Rav Dovid Feinstein, zt”l, on the Parsha: TERUMAH
As heard and adapted by Rabbi Aaron D. Mehlman
וְיִקְחוּ־לִ֖י תְּרוּמָ֑ה מֵאֵ֤ת כָּל־אִישׁ֙
“Take my offering from every person.”
It appears as if Hashem is begging for donations to build the Mishkan!
Observe that the Torah doesn’t make any persuasive arguments to convince the Jewish People a Mishkan would benefit them in a tangible way.
It’s as if Hashem is pleading with Klal Yisroel, “I’m asking you to build this Mishkan not because YOU want it, rather, build this Mishkan because it’s something I want!”
The Medrash relates a parable of a King who sorely misses his grown children and begs them to prepare a permanent room in their homes so he can frequently visit them.
So too, Hashem longs to reside amongst us. And he also wants to feel proud to rest the Shechinah within the Jewish People.
We might add that Hashem desired to perpetuate the highest levels of gilui, supernatural disclosure, they experienced at Matan Torah, and to provide this gilui indefinitely for the benefit of His beloved nation.
In the form of a Mishkan, the Jewish People would be afforded all the advantages of a deep and dynamic Divine revelation.
However, the divine encounter experienced at Matan Torah was too intense and the same intensity could prove too difficult to maintain in the long run.
It was Hashem’s intent, therefore, to provide “small applications” of spiritual revelation in the form of the ten constant and celebrated miracles publicly witnessed during the daily Avodah service.
The Mishkan represented a merging of Hashem’s longing to reside within the Jewish community and a magnanimous desire to afford His People an opportunity to profit from a splendid yet manageable Divine revelation.
