Towards Exile, Away from Diaspora

Here’s a dvar Torah from last week I wrote up for Jewish Currents on the difference between a Jewishness centering “exile” and one centering “diaspora”:

This week’s parshah, Terumah, describes a plethora of seemingly banal details about the Tabernacle’s construction. But hidden among this minutiae, we also find a profound societal critique. The portion begins with God encouraging Moses to solicit gifts from the Israelites to use as building materials: “Gold, silver, and copper; blue [tchelet], purple [argaman], and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair,” as well as animal skins, fine wood, and oils. Though the combination of gold, silver, tchelet, and argaman might seem ordinary in the description of grand architecture, the Bible describes only two other buildings as being made with the same materials: the Temple in Jerusalem, which itself was based on the Tabernacle, and the palace of King Achashverosh, made famous through the story of Purim. For the Persian Jews of Shushan, living after the destruction of the First Temple, the design of Achashverosh’s palace must have been unsettling: Was this what the prophets had meant when they assured the Israelites that the Temple would be rebuilt?

Read the rest at Jewish Currents!