Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 28 Shevat, 5785

Good morning!  We are making our way to the new moon. Now is a beautiful time to set some intentions for this next cycle. In the yearly cycle, Adar is the final month. Its a month to celebrate the growth of the past year.  As we enter the cycle after, we hit Passover. Where we “begin again” and start over – learning new depths of lessons we have been learning our entire lives.

We’ve been studying the tabernacle in the Torah – and how the Tabernacle is connected to us. We are the tabernacle – because we are designed for movement – for growth.

My spiritual coach also pushed back on that idea – and questioned whether there actually is a difference between a tabernacle and temple.

The deeper truth is we are both. We are built as the tabernacle – moving when we need to move, staying when we need to stay. And – at the core of who we are? Is a temple – permanent – everlasting.

I love exploring the idea of both/and.

So where are you? Are you needing to be planted because you’ve been wandering? Or are you needing to move because you’ve been stuck? Or are there places you need to move, and places you need to stay? We are multidimensional after all. We may need movement with our relationship with our kids, while remaining grounded in our romantic life.  We may need to make a change in our career, while remaining grounded in our community commitments.

It’s not all one or the other. We can move the pieces of our lives.  We can move forward out of a relationship with someone while digging deeper into our relationship with our kids.

It may feel lonely sometimes – and we have a community around us to support us – so we don’t have to suffer alone.

And, sometimes we need to walk through the gauntlet of life on our own.

What do you need for support today? Where do you need to move because movement is uncomfortable? Where do you need to remain because remaining is uncomfortable?

Let me know!

Here are my thoughts from last year:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 5 Adar 1, 5784
Parsha Terumah: (Exodus 25:1 – 27:19)
Fourth Portion: Exodus 26:15 – 26:30

Good morning!  Today’s portion continues to instruct us on the tabernacle. As I have written in the past years; today’s focus is on connection.  How solid our the connections we are making? Let’s dig in:

15And you shall make the planks for the Mishkan of acacia wood, upright.

16Ten cubits [shall be] the length of each plank, and a cubit and a half [shall be] the width of each plank.

17Each plank shall have two square pegs, rung like, one even with the other; so shall you make all the planks of the Mishkan.

18And you shall make the planks for the Mishkan, twenty planks for the southern side.

The planks of the Tabernacle are made of wood.  Wood is soft, it is pliable.  If you soak wood, you can bend it. 

19And you shall make forty silver sockets under the twenty planks; two sockets under one plank for its two square pegs, and two sockets under one plank for its two square pegs.

The sockets – that connecting pieces? They are made of silver. Metal. Metal is more solid than wood – and -silver is a softer metal that can bend.

So we have wood and silver. When I think about our connections – within and externally – how do we connect? Are we connecting in a way that is rigid and won’t move as the weather changes? That wont expand and contract as the seasons change?  The sockets needed to be able to adapt. Silver is the perfect metal for this, isn’t it? As the wood would expand because of the heat, cold, rain; the silver would expand as well and not break.

20And for the second side of the Mishkan on the northern side twenty planks.

21And their forty silver sockets: two sockets under one plank and two sockets under one plank.

So we have the south and north side here. Same dimensions – twenty planks, forty sockets.

22And for the western end of the Mishkan you shall make six planks.

23And you shall make two planks at the corners of the Mishkan at the end.

24And they shall be matched evenly from below, and together they shall match at its top, [to be put] into the one ring; so shall it be for both of them; they shall be for the two corners.

25And there shall be eight planks and their silver sockets, sixteen sockets two sockets under one plank and two sockets under one plank.

So on the western end – the connection between the northern and southern side, it’s smaller. Eight planks. 16 sockets.

26And you shall make bars of acacia wood, five for the planks of one side of the Mishkan,

27and five bars for the planks of the second side of the Mishkan, and five bars for the planks of the [rear] side of the Mishkan, on the westward end.

28And the middle bar in the midst of the planks shall [extend and] penetrate from one end to the other end.

So the bars run across – giving us the same height – cross beams. We see the Torah telling us the western side is the rear of the tabernacle.

29And you shall overlay the planks with gold, and their rings you shall make of gold as holders for the bars, and you shall overlay the bars with gold.

And now we are seeing the wood covered in gold. Again, a soft metal.

30And you shall erect the Mishkan according to its proper manner, as you will have been shown on the mountain.

What I am gathering in all of this; what our takeaway may be – it’s relationship.  Within ourselves – and between ourselves and others.

Are we building strong? Do we feel connected within? Are we overlaid with silver and gold? Do we see our value?

Or do we see our tabernacle as torn up, destroyed, needing fixing? Do we see our wood being rotted? And does that produce feelings of guilt and shame so that when we meet someone else’s tabernacle -and see the beauty of the gold and silver – we want to run away?  Or we want to project our guilt and shame onto THEM – trying to show them how ugly and broken their tabernacle is?

These are my thoughts!  What are yours?