"They shall make for Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell amidst them" (Exodus 25:8). The verse does not say, "and I will dwell within it," but "and I will dwell within them" -- within each and every one of them. (Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz, 1565-1630)
Parashat Terumah contains a blueprint for the construction of the tabernacle/sanctuary that our ancestors were instructed to build. Lots of detailed instruction! One question is: where can we find God among all of these details?
The work itself as well as the decorations and adornments were funded by the people who freely gave more than what was asked. What brought the Holy Presence of God into that space, that tent in the desert, was that everyone participated somehow with money, with handiwork, but also with their hearts. It was the collective sharing of hearts and souls that caused God's presence (the Shechina) to live among the people and within every one.
Still is!
The Shabbat before Purim is known as "Shabbat Zachor" (the Shabbat of Remembering) that takes its name from an additional Torah reading (Deuteronomy 25: 17-19) in which we are commanded to remember the evil (of Amalek....Haman was a descendent....they preyed upon the weak and powerless among our people and attacked from behind) and work towards removing such evil from the earth. In some rabbinic understandings, Amalek is also the insidious force/voice that causes us to doubt ourselves, the voice that preys on our weakness and distracts us from our true mission in life, the voice that says 'no you can't' when in reality, 'yes you can!'
