Hold That Thought: Parashas Terumah
I remember my first time reading through the Bible, when I was in my twenties. At first, I was captivated by stories of the patriarchs and matriarchs, and it seemed as though the ethical stories and morality tales would go on forever! The story of Jewish bondage in Egypt and the nation’s subsequent freedom was engaging, it really captured my imagination — and then I got to the section called Terumah, and all my perception of a relevant Judaism dissipated.
For readers unfamiliar with this section of the book of Exodus, Terumah begins a long explanation of the making of the Tabernacle (the portable proto-Temple the Jews would use until they built the permanent Temple in Jerusalem), as well as all of the implements to be used in it.
How is this relevant to me? I thought. Not only do we not have a Temple today, but even if we did, who cares about all this stuff?!
As it turns out, I could not have been more wrong. In the beginning of the parashah, the Torah tells us that anyone “whose heart motivates him” should donate to the cause of making these implements.
But who cares how motivated a person is? Why not just tell everyone to contribute because this needs to get done?
In reality, motivation matters — a lot.
Take two people who see an elderly person struggling to cross the street. One thinks he should run to help immediately, because it’s the right thing to do. The other thinks, If I go help, my girlfriend will think I’m such a great guy, I’ll look really good. Obviously both people are doing the same good deed, but if you understand the motive, it’s clear that one of these deeds is “better” than the other.
That is what the Torah is teaching us at the beginning of Terumah, that it is better to be good than to look good.
As humans, we view the world superficially. Humanity’s purpose is to perfect the world, and the first step is to perfect ourselves. In order to do that, we have to care about doing good for good’s sake, and to elevate the good we do to be the best good there is. With some work, we can become people whose deeds mirror our internal convictions, whose intentions are pure, whose hearts motivate us to do good.