What does it take to create a sacred space?

IT WAS EITHER A BRILLIANT editorial decision or just a wonderful coincidence that this issue of Jewish Rhode Island, dedicated to Home and Garden, coincides with the Torah portion of Tetzaveh.

Tetzaveh, in the Book of Exodus, is one of five portions that focus on the building of the mishkan, the portable tabernacle that accompanied the Hebrew people in their wanderings in the wilderness between Sinai and the Promised Land.

We usually associate the Book of Exodus with stories of redemption, peoplehood and wandering in the desert. So, it might come as a surprise that almost half of the book is dedicated to architectural and design plans, resource acquisition, choosing a contractor, descriptions of furniture and decorative flourishes, and even a deferred maintenance plan!

Tetzaveh focuses on interior design and it details the furnishings that are to go inside the mishkan. It also provides instructions for lighting the menorah, descriptions of the ritual garb for Aaron and the other kohanim, or priests, details about their consecration and investiture, and instructions for the offering of incense.

A primary lesson of this Torah portion is the focus on what it takes to make a place sacred. Certainly, careful design and beautifully crafted objects were important. But we learn that it was not enough to just build a dwelling place for God and call it a holy space.

To make it a worthy place, a sacred space, it had to be a place of regular gathering and worship. A place of light (menorah) and sacred service (offering of incense).

Similarly, in our own time, if we want to regard a place as sacred, we must engage in practice to make and keep it a place where the Divine Spirit, kedushah, can be experienced.

Over the years, I have had many conversations with people about the challenges off entire life stories.

$10,761 annual budget in 2019 ballooned to $23,094 in 2022.

“At the moment, we’re broke,” Mandelbaum says.

He’s hopeful that Judy’s Kindness Kitchen will receive a windfall of donations from regular benefactors in the coming months, and he is currently seeking a grant of $66,000 from a local nonprofit.

“Our only concrete cost is food and supplies,” he says.

The kitchen has long relied on the generosity of strangers: donated space, donated time, and volunteers who are willing to buy supplies from Shop & Save or Restaurant Depot and receive reimbursements later.

“If you [asked] how much would it cost to make this happen if I had to pay for absolutely everything that we use, $66,000 [annually] is the number that I came up with,” Mandelbaum says.

Effusive and energetic, Mandelbaum, a child neurologist, is now partly retired. During volunteer sessions, he flits around the room, introducing everyone and rattling of finding sacred space. Some people find great inspiration in the sanctuary of their synagogue or temple. Others find their spiritual home outside, in nature. And some people describe the feeling of looking into the eyes of another as being in sacred space and time.

What does it take to feel the spirit of the Divine dwelling in a place? Why is it often hard to feel God’s presence in places constructed as “sanctuaries”?

Tetzaveh hints at some possible answers to these questions. Most of the commandments regarding the construction of the mishkan are given in the simple imperative (you shall ...) without any additional pronoun. But in Tetzaveh, three imperatives are preceded by the second person singular pronoun. Atah Tetzaveh. Atah takriv. Atah tedaber. (You, you yourself shall command. You, you yourself shall bring close. You, you yourself shall speak.)

What might we learn from this subtle grammatical change? Perhaps we can learn that there is no such thing as proxy when it comes to bringing God’s bags. presence into a space, even if that space is the most beautifully, divinely-designed space ever created. Unless each of us brings our pure oil to sustain perpetual light; each of us brings others near, to share in the service; and each of us uses our voice to add to the sanctity of the place and its people, there is no mishkan, there is no sacred space.

Like prayer, meditation, teshuvah practice and other self-improvement work, we can’t do it just once (although doing it once reminds us that it is possible.) These activities are called spiritual practice for a reason! We have to keep doing them again and again, when we feel like it and when we do not.

Practice certainly does not make perfect. But practice makes possible the possibility that we might experience the presence of All That Is Holy dwelling among and within us.

RABBI ALAN FLAM , now retired, spent his rabbinical career at Brown University. He is the founder and organizer of Soulful Shabbat, a Saturday morning service that meets monthly at Temple Emanu-El, in Providence. He can be reached at alan. flam@gmail.com.

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Mandelbaum says he feels a great debt to the volunteers, including the former bank CFO who insisted on preparing tuna, the Army veteran who apologized for not attending more often, and the guy who moved to Maryland, but when he came back to Rhode Island to visit family, he made a point of packing sandwiches.

“If you feel blessed – or, if you want to make it more secular, lucky – it is very easy to be generous,” muses Mandelbaum. “Judaism is infused with that concept. We’re here by God’s grace. If we’re fortunate enough to be in a good position, it has nothing to do with what we deserve and everything to do with blessings being bestowed.

“The Torah is explicit that you have to tithe your income. ‘Charity’ is not a good translation of tzedakah. It’s ‘justice.’ I feel very strongly about that.”

And the food is filling a very real need. Once, when Mandelbaum brought snacks to Kennedy Plaza, a man noticed the Judy’s Kindness Kitchen logos stamped on the

“Judy. Is that the Jewish lady who died?” the man asked.

Mandelbaum was taken aback, but said yes.

“And you’re her son, right?”

The man remembered Mandelbaum and Judy’s Kindness Kitchen from Crossroads, when he’d stayed some years before. He had heard the story and remembered the logo of a decorated spoon.

“I thought, ‘This is fantastic,’ ” says Mandelbaum. “This guy remembers.”

Donations to Judy’s Kindness Kitchen can be directed to Congregation Beth Shalom, 55 Cromwell St., Unit 1D, Providence, RI 02907 or you can email JKK.CBS@gmail. com.

To see David Mandelbaum at Judy's Kindness Kitchen go to JewishRhody.com.

ROBERT ISENBERG (risenberg@ jewishallianceri.org) is the multimedia producer for the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and a writer for Jewish Rhode Island.

Monday night, March 6, 5:30 pm

Chabad House · 360 Hope Street, Providence

Monday night · March 6, 5:30 pm

Megillah to stir your soul...

Music & Dancing to stir your heart...

Drinks & Hamantashen to stir your kishkes!

*Megillah Reading & Hamentashen

Tuesday, March 7, 8:30 am

*8:30 am at Chabad House

*12:00 pm at Alliance Board Room

401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence, RI

*4:15 pm Megillah Reading Purim Feast dinner at Chabad House