Parashat Terumah
5 Adar 5770/19-20 February 2010
Torah: Exodus 25:1 27:19
Haftarah: 1 Kings 5:26 6:13
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You Gotta Want It!
“And you shall make a menorah of pure gold; of hammered work the menorah shall be made, its base and its shaft; its cups, its calyxes and its flowers shall be of one piece with it... Look and do; according to their pattern which is shown to you on the mountain.” Exodus 25:31, 40
“'Of hammered work the menorah shall be made' - of itself (i.e., it was spontaneously created by itself, and not by humans). Moses was perplexed by it, so the Holy One Blessed Be He said to him: 'Cast the mass into the fire’; thus it is not written 'You shall make’ but ‘it shall be made’." Rashi, citing Midrash Tanchuma
"'Look and do.' Look here, on the mountain, the pattern that I show you. This tells that Moses was perplexed by the construction of the menorah, until the Holy One Blessed Be He showed him a menorah made of fire.” Rashi, citing B. Talmud Menachot 29.
Yehudah Aryeh Leib (the Sefas Emes) asks in his book Gur Aryeh, “If the menorah was made spontaneously, why did God show Moses a menorah made of fire (as a pattern for making it)?” He answers that human beings are unable to completely fulfill the will of God. But through a person¹s innermost and heartfelt yearning to fulfill His will, God helps in fulfilling the desire. The Gerer concludes, “The yearning of a person influences a given undertaking so that it can actually complete itself.”
If you really want to fulfill a mitzvah that is hard for you, it will in the end seem to happen by itself - but only if you try, only if you want it, and only if you let God meet you halfway, to show you how to complete it. If you want it, here it is, come and get it ....
Have a Shabbat of light and happiness - it's Adar!
Grand Rabbi Abba Reuven Flom, Der Heiliger Burbanker Rebbe
Av Beis Din - Chelm
Mishenichnas Adar, Marbim Simcha.
From the beginning of Adar, we increase joy.
"For the sake of Zion I will not be silent; for the sake of Jerusalem I will not be still"
Isaiah 62:1
