Terumah: details

Terumah, this week’s parsha, conveys details of the construction of the mishkan, the tabernacle, the portable temple that housed the tablets  in the golden, cherub covered ark. The most sacred object (ever) was housed in this regal tent until Shlomo directed the construction of the temple of stone ( the subject of the haftorah). These are stories of sanctification. Acacia wood, gold, silver, fine fabrics and furs are the raw materials in the mishkan. Stones and labor create the Temple in Jerusalem.

Both accounts list details. Dimensions and geometry are specified. The engineering is clear and reproducible. The visual experience, the beauty, cannot be conveyed in words.  It is left to the imagination. No one has seen the actual objects for thousands of years.

The preservation of detail is a critical theme in religious practice. Deviations from the prescribed destabilize the entire structure, alterations are intrinsically wrong and destructive. Following the instructions, exactly, is the only sure way to please the Divine architect. This is the birth of manufacturing. This is the birth of Art Scroll Judaism.

Describing the aesthetic experience, or the experiences that evoke it, surpasses my powers of expression. It would require that the words evoke a kindred state. The Google resorts to physiology and quotes a scientific journal article in Iperception before going to the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The internet is telling me how I should think about this experience. AI produces images that should be beautiful.

Emphasis on adherence to details does not seem consistent with the fluid nature of the beauty experience. But the communication of artistry, I am told, requires adherence to technique. This is much of the substance of art history. Technical developments like perspective and the development of pigments have moved visual art forward.  Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomic studies advanced both art and science. Accuracy can be beautiful, especially if you know how to draw it.

The art of Trumah and the accompanying haftorah serve the function of connecting the reader to the Divine.  The actual ark, the centerpiece of the enterprise, was seen by almost no one.  Even when the high priest entered the inner sanctum on Yom Kippur, the space was filled with smoke. The ark was always an object for the imagination, not the eye.

Given the detailed instructions for the creation of the sacred space in Terumah, how could Solomon ( and later temple builders) deviate and design  sanctuaries that were larger and constructed from different materials? The haftorah tells us that Gd spoke to Shlomo. Gd permitted this novelty, this redefinition of the sacred space. The instructions in Terumah were not the only way. Perhaps the mishkan of the parsha was the best sacred space for its time and for the circumstances.  The Temple in Solomon’s Jerusalem was what developments had dictated. And that temple and the space it occupied, has been dictating circumstances ever since.  

The ark is surrounded by apology.  The cover, the kaporeth, כַפֹּ֖רֶת, is related to the the kpr, כַפֹּ֖רֶ of Yom Kippur.  Like most of my  Yom Kippurs,  it is a cover (up) more than an atonement.  The transgressions are not erased, they are covered, in part, by apology. Beauty does not make everything alright, but it can facilitate forgiveness.  Atonement is a nice word: Getting back in tune with the Universe; abandoning our tone-deafness.  We need a moment to cover our errors.

Notice, the letters כַפֹּ֖רֶת, CaPoReth are rearranged to make פָרֹ֗כֶת,PaRoCheth.  This was the curtain that separated the ark and its kaporeth covering from the remainder of the sacred space. The parocheth defined the inner sanctum.  The parocheth also covered the ark when it was moved.  Both the kaporeth and parocheth  are adorned by כְּרֻבִֽים, CheRuBim. 

The Cherub first appeared in Genesis as the guardian that blocks the way back to Eden.  The cherub prevents the achievement of the goal of repentance. The cherub makes the attempted return to Eden futile.  The cherub assures the separation between the world we live in and paradise. The cherub is an imagined object, just on the other side of longing.

 ChRuB כְּרֻבִֽ has one letter that is different from כַפֹּ֖רֶת,CaPoReth and PaRoCheth, The beith instead of the Pey.  Look at the Letter Pey: (in some calligraphies)

                                         פ

There is a  ב   inside.