Terumah, תְּרוּמָה

Terumah, תְּרוּמָה Donation 25:1-27:19

ESSAY: Carrying God Through the World Inside You (Parashat Terumah)

I know there is a way of accessing that presence and calm and strength, but how do I get there? Where are You?

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MEDITATION: Carrying God Through The World Inside You (Parashat Terumah)

We notice our own habitual desperate turn outwards and practice turning inwards instead to relax into the place of divine abiding calm planted inside us.

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ESSAY: Becoming a Sanctuary for the Divine Presence (Parashat Terumah)

God is looking for a residence on earth, always looking for a residence in each of us, knocking on our door, saying – can I live inside you?   The instruction to construct the mishkan, the tabernacle, in our parsha is phrased in this way: Ve’asu li mikdash veshakhanti betokham (Exodus 25:8).  They should make for

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MEDITATION: Becoming a Sanctuary for the Divine Presence (Parashat Terumah)

“They should make for Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst” (Exodus 25:8). “In their midst” [betokham] — inside each one of us. We interpret this as an instruction to each of us to create an internal sanctuary — God desires to reside inside us. In this meditation, we explore how to

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ESSAY: From Swords to Angel Wings: Learning to Open Our Hearts (Parashat Terumah)

“I will meet you there,” God says. But are we open to it? What about those angels of destruction standing in the way? (Click image to read more)

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MEDITATION: From Swords to Angel Wings: Learning to Open Our Hearts (Parashat Terumah)

In this meditation, we look closely at the keruvim, the child-like angel figures that stood on top of the ark in the Tabernacle. It is from between these keruvim that God is said to speak and meet us. Finding this place in our own heart space, we explore what blocks us from this open access

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WOW (Word of the Week): כרובים, Keruvim: Through the Portal of Our Childhood Selves (Parashat Terumah)

We are given a chance to retrieve what we lost in the Garden of Eden by entering through the keruvim, through our childhood selves with all their woundedness and innocence. (Click image to read more)

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MEDITATION: Becoming a Mishkan, a Dwelling Place for Divine Presence (Parashat Terumah)

In this meditation, we focus on the Aron, the ark, as the meeting place for Divine Presence in the Mishkan, and we find that meeting place inside ourselves in our hearts, and specifically in the hole (like the open space above the Aron between the angels where God spoke) of our vulnerability. We find in

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POEM: Terumah: Raise it Up! (Parashat Terumah)

(Originally published in 2021) O Lord, to You, I raise it all up, the joys and the laughter and the lilting songs and most of all the sorrows. (Click image to read more)

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SHORT ESSAY: Hevruta: Where We can Still Hear God’s Voice (Parashat Terumah)

In this week’s parsha, we read about the mishkan, the building of a dwelling place for God on this earth. And we feel a twinge of envy – they had access to God; God dwelled in their midst; we are left alone to wander the world, searching for His Presence. But certain features of the mishkan give me

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