Terumah deals with the commandment to build the Mishkan (the Tabernacle). Like all good Jewish buildings, it was to be financed from people’s donations. The Torah describes all the different items that would be required in great detail. These included the Ark, the Table, the Menorah -the seven-branched candlestick, the altars for the sacrifices and the curtains to go around the walls of the Tabernacle and partitions.

Points to Ponder:
G-d told the Israelites to “take from themselves a donation from the heart... build a Sanctuary, so that I may live amongst them.”

Two questions may be asked:
1. Surely we 'give to' a cause, rather than 'take from'?

2. We would perhaps have expected the Torah to say: 'build a sanctuary so that I may live ‘in it’” rather than ‘amongst them’. So why does it say ‘amongst them’?

Answers:
1. When we give to a cause that is worthwhile, it should become a part of us. This we do by 'giving a part of ourselves' into the project. This explains the phrase 'take from'.

2. When we give to a holy cause and we give from the heart, then G-d's presence resides amongst us.

The Sanctuary was not an end in itself, but a means to an end - that through the merit of the building of a place of worship, and its proper usage, G-d's presence resides amongst us.

I say 'us' and not 'them', because the same holds true today.

Shabbat Zachor
The Shabbat before Purim is called Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat of Remembrance. On this the Shabbat before Purim we remember not only Haman, who tried to destroy the entire Jewish Nation at the time of the Persian Empire, but also his forebears. Amalek attacked us in the Sinai Desert, shortly after the Exodus from Egypt. Today's special Maftir from Ki Tetze mentions that Amalek was a nation who did not 'fear G-d'. The Torah tells us that the nations had heard that the Israelites had passed through the Red Sea, so were in awe of G-d. Amalek was an exception. His attack on us therefore was an attack on G-d as well.

The Torah urges us never to forget this attack. Therefore, this special maftir is extremely important, and one should make every effort to attend shul in order to hear it.

The Haftarah contains details about a later war with the nation of Amalek, in the days of King Saul.

Shabbat Shalom