On Terumah: (Eco)Feminist Reflections on the Tent of Meeting.

The Torah portion for March 1, 2025 is Terumah, consisting of Exodus 25:1-27:19. Terumah in Hebrew means contribution, and the parshah begins with the deity requesting donations from the willing hearts of men (yes, only men) of precious metals and stones as well as dyes, linens, wools, and skins.  Terumah then provides the instructions for how to build the Tent of Meeting and all of its components.  In this post, I want to focus on four aspects of the post from the perspective of ecofeminism and feminism: beauty; the misuse of nature, the concept of home, and the indwelling or immanence of the divine.

Let us begin with beauty. The first thought that floated through my mind while reading this parshah was how beautiful the Tent of Meeting must have been. After all it was covered in precious metals, gold, silver, and copper and fabrics with cherubim woven into them.  Not only this, but these materials come from acts of devotion; the contributions of these metals, dyes, and other materials are given from the heart, much like the practice of hiddur mitzvah, or beautifying a mitzvah.

Yet how the Israelites, wandering in the desert, would ever manage to procure the amount of expensive and rare resources used to construct such an enormous dwelling for the divine is puzzling.  Perhaps some of these instructions are proscriptive, wishful thinking; if this was possible, it would be done this way.  However, if the tent ever existed and there is probable evidence that it did, it certainly would have been a masterpiece to behold.  The idea of consciously constructing an exquisite house or sanctuary for a deity to spend time among the people is I think a noble enterprise.  I mean, if your deity told you it was going to live amongst your community, what kind of house would you build?  A rather elaborate structure with the best materials?  I would assume so.

But in practical terms, I am against it. It would be an extremely costly undertaking and, if we were to do this, I would question where our priorities lie. I mean how could we even think about honouring the divine on this level, when we do not honor each other or the planet on which we live?  After all, a core aspect of Judaism is how we treat each other and the world within which we live and the Torah says, with versus like Leviticus 19:18 that we honor the divine by honoring each other. Additionally, we know through the physical sciences and modern justice movements, like ecofeminism, that we are all interconnected. Thus, taking away precious resources that could house an individual or buy them food to construct a divine dwelling does not seem justified.  This is not to mention the people in this world who are so rich that they could build such a tent the world over. Yet, we see the ways in which that hoarding of wealth and resources affects our human community and the planet itself.  Take for example the vanity space flights that happened a number of years ago rather than the investment of that money into reforestation, clean water, vaccines, medicines, the elimination of food deserts, and so on.  If I had the kind of money Jeff Besos or Elon Musk have, I would ensure the survival of our planet and all its inhabitants.  Then again, how these rich individuals get this money comes from practices that do neither.

Thus, while I find using resources to construct a such an ornate tent nowadays is rather unjustifiable, I do not find the tent meaningless. It provides the Israelites with a sense of home throughout their wandering. In the parshah, one reads time and again how rings must be attached and poles inserted through the rings so that every component of the tent can be deconstructed and carried elsewhere to be rebuilt, and, while we do not read about it in this parshah, we know that the deity wanders with the Israelites. Thus, when the divine was present with them within the tent or leading them through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land, they were never truly alone. In fact, they were already, in a sense, home. The ancient Israelites carried a house for the most important part of their community and identity with them as they traveled and they believed that within that dwelling the divine would settle amongst them.

This divine indwelling, what is called in theological jargon divine immanence, is the final point I want to touch on today.  The Israelites were told that the divine not only dwelled among them but stayed with them in their journeying.  Yet, the idea of divine immanence here, while theoretically laudable, is not accessible or equal.  The divine is present in the community, but only some have the privilege to be close to the divine or commune/communicate with the divine.  There are literal and figurative walls and curtains between the divine and the average Israelite dwelling in the camp and wandering in the desert, with death as the penalty for those uninvited who yet approach the tent.  This is not the feminist understanding of divine immanence.  For feminists, divine immanence underscores the accessibility of all to the holy, to relationality, to shared power, to community, and to equality.

Interestingly, parshah Terumah does not mention woman or women once.  In fact, men and humanity really only exist within the parshah to fulfill divine plans for the deity’s own wandering dwelling.  That does not mean however that Terumah does not offer the (eco)feminist reader considerable food for thought.  In the parshah, we encounter both beauty and wholehearted devotion of a wandering community whose deity traveled with them, their sense of home while on the road, and yet we should also question the use of resources and its effects on humanity and the planet as well as the patriarchal understanding of divine immanence.