A Home? For G-d?

 “Make me a home and I will live there.” (Shemot 25:8 - paraphrased.)  A person needs a home to live in.  Without a home, the Talmud says, we don’t feel like a person.  But Hashem?  He needs a home?  Isn’t He everywhere?   And how could you even try to contain the infinite light of Hashem in a building?  King Solomon, during the dedication of the first Temple, said (1 Kings 8:27): “Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You; much less this temple that I have erected.”  

I want to briefly suggest an answer on two levels.  Yes, Hashem is everywhere and there is no place devoid of His presence.  However, His presence is hidden from us, buried so to speak in nature.  We look at the world and we see physical things.  The Divine energy that animates everything is not visible to us, even though nothing can exist without it.

The Holy Temple was an exception.  In the Temple there were miracles happening constantly, as Pirkei Avot (5:5) says: “Ten miracles were performed for our forefathers in the Holy Temple...” The greatest miracle of all was that “the space of the Ark was not part of the dimensions [of the room] (Talmud Megilla 10b).  

The Holy Ark that contained the Tablets with the Ten Commandments measured two and a half cubits.  (A cubit is about 18 inches.)  The room measured ten cubits.  If you measured the space on each side of the Ark, it was five cubits.  This is a physical impossibility.  This was a revelation of G-d, for Whom there are no limits of time and space, and therefore it was possible to have two opposites together, no space limitations within space.  In other words, Hashem chose to reveal Himself within the confines of the space of the Holy Temple.

The second part of the answer is based on the literal translation of the verse from our Parsha that I paraphrased at the beginning.  The literal meaning of the words is: “They shall make for me a holy place and I will dwell within them.”  The physical Holy Temple in Jerusalem was symbolic of the purpose of creation and of each person on Earth.  The ability to create a place from physical materials in which Hashem’s presence was revealed, shows us that we can do this in every part of the world and within each of us.

Just as the stone of the Temple, and the wood and other materials of the Sanctuary in the desert, were transformed from ordinary physical things into a dwelling place for Hashem, so it is possible, and therefore necessary, for each of us to transform our bodies, our homes and our surroundings into a place that contains Hashem’s light.  

All our talents, our passions, our strength and abilities, and even our weaknesses, when harnessed to service Hashem, become part of a “holy building.”  Hashem says to each and every one of us:  I know you have desires and temptations, I know that you live in a physical and material world.  I created you this way and put you in this place, in order for you to make me a home.  Each of us has a spark of G-dliness within us, and by recognizing our true potential, and using our capabilities and possessions to the fullest in fulfilling our mission, we do, indeed become a beacon of light and goodness.

The big thing in Silicon Valley today is scaling.  I read somewhere that if you want to sound smart in any business meeting nowadays you just ask: “can we scale that?”  Well Hashem scaled the revelation of his presence around the world.  Each of us in every corner of the world can do our part, and then the entire world will be illuminated.  

Throughout our history,  all the light and holiness of the generations has accumulated.  We may not see it with our physical eyes, but there is no doubt that it is there, because holiness is eternal and Mitzvot are eternal.  The accumulation of “holy spaces” through the ages means that the world is constantly moving closer to the revelation of the hidden Divine energy that permeates everything, even if it is not currently visible on the surface.  Every Mitzvah we do brings closer the time when we will once again literally “make a home for Hashem,” the building of the Third Temple, in a world of peace and goodness.