Terumah | The Gift of a Willing Heart

וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר׃
דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְיִקְחוּ־לִי תְּרוּמָה מֵאֵת כָּל־אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר יִדְּבֶנּוּ לִבּוֹ תִּקְחוּ אֶת־תְּרוּמָתִי׃

Eternally Becoming (יְהוָ֖ה) spoke to Moses, saying: Tell the God-wrestling (Israelite) sons and daughters to bring Me terumah [the gift from a willing heart].

You shall accept terumah for Me from every person whose heart so moves him.

Exodus 25:1-2

וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם׃
כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי מַרְאֶה אוֹתְךָ אֵת תַּבְנִית הַמִּשְׁכָּן וְאֵת תַּבְנִית כָּל־כֵּלָיו וְכֵן תַּעֲשׂוּ׃

And let them make Me a sanctuary [mikdash]  that I may dwell among them. Exactly as I show you—the pattern of the In-dwelling Place [mishkan] and the pattern of all its furnishings—so shall you make it.

Exodus. 25:8-9

 

In this week's Torah portion the God-of-becoming gives Moses instructions for the former slaves to construct a new heart-centered human society. A bejeweled structure, a temple-dwelling that travels in the midst of the desert wanderers, is to be built from willing hearts. Hearts that have the capacity to be moved will make the offerings that bring the people closer to inhabiting a land of promise.

This promised land will not be characterized by the state of one ruler's heart. In Torah, that was Egypt, ruled with cruelty by Pharaoh with a hardened, unreceptive heart. The new visionary society arises when the collective body of the people build and govern it with willing and receptive hearts.

These are hearts that are open to being affected by the impact we have on each other. This can happen when we turn toward understanding others' experiences, when we get proximate and bring ourselves into presence with others.

When I was a young mother, I went to meet Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. In a crowded meditation hall, he seemed to look right into my eyes when he said, what is it that your loved ones want from you? And when he answered, nothing less than your full presence, I began to cry.

I began to remember many times, in different ways, my daughters had entreated me to be more present with them. And that, in my busy life as a working mom, I hadn't known how to do that. This brings tears to my eyes, remembering the wake up I had, that the gift of my true presence was more important than the thousand other things on my plate.

Many years later, after my father died, I returned to sit with Thich Nhat Hanh. In the middle of a talk to hundreds of us, he asked, what is it that your parents have transmitted to you? And, it was again as if he looked into my eyes as he answered, nothing less than their full selves. I cried again, realizing that I could be fully present with my parents by becoming fully present with myself in that very moment.

In this time of global polarization, we yearn to be met with receptive hearts, in public and private conversation. We need dialogue, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, "where both sides are willing to be affected."

In receptive dialogue, we don't listen for what we agree with or disagree with. We don't half listen, mustering our arguments as the other person speaks, or multi-tasking. What is required is a willingness to be present with the other person, to hear what is spoken in their hearts. Deep listening is when we lean in and listen so carefully that we hear what is said and also what is left unsaid.

In Nonviolent Communication, we aspire to listen to hear the cry from the heart of the other person. We may feel terrified or horrified to hear their words about vaccines and Trump, Black Lives Matter and the occupation of Palestine, immigration and abortion.

And yet, few of us doubt that we all will be better off if we can speak and listen to each other and be affected by what we hear.

This is the quality of a receptive heart. It comes from presence and draws us closer.

In this week's Torah portion, the people will be instructed to adorn the outside of the mishkan. Presence dwells within. The people will see the beauty of the craftsmanship and the adornments, the outer clothing.

The true jewels are inside the heart of the mishkan, where presence and receptivity dwell. These are divine emanations that connect us with each other, heart to heart. These are qualities of wholehearted presence, revealed and offered to us when we connect with a broken heart, a heart that has been moved.

We build the mishkan from hearts that recognize other hearts in trouble. The mishkan travels with us to heal and carry hearts that have become frozen. I think today of the frozen and damaged hearts of police officers who stand back when other cops beat and kill. How do we reconstruct a society that centers a mishkan, a sanctuary,  in our midst, a presence and protection from harm. These hearts build the mishkan, the vessel we carry around with us through desert storms to protect and house our divine nature in our midst. And the mishkan protects and sustains these hearts.

The Torah sets forth a complete blueprint for that ancient nomadic tribe. Our task today is to bring forth a new blueprint and adorn it with such beauty that the collective will be drawn to centering and building this new vision.

Guided Meditation Practice

Here is a meditation from Thich Nhat Hanh we can try, right now, to seed and nourish our own receptive hearts.

Prepare to take three deep breaths. Focus on receiving each breath, receiving it into your body, through the nostrils, the chest, the belly. Experience receiving, being affected by the freely given gift of breath.

Follow each in-breath and out-breath, just as they are.

Repeat one word with each in-breath and one word for each out-breath, at your natural pace:

in

out

deep

slow

calm

ease

smile

release

present moment

wonderful moment

When you arrive into this present moment as a wonderful moment, rest there. What are you receiving right in this moment?  Feel into your cells the experience of receiving.

Communication Practice

Now you may be ready to try a communication practice to move your heart, from Nonviolent Communication.

Recall something someone else did or said that was less than wonderful for you.

We will look at the situation through four steps, sometimes called the NVC map, taking each step to feel how it moves in your own heart.

Step 1
Observation or Judgment?
Reformulate what happened, letting go of your thoughts and judgments about what happened. How does this affect your heart?

Step 2
Feelings or thoughts?
When you think now about what happened, what emotions come up? Let go of what you are thinking about what happened and feel your feelings.
How does this affect your heart?

Step 3
What's really important?
What is it that is so important to you that it's generated all of these thoughts and emotions? Not what you want the person to do; more, how you are dreaming life will be more wonderful if they do it.
How does this affect your heart?

Step 4
What can be done?
What's one thing you'd like done to make this dream of a more wonderful life possible? Can you think of a way to ask someone to do something that will move their heart to care about yours?
How does this affect your heart?

 

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The Wholeness of the Broken Heart

A great loneliness fills the land.
Loneliness from wanting to be accepted
Leads to the loneliness of olive trees
When their caretakers are blocked from quenching their thirst for water.
Leads to the dirt road that winds through the olive orchard of Avarta,
under Itamar,
being established as a boundary.

An intrusion of 1000 dunam becomes 10,000.

Some of it, yes, some, comes from terrified loneliness
Of mothers and fathers
lost in the ashes of Auschwitz.
And Jenin.
And Yeir Dassin.

Unhealed loneliness turns to ashes,
The ashes of consumed hearts.

—Roberta Wall, Jerusalem 2014

I wrote this poem after planting olive trees with Rabbis for Human Rights and Palestinian villagers in a grove near Avarta, Palestine. I found it the morning I began my preparation for this blog on Terumah, the gift of wholehearted presence, of getting proximate. Reading this today, I am struck by the wholeness of the broken heart.