Teruma - What are you carrying around
Exodus 25:1 - 27:19 | Kings 5:26 - 6:13
Summary: The Mishkan required 15-foot pieces of acacia wood. Who would have 15-foot pieces of acacia wood, in the wilderness? Answer: the people who have been carrying around 15-foot pieces of acacia wood their entire lives, wondering what they’re going to do with the 15-foot pieces of acacia wood they’ve been carrying around, until the call finally comes. What have you been carrying around your whole life, wondering how it fits?
***
Where does one get 15-foot planks of acacia wood in the wilderness, anyway? As the materials needed for the traveling Temple were listed and conveyed by God to Moses to the people, some of the items on the list wouldn’t have seemed so ridiculous. For example, we know the Israelites had gold and silver because they “borrowed” them from their Egyptian neighbors before leaving Egypt. But 15-foot acacia planks? Not something these former slaves are likely to have. And yet, there were people who had 15-foot acacia wood planks.
And why would anyone have had 15-foot acacia planks? Rabbinic tradition indicates that when Jacob arrived in Egypt, several generations before the exodus, he planted acacia trees and told his children and grandchildren to bring this wood out of Egypt with them. Though this might have seemed bizarre, the trees were planted and then felled and, indeed, schlepped out of Egypt. Maybe people knew what they were for. I assume they didn’t, and that Jacob didn’t, either. He just knew they’d be needed, and his family trusted him.
When Moshe announced the list of supplies that were needed for the traveling Temple, I make up that when most people heard “15 foot planks of acacia wood” they scratched their heads and wondered how they possibly secure the needed pieces of lumber – but the people who had been schlepping around 15 foot plants of acacia wood would have said something like, “Ah! Finally! That’s why we’ve been schlepping around these gigantic planks for so long!”
And I like to imagine that, as they marched their planks up to the place where the materials were collected, other people would have felt some amount of awe, and gratitude, and curiosity and wonder. A whole bunch of things would have clicked at once - they would realize that these people had been given this mysterious task and had followed through, possibly without knowing why, and now we all know why, and we retroactively appreciate their faith and their effort.
A sensitive observer might also realize that, indeed, some of us are carrying around wood planks, and others among us have rubies, and still others have scarlet thread, and all of those are needed. And seeing that the seemingly ridiculous task of carrying wood planks was finally resolved when it became clear they were necessary for the traveling temple, one might conclude that people are sometimes carrying something without yet knowing how it fits, but a time will come when their load will also be appreciated.
**
It didn’t take long for those acacia boards to make sense. A clear list of materials was delivered a couple of months after leaving Egypt, and the Israelites could soon commit to the common project of the traveling Temple. Everyone knew they were all working on the same project, toward the same goal. So it made sense - I have this piece of the puzzle, and you have that.
But out here, in the world, it’s not so obvious that we’re working on the same project. It’s not so clear that we’re all building the same thing, or even that we’re all building anything that serves some common and noble purpose. Some of us are, or think we are. Others of us are just trying to get by, or make a living, or be famous. And even if we are both or all somehow building something in common, we have not been given an official list of materials. There is no universally agreed-upon playbook. We don’t know what the plan is. So if you see me carrying the modern equivalent of a 15-foot acacia plank, you would have every right to wonder why, and you’d be justified in thinking that I’m wasting my time and energy.
We are all more or less in the dark, drawing on hope, instinct, data, vibes, and all the rest. We’re each carrying what we’re carrying because that’s what we know. That’s what makes the most sense to us. It doesn’t have a place yet. But one day the pieces of the world will shift and a me-shaped space will open up and I will fill it.
In such a world, it seems even more challenging and even more necessary to honor, to make space for, to augment, to support, and to appreciate each other’s current and potential contributions. To know that each of us is carrying something that will be needed one day, somehow. We each have our talents and gifts and sensitivities, the things we can offer and the things we cannot, and please do not reject what I have just because it doesn’t make sense yet. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to me, either. But Jacob told me to plant this so I planted it and we will see.