By DENNIS PRAGER
(Editor’s Note: Below is an essay by Dennis Prager, a nationally syndicated conservative radio talk-show host and author. The essay is an exclusive excerpt from Prager’s new book, The Rational Bible: Exodus, published by Regnery. Prager, whose background is Jewish, wrote the book to show how the Bible teaches “sublime moral values” and is essential to our lives. Regnery Publishing offered this excerpt to The Wanderer because Prager here addresses the criticism Catholics receive for constructing such beautiful cathedrals, and defends why this is respectful and necessary.)
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25.3 And these are the gifts that you shall accept from them: gold, silver, and copper;
The Torah now details the gifts the Israelites may bring (but not until verse 8 do we learn what they are for). The list that follows includes all the Israelites’ most valuable possessions. Although most of these recently liberated slaves owned only a few precious items, they were willing to part with them. Presumably, they were willing to do so because they wanted to feel connected to God.
Many moderns strongly criticize religions for building ornate temples, churches, and cathedrals. All that wealth would be much better used to help the poor, they argue. The most often cited examples are Catholic cathedrals built in the midst of poverty.
I don’t find this a valid criticism. For one thing, the construction and furnishing of those cathedrals employed many thousands of people over the course of decades, and even centuries (it took about 250 years to build the York cathedral in England, for example).
But most important, if all the gold in every cathedral in the poorest Catholic countries were melted, and everything of value in those cathedrals were sold off, with the money then dispersed among its neediest citizens, it would have minimal immediate, and no enduring, impact on poverty. A small percentage of the many millions of poor people would benefit, and only for a very limited period. Then they would be left with no more cathedral in their midst — for most of these people, their greatest source of communal pride, and a place that brought them closer to God and uplifted their spirits. These cathedrals have given untold numbers of poor (and wealthy) people peace, meaning, and solace — things for which secular Westerners have little appreciation or empathy.
Like the Israelites in the desert, most of these poor people have preferred to establish an enduring connection to God through their gifts than have a little bit of extra gold for a few days or weeks.
The late British rabbi, Hugo Gryn, recounted a story from when he was a teenage prisoner in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz:
“One midwinter evening one of the inmates reminded us that tonight was the first night of Hanukkah, the festival of lights. My father constructed a little Hanukkah menorah out of scrap metal. For a wick he took some threads from his prison uniform. For oil, he used some butter that he somehow procured from a guard. [Although] such observances were strictly verboten [forbidden] we were used to taking risks. But I protested at the ‘waste’ of precious calories. Would it not be better to share butter on a crust of bread than to burn it?
“ ‘Hugo,’ said my father, ‘both you and I know that a person can live a very long time without food. But Hugo, I tell you, a person cannot live a single day without hope’.”
Without God, there is no hope. Only God gives us hope there is something beyond this life — a destination where ultimate justice is achieved, where we reconnect with loved ones, and where life doesn’t abruptly end for all eternity. A beautiful religious ritual or a beautiful religious edifice can bring us closer to God and hope.
In my lifetime (unlike in some previous generations), most Jews have, for whatever reason, chosen not to build particularly beautiful synagogues (and, for the most part, Christians are no longer building beautiful churches, much less cathedrals), but Jews who find inspiration and meaning in religious ritual often spend a good deal of money on religious objects such as a Chanukah menorah, a citron for Succot (the holiday of Tabernacles, when Jews say a blessing while holding a palm frond and a citron), a citron box, and a Havdala set for the ceremony separating the Sabbath (and other holidays) from the rest of the week.
Beautiful rituals, beautiful places of worship, beautiful art, and music that elevate us and bring us closer to God are worth more than material benefits.
25.3 (cont.) And these are the gifts that you shall accept from them
The Torah now lists seven categories of materials with which to make the tabernacle:
• Metals
• Dyed yarns
• Fabrics
• Timber
• Oil
• Spices
• Gems
The number seven recurs throughout the description of the blueprint for the Tabernacle and, as the number seven — repeated over and over in the Torah — always does, recalls God’s creation of the world in seven days. Our creative labor in building the Tabernacle is thereby linked to the Creator.
25.3 (cont.) Gold, silver, and copper
In the Tabernacle, these materials are encountered in the opposite order. The entrance area is copper; the next chamber is silver; and the Holy of Holies (the innermost chamber where God’s spirit dwells) is gold. “The closer the object is to the Holy of Holies, the more valuable the metal of which it is made” (Sarna).
Iron is not mentioned because it was used as a weapon of war and therefore had no place in God’s sanctuary. The Talmud explains: “For iron [used in making weapons] was created to shorten man’s days, while the altar was created to lengthen man’s days, and it does not seem right that that which shortens life should be wielded against that which prolongs it.”
25.4 blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair;
Each of these colors has symbolic significance. Blue represents the heavens and the creation of the world; purple represents royalty (the high cost of purple dye due to its rare source generally meant only the wealthiest individuals, usually royalty, owned purple garments); and crimson represents sin, as reflected in Isaiah’s statement: “Be your sins like crimson, they can turn snow-white” (i.e., if you repent; Isaiah 1.18).
These colors represent the major themes Israelites were supposed to think about during worship: God’s creation, God’s kingship, and God’s acceptance of atonement for sin.
25.5 tanned ram skins, dolphin skins, and acacia wood;
25.6 oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the aromatic incense;
25.7 lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece.
The ephod was a vest worn by the high priest when he presided at the altar (see Exodus 28:4-12 and 39:2-7). Two onyx stones, upon which were engraved the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, were placed on the shoulder of the ephod.
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