I have to excuse myself, yesterday by mistake I put a post saying that the Parasha of the week is “Tetzaveh,” but the Parashah for this week is really “Terumah.” I guess yesterday’s message was intended for us yesterday since I do believe in Hashgahah Pratis (Divine intervention) and there really are no mistakes.
Having that cleared up, the Parasha of the week is “Terumah” which means “contribution,” since the Tabernacle was constructed from contributions made by the Jewish people in the desert.
“And G-d spoke to Moshe saying, speak to the children of Israel that they take for Me an offering.”(Shemot 25:12)
Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik notes in Bais Halevi that the Torah uses the term ‘take’ to refer to donations to the Tabernacle even though the people were giving and not taking. This is because only the money that a person gives away to tzedakah (charity) is really his.
The money we have acquired really comes from G-d, we are his trustees and He gives it to us so we can give from 10%-20% to worthy causes.
An analogy is given of a fly trapped in a box full of sugar. We cannot say he possesses all that sugar. He might be able to eat a little bit of the sugar, but he is certainly not its owner. In a similar way, the money a person has in his possession does not really become part of him. He merely has use of it for the limited time he is alive in this earth. Therefore the Torah uses the term “take” when it wants to tell us that when we give to worthy causes we are truly taking what we possess and we give to someone else, this is our eternal possession.
Some experts taken from “Growth Through Torah” by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
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