Rabbi Joseph Telushkin was studying in Israel when he received an urgent call from his mother. His father had just suffered a heart attack and was in the hospital. Joseph immediately traveled home to be by his father’s bedside. His father, Shlomo Telushkin, was an accountant. In fact, he would do the Rebbe’s taxes.
Each morning, Joseph would receive a call from the Rebbe’s office, checking up on his father’s health. After his father recovered from his heart attack, life screeched to a halt. Shlomo would often be confused and was unable to continue his regular accounting. He used to give a weekly Talmud class in his synagogue, but that too stopped.
Joseph recalled how he got a phone call from the Rebbe’s secretary with an accounting question for his father. “My father’s still very sick,” protested Joseph. “How can he answer right now?”
“Ask him anyway,” replied the Rebbe’s secretary, and he did. Joseph still remembers the light in his father’s eyes when he answered the Rebbe’s tax question.
He realized that with this simple tax question, the Rebbe made his father feel alive and useful once again. I’m reminded of this story when I reflect on the theme of this week’s parasha. Hashem asks the young Jewish nation to build a home for Him in this world. To give from their money, their time and energy, and to construct a Mishkan, a sacred space for the Shekhila.
This is in stark contrast to anything the Jewish nation had experienced. Up until this point, the Jewish people had been entirely reliant on Hashem for their every need. And now Hashem is telling them, I need you. The Jewish people had achieved nationhood. However, as we see from the narrative, they didn’t yet know what to do with their newfound freedom.
They complained about food and Hashem provided. They complained about water and Hashem provided. They only knew how to be recipients. But now Hashem was teaching them to be givers. They discovered their dignity. They had an all important mission to accomplish. Create an abode for the divine in their midst.
There’s a curious law about tzedakah. Even one who relies on tzedakah to live is still obligated to give tzedakah to another person in need. Seemingly, shouldn’t such an individual be exempt from giving tzedakah? They themselves need it. Why do they need to give tzedakah to someone else? Perhaps the idea is that tzedakah benefits not only the recipient, but also the giver.
It enables them to help another, which validates our existential quest to feel needed. Shlomo Telushkin, lying in his bed, had every excuse to feel useless and incapable. But with an opportunity to give, to help with the Rebbe’s tax question, he regained his dignity. Perhaps this is why the Torah uses the word terumah when asking the Jewish people to donate to the Mishkan.
Terumah translates as donations, but it could also mean to lift up. When we give to another, we don’t just lift them up, but we emerge uplifted as well. Wishing you an uplifting Shabbos.
