CHOCHMAS NASHIM:PIKUDEI :INTENTIONS
By: Suri Davis
In this week’s Haftorah, it discusses King Solomon’s dedication of the holy Temple in Jerusalem and three points stand out to me.
When it was completed and the ark with the tablets of the ten commandments was placed in the holy of holies, the Temple was filled with G-d’s shchinah/spirit so completely filled the temple, that the Haftorah tells us, verse 11: The priests could not stand and minister because of the cloud, for the glory of G-d filled G-d’s Temple.” It reminds me of the Tanya’s description of creation of the world. Before G-d created the world as we know, it was filled with His shchinah, His spirit. He had to shrink that spirit to provide space for the people and other creations to survive and act. G-d gave Bnei Yisrael to see a re-enactment of that moment, when He was pleased by King Solomon’s and the Jews’ efforts in building to exact specifications the holy Temple, and He filled His spirit in totality, to let us know that the raison d’etre, the very reason the world was created was now coming to fruition with a house in which man could realize his complete service and dedication to G-d, and where there would be a revealed manifestation of G-d’s presence on earth.
It was King David, who had begged G-d to let him build the temple and G-d said no. In the Haftorah the conversation is revealed, verse 18: G-d said to David, my father, “Regarding your heart’s desire to build a Temple for My Name, you did well that this was your heart’s desire.” In other words, even though G-d said no, merely wanting to build the Temple was a great merit. This week’s daily Tanya portion asks the question of how do we build the temple when we are in exile? By learning torah, which reveals our desires to get closer to G-d and do the mitzvoth in their full expression now and when the Temple is rebuilt AND by stating each day that we await Moshiach so we can get closer to G-d with the full redemption.
The final verse of the Haftorah, “I have made there a place for the Ark that houses the Tablets of the Covenant of G-d, which He made wit our fathers when He brought them out of Egypt.” There was another covenant between G-d. I will take you my chosen people out of physical slavery and foreign dominion, to make you my servants, a spiritual bond King/servant relationship.
As we enter Shabbos, a time when G-d fills our home with the shchinah, and his emissaries, the angels, and “Ateret baalah” the glory of the her husband/G-d, and when G-d provides us with a neshamah yesayrah/an additional soul which represents his glory within each one of us to reveal to us the glory of telem Elokim, the divine image with which He imbued us, let us have our intention in the merry month of Adar to fully experience the joy and that closeness, daven with our yearning for a speedy and complete redemption this very minute.
Have a good Shabbos.
-Suri