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“At the beginning, G-d was homeless, this is why he ordered His people to build Him a home”.
Where is this written? Nowhere. But what is written is that G-d asked the people to build a Sanctuary for Him, in this week’s Parasha Trauma: “They shall make for Me a Sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.”
But why should G-d ask for such a thing? Was He missing a home? Until we built the Sanctuary, was He not present with us down here?
After all, G-d had just descended on Mount Sinai and spoken to us. Why does He suddenly need a Sanctuary in order to do it? What is the difference?
There is an essential difference between the communication that took place at Mount Sinai and the communication in the Sanctuary. At Mount Sinai, G-d was the One who took the initiative. He came, He spoke, He brought the thunder and the lightnings. The Jewish people simply received it, without doing anything special by themselves.
On the contrary, the building of the Sanctuary was our work. We had to give the donations for its construction et we had to build it ourselves. We brought G-d down here.
We always need to remember this message, about who should do the first stepin our relationship with G-d. We should not sit and wait for inspiration to come down from the sky in order to feel connected to Him. Sometimes, G-d gives us as a gift these inspirations from above. But for the rest of the time, this is not enough. We need to think, to study, to act on our own, to take the initiative of communication ourselves. And then, G-d answers and helps.
Someone once asked the Rabbi from Kotsk “Where can G-d be found?”. He answered: “Wherever we let Him in”.
Shabbat Shalom,
Hanna
Based on Rabbi Goldman's weekly sermonette
