19 Feb 2026 Terumah 5786: From Mikdash to Beis Knesses

With Parshas Terumah, we begin the third and final section of Sefer Shemos, also known as Sefer Ha’Geula – the Book of Redemption.

In essence, Shemos is divided into three main chalakim (sections):

1. Shibud v’Yetzias Mitzrayim – the enslavement and Exodus from Egypt. This section is narrated in the first four parshios of the sefer: Shemos, Va’eira, Bo and Beshalach. This chelek tells the story of our physical redemption and freedom from slavery.
2. Matan Torah – the second section of Shemos is made up of the parshios of Yisro and Mishpatim. These two parshios – different, yet complementary – relay to us the great Revelation at Sinai, our acceptance of the Torah, and the many laws related to the nation in the aftermath of Revelation. This chelek tells the story of our spiritual freedom. For as the Sages teach us “ein lecha ben chorin elah mi she’osek b’talmud Torah – a free person is only one who lives a life of Torah” (Avos Ch 6).
3. Meleches u’binyan ha’Mishkan – the work, and building of the Mishkan (Tabernacle). The final, and third, section of Shemos begins in our parsha, Terumah, and continues through the end of the sefer: Tetzavah, Ki Tisa, Vayakhel and Pekudei. Our freedom is only complete once the Shechina descends (keviyachol) and dwells in our midst. When we build an abode for HKB”H to dwell amongst us, and within us, our freedom is fully realized. As the pasuk tells us in our parsha (Shemos 25:8): “And they shall make for Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell within them.”

Hence, the entirety of Sefer Shemos narrates our journey to freedom, through these three stages: physical, spiritual, and dwelling alone-together with G-d.

The Mishkan that was built in the desert was a precursor to the Batei Mikdash that stood in Yerushalayim Ir Ha’Kodesh. Though mortal man cannot understand how Infinity can contract (metzam’tzem) to dwell in a finite space, HKB”H did so to dwell amongst us. Even King Shlomo wondered at this great act of Divine tzimtzum, when he said: כִּי הַֽאֻמְנָ֔ם יֵשֵׁ֥ב אֱלֹקים עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ הִ֠נֵּה הַשָּׁמַ֜יִם וּשְׁמֵ֚י הַשָּׁמַ֙יִם֙ לֹ֣א יְכַלְכְּל֔וּךָ אַ֕ף כִּֽי־הַבַּ֥יִת הַזֶּ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר בָּנִֽיתִי – But will G-d indeed dwell on the earth? Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You; much less this temple that I have erected (Melachim I 8:27).

And this entire narrative – Klal Yisrael and the Shechina dwelling alone-together – began in our parsha, with the command to Moshe to instruct the nation regarding Mishkan.

However, with the destruction of the Batei Mikdash – the first by Bavel in 586 BCE and the second by Rome in 70 CE – what happened to the intimacy between Am Yisrael and the Shechina? How would we maintain our kesher – our connection – to Hashem throughout the lands of our dispersion and places of our exile? Without a central place of worship, how would our nation survive, and thrive?

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z’l writes that, “It is hard to understand the depth of the crisis into which the destruction of the First Temple plunged the Jewish people. Their very existence was predicated on a relationship with G-d symbolised by the worship that took place daily in Jerusalem. With the Babylonian conquest in 586 BCE, Jews lost not only their land and sovereignty. In losing the Temple, it was as if they had lost hope itself. For their hope lay in G-d, and how could they turn to G-d if the very place where they served him was in ruins?” (Covenant & Conversation, Exodus, p.189).

Rabbi Sacks notes that it was in Bavel, the very land of the first catastrophic national exile, that an answer began to take shape. It is the navi Yechezkel – unique amongst the prophets, for he prophesied in Bavel, outside the land of Israel – who references “a radically new institution that eventually became known as the Beit Knesset, the synagogue” (ibid., p.190).

Thus, so says Hashem Elokim: כִּ֚י הִרְחַקְתִּים֙ בַּגּוֹיִ֔ם וְכִ֥י הֲפִֽיצוֹתִ֖ים בָּֽאֲרָצ֑וֹת וָֽאֱהִ֚י לָהֶם֙ לְמִקְדָּ֣שׁ מְעַ֔ט בָּֽאֲרָצ֖וֹת אֲשֶׁר־בָּ֥אוּ שָֽׁם, Although I have removed them far off among the nations and although I have scattered them in the lands, yet I have become for them a minor sanctuary in the lands where they have come (Yechezkel 11:16).

Rabbi Sacks teaches that “The synagogue… came into being not through words spoken by G-d to Israel, but by words spoken by Israel to G-d (C&C, Exodus, p.190) … The Divine Presence lives not in a building but in its builders; not in a physical space but in the human heart. The Sanctuary was not a place in which the objective existence of G-d was somehow more concentrated than elsewhere. Rather, it was a place whose holiness had the effect of opening hearts to the One worshipped there. G-d exists everywhere, but not everywhere do we feel the presence of G-d in the same way. The essence of ‘the holy’ is that it is a place where we set aside all human devices and desires and enter a domain wholly set aside for G-d.

“If the concept of the Mishkan is that G-d lives in the human heart whenever it opens itself unreservedly to heaven, then its physical location is irrelevant. Thus the way was open, seven centuries later, to the synagogue: the supreme statement that of the idea that if G-d is everywhere, He can be reached anywhere… The frail structure described in this week’s parasha became the inspiration of an institution that, more than any other, kept the Jewish people alive through almost two thousand years of dispersion – the longest of all journeys through the wilderness” (ibid., p.192).

May all our tefilos be answered la’tova, from the recesses of our hearts, the thoughts of our minds, the yearnings of our souls and the mikdashei me’at that we have constructed for Hashem in our lands of exile.

And in the merit of our prayers, and our limud Torah, may we welcome the final redemption, and the building of the third Temple, speedily and in our days.

בברכת בשורות טובות ושבת שלום,

Michal