Some of you might be thinking of geographical locations, like, New York City, Paris, Florida, the Bahamas. Or perhaps what comes to mind is a more specific location, such as a favorite resort, hotel, or restaurant. Maybe a few of you immediately thought of places where you spend time with family or close friends. And one or two are likely thinking about their favorite hobby, perhaps fishing, hiking, or camping, or playing Euro games (online and/or in real life), or curled up on the sofa in front of the fireplace reading your favorite author while sipping on a glass of wine or cup of hot tea.
My favorite place is an exceptionally good coffee shop, and the best local one where I now live is called Crooked Tree. It's not the most comfortable seating-wise, but the coffee is exceptional and the ambiance is great. Panera has better, more comfortable seating, but the coffee leaves a lot to be desired, and it doesn't have the same small locally owned coffee shop ambiance. Picasso's on historic Main has a great funky, artsy ambiance, (although their closer-to-me location is too cold and industrial), but their coffee is overpriced and I don't care for it much. If I could take the best of each of these four coffeeshops... although Crooked Tree wins on all counts except for really comfortable seating.
When I am in a coffee shop, I listen for those telltale background sounds--metal spoons clinking against thick ceramic mugs filled with piping hot coffee, the chatter of friends talking across tables, the coffee grinder pulverizing beans, the noisy clanking of the espresso tamping, frothing milk releasing with a steamy hiss.... it's musical.
And the olfactory experience! Nothing in the world smells better to me than freshly ground coffee beans, hot coffee brewing, some cinnamony goodness baking in the oven, and toast.
And the tastes! Sumatra coffee, I'm looking at you! Hot toast with melted butter, the mouthfeel and creaminess of half and half in a hot cuppa joe... (I could go on, but I just ate breakfast and this is making me hungry!)
The pièce de résistance is what I can do at a coffeeshop, which is to say, all my favorite things: Eat, drink, read, pray, study, write, knit, listen, observe, be alone, or be with people dear to me and laugh and talk of silly things and serious things and sometimes even play cards or other games.
For me, it is a sensory-immersive experience, one which is fairly easy to access. The only tricky parts are if I prefer company and everyone I have contacted is too busy, or, if my physical ailments are not cooperating in allowing me to leave the comfort of my home.
I duly note that I have been away from a coffee shop for too long. It nourishes me, body and soul, on so many levels. I must amend this with a visit to Crooked Tree, very soon.....
In our Torah portion, T'tzaveh, all of those minutiae of details are speaking of a very similarly sensory-immersive experience. The tingling of bells and metal on metal, chants and prayers and words, the sounds of animals and people, and the smells of incense wafting heavily in the air, a fire burning at the altar, and the pungent odors of animals.
It would be easy to dismiss T'tzaveh as instructions for building a portable Temple that belongs in the dusty, ancient past, and has no relevance to us today since we no longer have a humanly-constructed Temple. However, that misses a key to our deeper level of understanding.
When Moses was first commanded to build the Mishkan, the Torah records it thusly: “And they shall make me a Mishkan, and I will dwell in them.” The Mishkan is a singular object, yet we have in the same sentence, “and I will dwell in them.” "Them" refers to multiples. Clearly, there are two different dwelling places being referred to here: one which is humanly-constructed, and one which each of us have: a soul.
As I wrote previously, mishkan shares a root with the word Shekinah, a feminine Name of G!d which literally means “dwelling.” So when we read the verse again, we see that it tells us, “they shall make me [their] Dwelling, and I will dwell in them.” In other words, when we choose to make the Holy our dwelling, the Holy will likewise dwell within us. Not the outer Temple, but the Inner Temple, far more real than anything we can humanly construct.
How can we choose to make the Holy our dwelling? What is this Sanctuary, this Dwelling Place of Life and Holiness within each of us, this Inner Temple? It is the Soul. Many have called our bodies a temple, but our bodies, like humanly-constructed Temples, are simply exterior houses for the real Inner Temple: our Soul.
Now we can look again at the details of the temple, and apply the words to ourselves at the soul level...
On the altar, animals were sacrificed. While our modern sensibilities tell us this is cruel and barbaric, what exactly do you think it is we are doing when we cook, or have an outdoor barbecue? We just don't consider it a sacrificial "offering" as they did back then.
If our Temple is our soul, what "animals" do we bring to sacrifice at the altar? It is the "animals" of selfishness, greed, deceit, hatred, arrogance, unkindness, judgement, gossip, and lack of empathy. Those are the animals we bring to the altars in our souls.
In what other ways can we make our Soul Dwelling for the Holy an immersive experience? How can we, today, nourish our bodies and our souls? Much emphasis is given to our bodies, but our souls are often neglected.
I would caution that sacrificing our "animals" of selfishness, greed, deceit, hatred, arrogance, unkindness, judgement, and lack of empathy, and enlarging our capacity for holiness, doesn't happen just because we go to church/synagogue/mosque/house of worship. In fact, as the saying goes, becoming holy because we go to church is like saying we become a car because we hang out in the garage.
Mind you, I am not discouraging communal forms of worship; I am only reminding us that in order to maximize our holiness potential, we can't compartmentalize it to doing "holy things" or by only going to services at our church/synagogue/mosque/house of worship. How, then, do we sacrifice our "animals" of selfishness, greed, deceit, hatred, arrogance, unkindness, judgement, gossip, and lack of empathy if it isn't necessarily or only because we do religious things?
Similar to my description of the immersive experience of being at a coffee shop, we are building our Soul Temple every time we eat, drink, read, pray, study, write, knit, listen, observe, work, play, interact, raise children, spend time alone, or spend time with people dear to us, laughing and talking of silly things and serious things... whether we play cards, fish, hike, develop computer software, watch TV, post on social media, volunteer, take care of loved ones, do the laundry, fix dinner, cook a gourmet meal or open a can of soup, all of these are ways we can build our Soul Temple.
Our Torah tells us this Temple, both the humanly constructed one and the Soul one, are to be made of the finest materials and with very great care and attention to the details. In other words, our Soul Temple should be one of our most favorite places to be.
The minutiae of small details in T'tzaveh were about building the Mishkan with the finest materials, consciously choosing to be careful in the craftsmanship, intention, and attention to the tiniest point. Nothing was slapped together, done mindlessly, or considered "good enough." Are we creating our Soul Temples with this kind of intention and attention? If not, how can we begin to change this? How can we infuse holiness into everything we do and every word we speak?
What are you doing to consciously build your Inner Temple? Have you been relying on the appearance of "doing holy things" rather than actively working on becoming more holy through sacrificing your animal nature? How do we sacrifice our animal nature? By actively doing their opposites, so, we become conscious of becoming less selfish, less greedy, not deceitful, hateful, or arrogant, more kind, not quick to judge, not pass along gossip (whether true or not), and more compassionate. In these ways, we make the Holy our Dwelling place.
What one small change can you make today in building your Inner Mishkan?
No comments:
Post a Comment