Parashat Terumah is heavy on detail, yet it contains one intriguing omission. The Torah describes three sacred objects to be placed in the main sanctuary of the Tabernacle – the ark, the table and the menorah – but leaves out a fourth.
The incense altar appears only in next week’s portion. If there are four vessels in the inner sanctuary, why are only three introduced here?
One answer to this, based on the medieval commentator Ibn Ezra, is that the Tabernacle was not designed solely as a place for sacrifices. It was primarily meant to be something more familiar: a home. Nachmanides develops this idea further, describing the structure as a place where God’s presence could “rest”. Read this way, suggests Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the ritual objects assembled constitute the basics of a household.
There is a striking parallel to this in another biblical episode. When the prophet Elisha visits the home of the Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4), she prepares a small room for him, furnishing it simply with a bed, a chair, a table and a lamp. The parallels are hard to miss. In the Tabernacle, the ark, table and menorah play the same role. They are not there because God needs them, but because human beings do in order to serve Him.
Taking this idea further, if a sanctuary can be described as a home, then the reverse is also true: a home can become a sanctuary. The ark becomes a symbol of commitment and fidelity, the table of everyday ethical principles, and the menorah of learning and moral clarity. These are not mystical ideas. They are the ordinary ingredients of a home that takes values seriously.
Yet there is a missing piece. Maimonides defines the purpose of the Tabernacle in much starker terms: it is a place for sacrifice. How does this fit with the idea of a home? Perhaps it is because the two are inseparable. A home becomes meaningful only when people are prepared to give something up for it. Space is created not by furniture alone, but by sacrifice.
This instinct is universal. People will endure almost anything to protect their homes. The Torah challenges us to bring that same commitment into our spiritual lives – to give up time, comfort or certainty so that something deeper can take root.
A sanctuary is not built automatically. But when effort and sacrifice are part of the structure, it becomes a place worth dwelling in.
Image: The Tabernacle in the wilderness (from the 1890 Holman Illustrated Bible/Wikimedia Commons)
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