Parshas Trumah

If God Owns the Whole Universe, Why do I have to Give Him My Hard Earned?


“And Hashem spoke to Moshe to say: “Speak to the Bnei Yisroel and take for me trumoh, from each man whose heart volunteers him take my trumoh”” Shemos 25:1-2

“And make for me a Mikdosh, and I will dwell amongst you.” Shemos 25:8


Hashem tells Moshe to take building materials from any one who volunteers them.

After telling him this, He tells him to build a Mikdosh and Hashem will thus dwell amongst Bnei Yisroel.

Onkelos translates Trumoh as a separating; the posuk says that anyone who wants to donate should “separate a separating.” This repetition could indicate that this donation has to be actively separated – there has to be an action of separation, and that once separated, the materials have to be set aside for their holy purpose.

The word Mikdosh is a derivation of Kodesh, “holy” or literally, set aside, (Something holy is set aside for holy purposes).
Rashi explains the phrase, “And make for me a Mikdosh” as meaning “Make in my name a holy/separated house”. Thus, once a “house”, set aside for godly purposes, is made for Hashem, then he will dwell amongst us.

Why without a Mikdosh will Hashem refrain from dwelling amongst us?
Why do the contributions have to be volunteered? Moshe had the status of King over the Jewish People in the desert; he could have raised a tax to acquire the required materials!

I should like to suggest by means of an answer, that to build a sanctuary for God in this world and allow His Shechinah to dwell amongst us, (in whatever sense that means – we talk about Shechinah a lot but that doesn’t make it a simple concept), will result in great closeness to Him. To achieve a sense of closeness to any person, requires a will to do so. All the more so, to achieve this sense of closeness to Hashem, who’s so beyond our comprehension, needs a will on our part. To attempt to cause Him to “dwell” amongst us in this world with a compulsory tax, extracted from everybody against their will can’t work! Therefore the materials had to be donated; a will had to be there on the part of Bnei Yisroel.

Rabbi Shmuel Birenbaum (of blessed memory – Rosh Yeshiva of Mir in America) explains in B’krai Shmoi why the request for contributions preceded the command to build a Mikdosh and the explanation of what that Mikdosh will result in. Were the whole nation to know for what a great purpose they were donating from their hard earned wealth, this may allow ulterior motives to creep into the giving. A request for donations “from the heart” will ensure that only love of God will motivate the givers.

R’ Shmuel uses this to demonstrate the greatness of the act of building the Mishkon; the whole of the heavens and the Earth can’t provide a dwelling for His Shechinah and yet in our parsha Hashem instructs Moshe to do just that! Not only this, but it has to be funded by people giving away the booty which they had traveled across Egypt and the shore of the Yam Suf to collect, for an unknown purpose, in the name of Hashem!

I think that this can also be used to develop my answer above; that the donations were to be motivated purely by an expression of love for Hashem.


Note:
(The Brisker Rov also deals with why the materials had to be donated before the commandment of building the Mikdosh.
The Halocho is that the Mikdish has to be built with communal funds, belonging to the whole of Klal Yisroel, by the whole of the nation. Therefore the materials had to be donated by the respective individuals to the communal funds, then sanctified and used for the building).



A (very) brief biography of HaRav Shmuel Birnbam can be found at my other blog, Jewish Fundamentalim.

Jewishfundamentalim.blogspot.com

(See link in links box)