Terumah – English
What does it mean to give?
Rabbi Gershon Sillins
In our portion this week, God tells Moses to “tell the Israelites to take an offering for Me; take My offering from all whose heart moves them to give”. (Ex. 25:1-2) This seems notably different from many of the instructions given to the people by God through Moses, in that this one is not couched in terms of commandment, but in very different terms: it is to take an offering from those who wish to give it. One can’t help but wonder if anyone stood back and said, “no, I’m not giving anything this time.” One has the impression that everyone gave something, because their imagination and spirit were caught up in the project that was before them, the creation of a space for prayer as they understood it. And we don’t hear of anyone giving a significantly greater amount than anyone else, although that may have happened. All of it mattered.
We might also note that the people’s heart moved them to action, not contemplation. Although the design and the work were done by skilled craftsmen, the project included everyone’s contribution.
This was also an opportunity for the people to take an active role in their fate. As slaves in Egypt, whatever they were allowed to have or consume would have been given to them by their masters, and their redemption was also provided for them by God. But at this moment, they are asked, not commanded, to give something towards a project that would define them as a people whose only master was God. And as Jonathan Sacks points out, God did give them something else completely new: God gave them the opportunity to give.
The principal term in Hebrew for charity, for giving to others, is tzedakah. But Jewish law describes it differently than the way we think of charity in the modern world. For the very word charity comes from the Latin caritatem, meaning dear, valued. Charity is, therefore, about the emotion of caring for others. The Hebrew root of tzedakah is “righteousness”, and although it is often translated as “charity,” it is quite different. Charity is usually understood as an act of generosity; tzedakah is an ethical obligation, and it is not properly “charity”, but part of what it takes to create a just society. And so, Jewish law says that even a poor person who is dependent on tzedakah s obligated to give tzedakah to another person. It’s not principally about generosity, and it isn’t about need, it’s about creating a society of giving. Many Jewish homes had (and some may still have) a “pushke,” a little box for tzedakah, into which coins would go, usually just before Shabbat, to be ultimately given to the needy or to worthy causes. The habit of giving tzedakah was part of daily life, and one learned it early.
But if tzedakah is based on righteousness rather than being emotionally moved, this week’s reading reminds us that the heart has not been left out of Jewish tradition and community engagement. The tabernacle was made as beautiful as the craftsmen and designers could make it; they were God’s partners in this creation; beauty was an integral, not an incidental, part of the task. And those whose heart moved them to bring an offering towards building it were God’s partners as well. We should feel obligated to give tzedakah because it’s the right thing to do, in order to create the basis for a just society, and we should make offerings as our hearts are willing in order to benefit the institutions and edifices we need to keep Judaism alive.
Rabbi Gershon Sillins is rabbi of The Liberal Synagogue Elstree, UK. As an ordained cantor, he served communities in Canada and the USA prior to arriving in the UK.
