Centering (Amidst) Change

Life is a state of constant change – even at the times when we suggest one generation, one time period, one setting, one situation somehow contains greater shifts than another. Amidst the constant unknown and unknowable, human (and living being) nature leads us to seek out an anchor of stability.

As the instructions for the Tabernacle show up in the beginning of Parashat Terumah, I am reminded of the moveable and constantly moving status of the Hebrew people during this time: traveling through the midbar, on a journey that surely felt less defined at some points than that for which their comfort desired.

In Exodus 25:22, the central status and promised consistency in the Tabernacle is voiced by G!d:

So I will meet you there and I will speak to you from above the cover, from between the two cherubim which are on top of the ark of the covenant – everything which I will command you toward the Israelites.

Spaces of worship – physical, temporal, philosophical – contain central points, the acmes of an experience to which other elements of worship build, or from which we may slowly move away from, with our eyes always looking back.

Here, just as our services crescendo into the Amidah slowly, before retreating to the conclusion – the Tabernacle is designed, beautifully adorned and set up to lead the priest (and the hearer/reader) into the Holy of Holies first, and then to the exquisitely elevated ark of the covenant – G!d’s seat of instruction.

An old church in downtown Wheeling, West Virginia