PARSHAS TERUMAH SUMMARIZED:
God instructed Moshe to tell all Israelites whose hearts so moved them to bring gifts of gold, silver, copper, colored yarns, fine linen, goats' hair, tanned ram skins, acacia wood, oil, spices, lapis lazuli, and other fine stones to make a sanctuary—the Tabernacle (Mishkan, מִּשְׁכָּן)—and its furnishings so that God could dwell among them. God instructed them to make the Ark of the Covenant of acacia wood overlaid with gold to deposit the tablets that set forth God's commandments. Then God told them to make two cherubim of gold for the Ark's cover. God promised to impart commandments to Moshe from between the two cherubim above the cover of the Ark. God instructed them to make a table of acacia wood overlaid with gold to set the bread of display or showbread. God instructed them to make a six-branched, seven-lamped lampstand—menorah—of pure gold. God instructed them to make the Tabernacle of ten curtains of fine twisted linen, blue, purple, and crimson yarns, with a design of cherubim worked into them. God instructed them to make 11 cloths of goats' hair for a tent over the Tabernacle and coverings of tanned ram skins and Tachash skins (תְּחָשִׁים). God instructed them to make acacia wood boards and overlay them with gold for the Tabernacle. God instructed them to make a curtain of blue, purple, and crimson yarns and fine twisted linen, with a design of cherubim, to serve as a partition concealing the Holy of Holies. God instructed them to place the Ark, the table, and the lampstand in the Tabernacle. God instructed them to make a screen for the entrance of the Tent of colored yarns and fine twisted linen, done in embroidery and supported by five posts of acacia wood overlaid with gold. God instructed them to make the altar of acacia wood overlaid with copper. God instructed them to make the enclosure of the Tabernacle from fine, twisted linen.
Techashim
Rabbi Elai said in the name of Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish (Resh Lakish) that Rabbi Meir used to maintain that the תְּחָשִׁים, techashim (sometimes translated "sealskins" or "dolphin skins") listed in Exodus 25:5 came from an animal called a tachash that lived in the time of Moses. It was a separate species, and the Sages could not decide whether it was a wild beast or a domestic animal. It had one horn on its forehead and came to Moses providentially just for the occasion. Moses made the Tabernacle's covering, and then the tachash disappeared. The Gemara taught that the tachash was multicolored.
A Midrash explained with a parable God's instruction to build a Tabernacle. A king had only one daughter, who married another king. When the son-in-law king wished to return to his country and take his wife with him, the father king told him that he could neither part with his daughter nor tell her husband not to take her, as she was now his wife. The father king thus asked the son-in-law king the favor that wherever the son-in-law king would go to live, he would have a chamber ready for the father king to dwell with them, for he could not bear to leave his daughter. Thus, God told Israel that God had given Israel a Torah from which God could not part, yet God also could not tell Israel not to take the Torah. Thus, God asked the Israelites to make for God a house wherein God might sojourn wherever the Israelites went, and thus Exodus 25:8 says, "And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them." [56]Exodus Rabbah 33:1
The Babylonian Talmud related a story about God's desire for the Tabernacle. Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi arranged for his son to marry a daughter of Rabbi Yosei ben Zimra's household. The two Rabbis agreed they would support the groom for twelve years to study in the study hall. It was assumed that he would first go to research and then get married. But when the groom saw the bride-to-be, he asked that they shorten the delay to six years. When he saw her again, he said that he wanted to marry her immediately and then go to study. He was then ashamed to see his father, as he thought Rabbi Judah would reprimand him for his impatience. His father soothed him and told him he had his Maker's perception, meaning he acted the same way God did. Initially, the words of Exodus 15:17, "You bring them and plant them in the mountain of Your inheritance, the place that You, O Lord, have made for You to dwell in," indicated that God's original intention was to build a Temple for the Jewish people after they had entered the Land of Israel. But then, in Exodus 25:8, God directed, "And let them make Me a Sanctuary, that I may dwell among them," that is, even while they were still in the desert, indicating that due to their closeness to God, the Israelites enjoyed greater affection from God and God therefore advanced what would originally have come later. (Kesubos 62b)
A Midrash taught that God considers studying the sanctuary's structure equivalent to rebuilding it. (Tanhuma, Tzav 14).
Maimonides taught that God told the Israelites to build a Sanctuary in Exodus 25:8 and instituted the practice of sacrifices generally as transitional steps to wean the Israelites off of the worship of the times and move them toward prayer as the primary means of worship. Maimonides noted that in nature, God created animals that develop gradually. For example, when a mammal is born, it is extremely tender and cannot eat dry food, so God provided breasts that yield milk to feed the young animal until it can eat dry food. Similarly, Maimonides taught that God instituted many temporary laws, as it would have been impossible for the Israelites to discontinue everything they had suddenly become accustomed to. So God sent Moses to make the Israelites (in the words of Exodus 19:6) "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." But the general custom of worship in those days was sacrificing animals in temples that contained idols. So, God did not command the Israelites to give up those service manners but allowed them to continue. God transferred to God's service what had formerly served as a worship of idols and commanded the Israelites to serve God in the same manner—namely, to build a Sanctuary (Exodus 25:8), to erect the altar to God's name (Exodus 20:21), to offer sacrifices to God (Leviticus 1:2), to bow down to God, and to burn incense before God. God forbade doing any of these things to any other being and selected priests for the service in the Temple in Exodus 28:41. By this Divine plan, God blotted out the traces of idolatry and established the great principle of the Existence and Unity of God. But the sacrificial service, Maimonides taught, was not the primary object of God's commandments about sacrifice; rather, supplications, prayers, and similar kinds of worship are nearer to the primary object. Thus, God limited sacrifice to only one Temple (see Deuteronomy 12:26) and the priesthood to only the members of a particular family. These restrictions, Maimonides taught, served to limit sacrificial worship and kept it within such bounds that God did not feel it necessary to abolish sacrificial service altogether. But in the Divine plan, prayer and supplication can be offered everywhere and by every person, as can be the wearing of tzitzit (Numbers 15:38) and tefillin (Exodus 13:9, 16) and similar kinds of service. (The Guide for the Perplexed, part 3, chapter 32).
According to Maimonides and Sefer ha-Chinuch, there are two positive and one negative commandments in the parashah:
To build a Sanctuary
Not to remove the staves from the Ark of the Covenant
To make the showbread