פרשת תרומה
This week’s Parsha discusses in detail all of the guidelines of how to construct the Mishkan where God was to dwell for the next forty years. The verse says ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם – “And you will construct for me the Mishkan and I will dwell within you”. Chazal explain this grammatical discrepancy to mean that God is telling us that His presence will rest in each and every Jew personally. R’ Chaim Veloshiner explains this Chazal by saying that God is commanding each and every one of us to make ourselves into a holy place which is befitting for God to dwell.
The verse continues by saying “כל חכם לב… אשר ידבנו לבו” – only when the donations were given with a generous and complete heart were they accepted. Anything less then this was an unacceptable component in the construction of the holy Mishkan. We see from here that in order to make ourselves an appropriate receptacle for God to dwell in, we must give every aspect of our being to His service, leaving nothing back for ourselves. This is very hard to do, because we are all afraid of loosing a part of ourselves, but it is necessary in order to turn ourselves into the miniature “Mishkan” that we can become.
Another Chazal that seems to advocate this point is that the Gemora says that even the sinners amongst the Jews are filled with good deeds like a pomegranate. One could ask on this point, if these “sinners” are so filled with merit, why are they referred to as sinners? It seems clear from this Gemorah that although these people perform Mitzvos, they are not putting in all of their heart and thereby earn the title of sinners.
R’ Chaim Shmuelevitz used to illustrate this point with the Gemora in Moed Katan. The Gemora says that when R’ Chiya’s time came, the Malach Hamaves had trouble approaching him to take his soul due to R’ Chiya’s incredible piousness. The Malach Hamaves then dressed up as a poor man and knocked on R’ Chiya’s door. R’ Chiya came to the door to offer the poor man some bread. The Malach then revealed to R’ Chiya who he was and pleaded with him, “Just as you had pity on the poor man who you thought I was, and offered me bread, now have pity on me and offer your soul to me so that I may carry out my task”. One might ask what is the comparison of giving one’s soul to the Malach Hamaves to offering a poor man bread! R’ Chaim explained this very strange argument of the Malach Hamaves as follows: The Malach recognized that when R’ Chiya went out to offer the “poor man” some bread, he did it with his entire soul, putting every fiber of his being into the Mitzvah. The Malach recognized that unique trait in R’ Chiya and that is what he meant when he compared R’ Chiya’s act of offering bread to the “poor man” to his request toward R’ Chiya to offer him his Soul. This Gemorah illustrates to us that when we perform the will of God, it should be with our entire being.
There is another interesting prerequisite mentioned in the building of the Mishkan. The verse says, ועשו לי מקדש – and Rashi comments on this verse לי – לשמי . It is apparent from this Rashi that a fundamental requirement in the construction of the Mishkan is that it is constructed with the specific intent of being consecrated for God’s name and with no ulterior motives. However, regarding other Mitzvos, we do not find this requirement. For example, the Gemorah says regarding Tzedaka that if a person gives charity on the condition that his ill son should recover, this is still commendable. It seems that specifically with regard to the Mishkan, and regarding one’s personal growth as a corollary of the Mishkan, one is required to ensure that his intent is completely pure in order that the Shechina should dwell there.
The Gemora in ע”ז י”ח relates that R’ Chanina Ben Tradyon was once teaching Torah in public in defiance of the local law. R’ Yossi questioned his judgment being that he was putting himself and his students in danger. He responded by telling R’ Yossi that he had complete faith in God that the people would be protected in the merit of their learning. R’ Chanina then asked the R’ Yossi in retort if he thought that R’ Chanina had any portion in the world to come. R’ Yossi responded by asking R’ Chanina if he had any merits. R’ Chanina replied that there was one time that his personal money got mixed up with the money which had been set aside for the poor people’s Purim feast and because he didn’t know which money was his, and which belonged to the poor, he decided to give everything to the poor. This strange Gemora requires great explanation! Wasn’t R’ Chanina the Tanna, who spent his entire life learning and teaching Torah, and could raise the dead, and who the Gemorah just got through saying had risked his life to teach Torah in public, ensured a place in the World to Come?!
Rav Shach explained this strange Gemora as follows: True R’ Chanina had certainly amassed great merit by his public activities. But it is very difficult to accurately gauge one’s merit based on this public activity because when one is in public, one feels much more motivation to perform righteously. Whether that motivation comes from one’s desire for honor, or from one’s fear of rejection, it is not possible to truly estimate how much of a person’s intent is truly for the sake of heaven when performing public activity. And we know that the primary reward comes only for the actions which he does for God’s sake, and not for his own nefarious purposes. R’ Shach concludes by saying that this was R’ Chanina’s fear. Perhaps the public work that he did was not deserving of any real reward in the world to come. This is why he searched for a good deed which was specifically done in private, in order to assure himself that he had retained a position in the World To Come.
Perhaps we could conclude with a famous story brought down about the Brisker Rav. It is told that the Brisker Rav was present during the dedication ceremony of the Yeshiva of the Chochme Lublin and there was a wealthy man in attendance who had single-handedly taken care of the entire financial obligations for the construction. As he was about to ceremoniously place the cornerstone of the Yeshiva, the Bouyaner Rebbe approached him and asked him what he had done to merit the ability to construct this holy institution. The Bouyaner Rav explained his strange question with a very similar premise to the one that we have explained. He said that the ability to donate a Yeshiva was not in itself a merit, because there was too much honor involved, but rather was a result of some other incredible clandestine goodness that this man must have performed in order to merit the ability to donate this holy Yeshiva and earn the reward of all the great scholars that were to learn there in the coming years.
May we merit to serve God לשמה , with no other motive then to do His will!