Organized Religion
Parashat Terumah, Exodus 25:1–27:19
Matt Absolon, Beth T’filah, Miramar, FL
And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel. (Exodus 25:21–22 ESV)
Permit me to dive into this week’s reflection with some questions.
Did Moses pray to God?
If Moses were walking the quiet stillness of the desert night, would he hear the voice of God in the same way as he hears it inside the Mishkan, or does Moses save all the conversation for his morning “chat” with God, face to face?
Assuming you had access to the very voice of God, and assuming you were chosen to directly speak to God face to face, what precisely would your prayer life look like?
These questions are asked to explore how God’s voice speaks to us, in different ways, in different places, for different purposes. Clearly, God has called our forefathers into the wilderness to worship him, with the Mishkan at the epicenter of our physical place of worship. The Mishkan, then, is an organized place inside space and time, within which our forefathers and God would meet with one another. The Mishkan is the place where God spoke with Moses.
The intentionality of the design of the Mishkan must not slip from our view. The purity of the gold and silver, the weight, measurements, design, and layout, the soft radiance of the menorah, the rich colors and so forth; all of this sublimity in design, materials, intentionality, planning, focus, hard work, cooperation, was driven by one overarching purpose: to create an organized space where God would dwell with us and speak with us. This effort and purpose are mirrored in the haftarah portion with the building of Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 5:26–6:13).
This intentionality and purpose gifted our forefathers with a cohesive framework to jointly worship God, a framework that culminates in the creation of the most intense and sacred days of our calendar. Worship was to take place at a specific place, at a specific time, guided by specific people, using specific elements, within a specific ritual, for a specific outcome. Any deviation from the specificities endangered both the priesthood and the community with bearing the full weight of God’s unquenchable fire. To hear God’s voice as a community our forefathers had to organize and regulate their religious services around a given set of mishpatim, rules or ordinances. The religion of our forefathers, of Mount Sinai, of the Mishkan, is an organized religion.
So, we see that the voice of God to Moses, and by extension to the assembly of Israel, came by way of an organized and intentional religious space. It was not random or haphazard. It was not spontaneous or unconstrained. God’s voice came within an organized space and time.
This is not to say that Gods voice can only be heard inside an organized space; clearly this notion is not biblical. But rather, this is to say that God’s voice is heard in a particular way, only through an organized space. When we come to Yom Kippur or Shavuot or Shabbat services, we join together to hear God’s voice in that particular way, as he speaks to us mysteriously as individuals, but simultaneously as a collective flock. Communal worship brings God’s voice to us in a particular way, which can only be heard within the community setting.
Branching out from this pattern is the principle that we should organize our own place of prayer and meditation at home in an intentional and organized way. We should not leave our devotional life to the winds of spontaneity, randomness, and haphazardness. But rather we should be intentional about the time, place, and purpose of our devotional and quiet times before the Lord. When we do so, we create a deliberately organized space where we can hear the voice of God, which can only be heard in that particular way.
It is a very Jewish thing for us to be disciplined in our spiritual walk. The daily and weekly liturgy offers us a framework to communally enter into an organized space and time to hear God’s voice.
May this drash offer a word of strength to those who, in alignment with the worship at the Mishkan, integrate the liturgical prayers into their daily worship; and a word of encouragement to those who find themselves struggling with “organized religion.” I encourage us all to discipline our worship within an organized and intentional space and time so that, like Moses, we might hear God speak with us there.