13 Feb PARSHAS TERUMAH: DOING FOR ONESELF

“And You Shall Take
for Me Teruma” —
Doing For Oneself
This week’s parsha
contains the section in
the Torah that deals
with the building of the Mishkan. The Torah
tells us that the Jewish people were
commanded to bring a donation to Moshe
Rabbeinu for the purpose of erecting a
Mishkan (Tabernacle).
The pasuk [verse] uses the expression, “…
and take for Me (v’yikchu Li) a donation…”
[Shemos 25:2]. The obvious question is that
this is a peculiar choice of words. The more
appropriate expression would have been
“…and give to Me (v’yitnu Li) a donation…”
On a simple level, we can say that since G-d
really owns everything (“…to Hashem is
the Earth and all that it contains…”
[Tehillim 24:1]), it is impossible to speak of
giving Him anything. Giving usually
implies I have ownership and I transfer the
ownership to someone else. Therefore,
when we talk about the Master of the World,

we don’t use the expression “giving.”
Instead, we use the expression “taking.”
That is to say, G-d already owns everything,
we merely ‘allow’ Him to take that which is
already His.
In Parshas Vayera, Rav Shlomo Breuer, zt”l
has a beautiful thought on this concept of
“taking for Me Teruma.” Whenever we
‘give,’ whether we do chessed with our
bodies or we do chessed with our money,
every giving is actually a ‘taking.’ Whenever
a person does a chessed, he is really doing
more for himself than for the person to
whom he is giving.
The Medrash says in Parshas Vayikra,
“More than what a Ba’al HaBayis does for a
poor person, the poor person does for the
Ba’al HaBayis.” If one gives a person a
donation, the money is a very temporary
thing. Perhaps it pays for the next meal;
perhaps it pays for the rent. In actuality, it is
very, very finite. On the other hand, the
person who ‘gives,’ in addition to acquiring
Olam HaBaw (the World to Come),
accumulates something else as well… He
acquires that which it does to his personality,

that which it does to his
soul and to his self- esteem.
By helping another person,
one is taking far more than
he is giving.
Rav Breuer points out the
first time that we find an act
of chessed in the Torah: by
Avraham Avinu and the
Angels. The invitation
extended by our Patriarch
Avraham to the Angels,
offering them a place to eat
and a place to sleep, is the
first overt mention of an act of kindness in
the Torah.
When we look at that parsha we see an
interesting thing. How many times does the
Torah use the expression “…let water be
taken (yuKach nah me’at mayim)…”

[Bereishis 18:4]; “…I will take bread (va-
eKcha pas lechem)…” [18:5]? What kind of

expression is that? Avraham should have
said “I will give water; I will give bread.”
The answer is that Avraham Avinu is

instructing his children and telling them,
“My children, you should know for all
future generations, that when you help
someone else, you are not giving; you are
taking!”
When a person helps someone, he/she does
more for himself/herself than he/she does
for the other person. This is what the Torah
is teaching us with the expression “V’Yikchu
Li Teruma.” Whether a person gives to an
individual or to an institution, he/she is
really receiving more than he/she is giving.