). Heaven and earth are described as distinct entities, and they have a complex relationship indeed. For example, in the Tower of Babel story, the land reaches out toward heaven. In the story of the Flood, heaven seeks to destroy and replace the corrupt earth. When promising Abraham many descendants, God commands the patriarch to look heavenward and discern his earthly future there. In Jacob's dream, angels ascend and descend a ladder between earth and heaven. When God inflicts the plague of the firstborn on the Egyptians, he himself descends from heaven to earth to avenge the Israelites and to deal Egypt a mighty blow.

Two Sabbaths ago, we read Parashat Yitro, describing God's descent to Mount Sinai to give the law. The Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael depicts this act colorfully (Tractate Bahodesh 4): "We understand here that God bent the lower heavens and upper heavens downward so they touched the mountain's peak. God's glory descended; it was spread over the back of Mount Sinai, like a pillow propped on a bed."

In this intricate relationship between heaven and earth, the two never intermingle. At most, heaven is prepared to pay a brief "surprise visit" to earth. Thus, this week's portion is surprising: "And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them" (Exodus 25:8). Here God asks Israel to build him a home on earth, and is apparently prepared to leave heaven and dwell there.

The Midrash draws a well-detailed parallel between elements in heaven, and the instruments and items associated with the portable Tabernacle on earth. Indeed, every element in heaven has its counterpart. After enumerating these pairs, the midrash in Exodus Rabbah (part 33, section 4) continues thus: "Actually, God preferred the earthly items to the heavenly ones; he abandoned the heavenly items, it should be noted, descending to where his earthly items were located - as it is written, 'And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.'"

God attaches supreme importance to every detail in the building plan for his earthly dwelling. He tells Moses how to construct and cover the Tabernacle, and explains which instruments should be placed inside; he even specifies their precise appearance and function.

Why does God need an earthly, relatively confined home, if he fills the universe, and "the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isaiah 6:3)? First, it should be recalled that one of the divine names is Makom, place. At every stage in the Exodus and the journey to the Promised Land, the Israelites see God differently; their perception of him depends on where they are located at the time and on their capacity to comprehend God's particular image then and there. At the Red Sea, for instance, they see him as a warrior: "The Lord is a man of war" (Exodus 15:3). Before he bestows the Torah upon them at Mount Sinai, they are fearful of him: "And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel" (Exod. 24:17).

Wandering through the desert en route to Canaan, the Israelites eat the manna God sends them from heaven, and dwell in tents; they are nomads. At this stage, they see him also in the same light - as a nomad, an exile without a home. After God liberates the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, however, he does not want them to remain wanderers. He wants to lead them to the Promised Land, grant them a permanent home, give them a fixed place in the real world. He accompanies them as they journey, as it were, from the dependence of childhood to adolescence and finally to adulthood, when they enter their own land as an independent, self-sufficient nation. To change their way of thinking, God must change his own situation and image in their eyes. Only after that will the Israelites actually see him differently, and will their own self-image also change.

In the Song of Songs (5:2), the female narrator says: "I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night." The text refers to the speaker's emotional state here: Although asleep in bed, she awaits her beloved's voice.

The Midrash interprets this verse as describing the Jewish nation in the wilderness. Knesset Yisrael - the traditional rabbinical term describing the entire nation of Israel - is the woman asleep in her bed. She has forgotten God, but he, awake, remembers her, knocks on her door and calls out: "Open to me, my sister, my love, How long will I remain a nomad, without a home? How long must I wander, 'my head ... filled with dew'? Therefore, '... let them make me a sanctuary' so I will not have to spend my nights in the bitter cold outside" (Exodus Rabbah, part 3, section 3).

Thus, Knesset Yisrael is called upon to build a home for God and to open the door to allow him to enter. Only when God dwells on earth will the Israelites grasp that the goal of their wandering through the wilderness is to live in a permanent home, where they can finally rest - that existence in this world is impossible without a home. God commands them, "And let them make me a sanctuary ...": He is ready to abandon his natural place, in heaven, reducing his very being so that, for the first time since Creation, he can dwell in an earthly abode. He aims to provide an example, so the Israelites will understand the goal of their journey and realize what their final destination should be.

This progress of developing self-awareness cannot take place solely with heaven's help. For God to be able to relinquish his home in heaven and dwell on earth, the earth must act.