I can understand why the Israelites made a golden calf, why idolaters once abounded, and why, in the absence of idols, the world is filled with atheists. An invisible God is hard to find. “Where is the place of God’s glory?” we ask daily in our prayers (in the Amida), recognizing that at least a trace of God ought to be evident.

The Amida’s answer is that God’s glory “fills the earth,” but there are other answers too. God’s presence once occupied Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 8:11), and before that, it “filled the desert sanctuary” (Exodus 40.35). Summoning God’s presence is pretty much the topic for all the rest of Exodus.

But it starts here, with God’s request: “Make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.” “Among them,” note, not “in it.” But how can that be, if God’s presence “filled the desert sanctuary”? (Exodus 40.35) Menachem Mendel of Kutsk answers, “If we build a sanctuary in our hearts, God will dwell among us.”

But the Hebrew for “among” can also mean “in.” God dwells not only among the people but inside every single person, which is why even without a desert sanctuary or Temple, we can still find God: if we cultivate a sanctuary within ourselves.

This week’s instructions take on new significance, then. More than just historically interesting, they direct the building of our inner sanctuaries. So, what are they?
In general, we are to donate “what the heart desires” — this is a voluntary thing. Sixteen contributions are enumerated, everything from beautiful linen to rare acacia wood. Ibn Ezra, however, notes that within the list are precious stones, which the people could obtain only because wealthy tribal elders provided them.

So here is the pattern: To summon God, we contribute mostly on our own. But what we are able to supply ourselves is insufficient. We depend also on what other people make available.

Now apply that model to the Kutzker’s insistence that we build a sanctuary within ourselves. The parallelism would be this: Our bodies are the desert, our soul is the sanctuary, the Israelites in the desert are the senses within our bodies. The materials we need enter through our senses.

It all sounds fanciful if you utterly reject the existence of a soul, but why is it harder to imagine a soul than, say, a conscience? No one has ever seen a conscience, but we do not doubt that we have one. Then, too, there are expressions like “going deep down” to “find our true selves.” We want “inner peace,” we say, rather than “being torn apart within.” These are not just ways of speaking. We really are able to check out our inner core, aren’t we? “Soul” is just the Jewish name for that core: invisible but real, and the place where we may build an inner sanctuary to invite God’s presence.

Everything depends on what building materials our senses allow inside, which is why Judaism pays such care to what we say, see, hear, and eat. Our ears should be closed to gossip. We take no prurient interest in voyeurism and violence. We avoid certain foods, like ever min hacha’i, limbs torn off a living animal, or whatever else causes animals undue pain.

A lifetime of internalizing only the basest level of human indignity desecrates the soul. A life devoted to saying, hearing, and seeing models of righteousness constructs a sacred interior, a soul built on honesty and integrity. It is outwardly perceived as “character.”

But like the desert sanctuary, our inner core depends in part on what others provide. The senses invariably take in what is around them, so the Mishna admonishes, “Stay far from a bad neighbor; do not associate with the wicked.” Think, likewise, how our own conversation becomes what others take in. So we are warned against using our mouths for obscenities: We begin the Amida by asking, “Keep our lips from speaking evil.” And we are to monitor what we display for others to see. We may not “put a stumbling block before the blind” (Leviticus 19:14) — which the rabbis take symbolically as not leading others into sin. Every interaction with others either tarnishes or enhances the interior landscape of their souls.

“The soul that you gave us came unsullied,” we say, in another morning prayer. As long as we live, we are charged with keeping it that way. And when we die, we give it up. Which of us, approaching death, will not look within and examine the core of who we are? Do we dare attend to our inner sanctuary any less than the Israelites attended to the outer one?

Our parsha reminds us to monitor our senses, to make our inner core a sanctuary for God, and to say and do only what will nurture the interior of those around us.