Parashat T’rumah – Making space for holiness
Rabbi Adi Cohen
When we set up our synagogue’s social hall for Pesach, a few years ago, I was standing in the middle of the empty space before the tables and chairs were placed. One of our members asked me, “Rabbi, how are we going to fill this place?” I said, “We already did. With faith and intention.” It is a joy that our Pesach Seder night is booked out, year after year.
That is how Jewish spaces become sacred, with meaning, presence, and Kavanah (intention). “Let them bring Me gifts from everyone whose heart moves them…” (Exodus 25:2). The Israelites are invited to build the Mishkan, a portable sanctuary through generosity and passion.
God promises: “let them make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.” (Ex. 25:8). Not “within it”, but among them. Holiness resides in relationships, the shared effort, the act of co-creation.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l noted that Parashat T’rumah marks the moment when a group of former slaves becomes a community of builders. This is where we begin to belong by building and shaping a sacred space with our own hands.
We see this truth on daily basis. Members who comes early to set tables and chairs for a Kidush. A young adult who volunteers to help in the kitchen. Friends of the congregation who donates honey for Rosh HaShannah. Each act is a T’rumah, an offering of the heart.
Rabbi Elyse Goldstein teaches that the Mishkan was revolutionary because it was the first Jewish space not defined by hierarchy, but by participation. Everyone had something to bring. And so it is today. You do not need to be fluent in Hebrew or born into tradition to help build the Mishkan.
You just need a generous heart and a willingness to show up.
Parashat T’rumah is about building and belonging. This is especially important for those in our community who have been made to feel peripheral. The Mishkan is God’s answer to the question: Do I matter here?. The answer is: Yes, bring what only you can offer.
To support Am Yisrael, the Jewish people, in all their diversity and complexity, is to say: We will not be passive observers of Jewish life. We will be its builders.
May our offering be received with love, and may we create sacred space where every soul belongs.
Judaism (Hebrew: יַהֲדוּת, romanized: Yahăḏūṯ) is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people.[9][10][11] Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of observing the Mosaic covenant, which they believe was established between God and the Jewish people.[12][13] The religion is considered one of the earliest monotheistic religions.
Judaism as a religion and culture is founded upon a diverse body of texts, traditions, theologies, and worldviews. Among Judaism’s core texts are the Torah (Biblical Hebrew: תּוֹרָה, lit. ’Teaching’), the Nevi’im (נְבִיאִים, ‘Prophets’), and the Ketuvim (כְּתוּבִים, ‘Writings’), which together compose the Hebrew Bible. In Modern Hebrew, the Hebrew Bible is often referred to as the Tanakh (תַּנַ׳׳ךּ, Tanaḵ)—an acronym of its constituent divisions—or the Miqra (מִקְרָא, Miqrāʾ, ‘[that which is] called out’). The Hebrew Bible has the same books as Protestant Christianity’s Old Testament, with some differences in order and content.
