Terumah Your Shabbat Companion

YOUR SHABBAT COMPANION Terumah 8 Adar 5781 19-20 February 2021 Shabbat begins at 5.07pm Shabbat ends at 6.12pm The BES Rabbinic Team is delighted to share this Shabbat Companion with you. It has been designed to enhance your Shabbat experience at home, please print it out before Shabbat and enjoy the words of Torah, stories and discussion points during your meals. We wish you Shabbat Shalom Sedra in a Nutshell by Rebbetzin Eva Chapper Hashem says to Moses, “They shall make for Me a Sanctuary (Mishkan), and I shall dwell amidst them.” The Jewish people are called upon to contribute thirteen materials: gold, silver and copper; blue, purple and red dyed wool; flax, goat hair, animal skins, wood, olive oil, spices and gems. Moses is given detailed instructions on how to construct this dwelling for Hashem so that it could be readily dismantled, transported and reassembled as the people journeyed in the desert. In the Mishkan’s inner chamber, behind an artistically woven curtain, was the Ark containing the tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments; on the Ark’s cover stood two winged cherubim hammered out of pure gold. In the outer chamber stood the seven-branched menorah, and the table upon which the “showbread” was arranged. The Mishkan’s three walls were fitted together from 48 upright wooden boards, each of which was overlaid with gold and held up by a pair of silver sockets. The roof was formed of three layers of coverings: (a) tapestries of multicoloured wool and linen; (b) a covering made of goat hair; (c) a covering of ram and tachash skins. Across the front of the Mishkan was an embroidered screen held up by five posts. Surrounding the Mishkan, and the copper plated altar which fronted it, was an enclosure of linen hangings, supported by 60 wooden posts with silver hooks and trimmings, and reinforced by copper posts. The Mishkan was surrounded by a courtyard. Questions to Ponder Do you think the Beit Knesset should be solemn and magnificent or intimate and lively? Which of these descriptions is most like your synagogue? Can it be both of these? Should it? Dvar Torah by Rabbi Chapper Esther by Rebbetzin Emma Taylor As this Shabbat precedes Purim, in addition to the When we are first introduced to Esther in the portion of Terumah, we also make an additional Megillah she is called by two names - Ether and reading called ‘Zachor’ in which we recall how Amalek (the progenitor of Haman the Purim antagonist) was Hadassah. The one she is most commonly known the first to attack the Jewish people when they as, Esther, comes from the word Hester, meaning emerged from Egypt. ‘Remember what Amalek did hidden, which references the fact that she had to to you on the way as you departed from Egypt… you hide her Judaism while living in the palace of are to erase the memory of Amalek from beneath the Achashverosh. It is also symbolic of the hidden heaven. Do not forget.’ It is a mitzvah to hear the nature of G-d throughout the Purim story who words of parshat Zachor and some even have the performs miracles yet they are not obvious. practice of recalling it on a daily basis as one of the six events that the Torah requires us to always Esther also references her beauty as the word is remember. related to ‘istaher’ which is connected to the moon and stars and is a way of complimenting her However, the double expression ‘Remember - Do not forget’ is puzzling because not only does it appear to physical appearance. be an oxymoron but one of these phrases must be superfluous. If we remember something we have not, The name Hadassah also has deep significance. by definition, forgotten it and, if we are instructed not Hadassim makes us think of the Haddassim, the to forget, then if we fulfil our obligation then, de facto, myrtle branches, that are part of the Arbah Minim, we will be remembering. the four species that we use on Succot. Perhaps an insight into the subconscious will help us Each of the four parts represents a different type understand. It has been shown that if someone is of Jew, for example the Etrog which smells nervous about falling over and all the time they are beautiful and also tastes good is likened to those walking they say to themselves ‘don’t trip over, don’t trip over’ the likelihood is that they will eventually trip Jews who do good deeds and also who are over. The reason for this is that the unconscious mind learned in Torah. The Hadassim smell nice but does not hear the negative ‘don’t’ but only the positive have no taste and are symbolic of those members ‘trip over’ and that is probably why they will. of the Jewish community who are involved in good deeds, active in communal work but are not as If the Torah had only said: ‘Do not forget’ the knowledgeable as others. The fact that Esther is probability is that we would just forget Amalek but, by called Hadassah is there to teach us that we emphasising the need to remember, it is highlighting should always be striving to learn more and that, with this mitzvah, and by extension in our become better versed in Torah thought, but not relationship to the whole of the Torah, passive, being the most intellectual does not hinder how unconstructive connection is insufficient. We have to actively remember and that is why Zachor is read successful we can be. publicly at least once a year. Esther was the force behind the Jewish nation’s This applies in all aspects of Jewish life as illustrated return to G-d and their salvation and she did this in Terumah when it says, ‘You shall make a sanctuary not by being the brightest but by using the talents for Me.’ The Sefer HaChinuch explains that spiritual she was given, and revolutionising the Jewish achievement is made, not by contemplation alone, but nation through her good deeds and selfless through engaging in the performance of mitzvot. When sacrifice. we focus our minds on the positive, when we are active and say to ourselves, ‘I can, I will and I’ll do’ that’s the best way to ensure that we always remember who and what we are and never forget. Covenant and Conversation On 14 October 1663 the famous diarist Samuel Pepys paid a visit to the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Creechurch Lane in the city of London. Jews had been exiled from England in 1290 but in 1656, following an intervention by Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel of Amsterdam, Oliver Cromwell concluded that there was in fact no legal barrier to Jews living there. So, for the first time since the thirteenth century, Jews were able to worship openly. The Synagogue that Pepys visited was simply a private house belonging to a successful Portuguese Jewish merchant, Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, that had been extended to house the congregation. Pepys had been in the Synagogue once before, at the memorial service for Carvajal who died in 1659. That occasion the atmosphere was sombre and respectful. What he saw on his second visit was something else altogether, a scene of celebration that left him outraged. This is what he wrote in his diary: '… after dinner my wife and I, by Mr. Rawlinson’s conduct, to the Jewish Synagogue: where the men and boys in their vayles [tallitot], and the women behind a lattice out of sight; and some things stand up, which I believe is their Law [Sefer Torah], in a press [the ark] to which all coming in do bow; and at the putting on their vayles do say something, to which others that hear him do cry Amen, and the party do kiss his vayle. Their service all in a singing way, and in Hebrew. And anon their Laws that they take out of the press are carried by several men, four or five several burthens in all, and they do relieve one another; and whether it is that everyone desires to have the carrying of it, I cannot tell, thus they carried it round about the room while such a service is singing … But, Lord! to see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but confusion in all their service, more like brutes than people knowing the true God, would make a man forswear ever seeing them more and indeed I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this.' Poor Pepys. No one told him that the day he chose to come to the synagogue was Simchat Torah, nor had he ever seen in a house of worship anything like the energetic joy of the day when we dance with the Torah scroll as if the world was a wedding and the book a bride, with the same abandon as King David when he brought the holy ark into Jerusalem. Riddles by Anthony Kent a) Ran home erratically giving light (7 letters) b) A celebrant transformed place of worship (10 letters) c) Copper with basic unit of computer information - between 18 to 24 inches (5 letters) Answers: a) Menorah b) Tabernacle c) Cubit c) Tabernacle b) Menorah a) Answers: Countdown to Purim Mitzvah #3 Mishloach Manot - Gifts to Friends We’re obligated to send to our friends, two gifts - meat or other types of food on Purim. The Mishneh Berurah adds that we have to send food and/or drink but not clothes or anything else.

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