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Octavia's Terumah

02/27/2023 02:52:33 PM

Feb27

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Terumah, in which God starts to give out the instructions on the building of the Mishkan, the holy Tabernacle that will wander the desert with the Israelites and give an earthly home to the Shekhina, the Divine presence, so that the Israelites will have a place to meet with God. The Haftarah for this parasha comes from I Kings 5:26-6:13, and similarly describes the building of King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. In both instances, as well as with the rebuilding of the Temple in the time of Ezra and Nehemia, and in several smaller ways throughout the entirety of our people’s history - from Abraham to this very night - the central theme and purpose is to create a physical space where one might feel close to God. Even if we believe that the Divine presence is all around us all the time, or that HaShem is everywhere and in everything, or that each person is a spark of holiness that drives forward the moral arc of the universe, still as humans we seek to create sanctuaries in which to shut out the secular and connect more deeply to that divinity that may feel diffuse elsewhere. 

Tonight is also Octavia E. Butler’s yahrzeit. She died of a stroke at the age of 58 exactly 17 years ago today. I am currenty making my way through Butler’s novel Mind of My Mind, her second novel in the Patternist series. Alongside the podcast “Octavia’s Parables” with adrienne maree brown and Toshi Reagon, I have already read Butler’s Parable series (-of the Sower and -of the Talents) and the first book in the Patternist series, Wild Seed (which I learned in researching this sermon was actually originally written as a prequel but in my digital boxed set of the series, it is the first). I expect that although it took until 2020 for me to be exposed to her work, I will now slowly but surely be making my way through her entire canon because she is a fantastic writer and observer of humanity. 

I wouldn’t say the works I’ve read so far have a lot in common, but there is something to the tone of Butler’s work that exposes the true scope of humanity. She features strong young Black women as her protagonists, pushing back against the weight of the world that has been placed upon them, flawed and complex characters trying to survive in a harsh reality. She depicts faceless villains that represent the worst of our hierarchical societal structures, the soul-sucking nature of a capital-over-humanity approach to civilization. She portrays how so many can get stuck in the current of these streams, pulled into virtual slavery or liberated through communal living established by the heroines, and how hard the communal living still is, how some prefer the structures that abused them, because at least then their roles were clear and they knew how to play the game to get their next meal. 

These are themes we see as well in our Holy Text. The Israelites have been liberated from slavery, from an oppressive hierarchy that placed them at the bottom even before they were enslaved. Now they are free and they are frightened. They need a project to bind them together, to occupy their days, to fulfill their greater purpose. And so they start building the Mishkan. Moses is the direct conduit to God to get the blueprints, and Bezalel and Ohaliav will be named the chief builders and artisans, but all the people are asked to contribute. Everyone has something to give, and must bring a gift for the building of the Mishkan in order to later utilize it. Again, the priests and the Levites will be the chief facilitators of those sacrifices made in the Mishkan when it is done, but all the people will bring sacrifices. All the people will need this Mishkan, and later the Temples, to feel connected with God, in part because it also connects them to each other and to the People of Israel. One can pray anywhere, but it is in our houses of worship that we best feel the holy presence of the Divine, because the Divine spark is best ignited through interpersonal relationships. 

While googling “Octavia Butler and Parashat Terumah” I found a reading group called Speculative Wisdom out of Congregation T’chiya, a Reconstructionist synagogue in Detroit. Surprisingly, they have not actually read any of Butler’s novels, but they did start the club with Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, edited by adrienne maree brown, as well as Grievers, a novel by brown, who is certainly a spiritual student of Butler. I’ve signed up for the discussion scheduled for July, as the book slated for that date is something that’s been on my To Read list for a while (Binti: the full trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor). T’chiya pitches this reading group as “juxtaposing the imaginations of contemporary visionaries and the sages of old [in order to] not only provide a uniquely engaging avenue for deepened Jewish literacy, but also to equip readers with a mental flexibility to better respond proactively to the problems of our time.” Although she wrote most of her books throughout the 1970’s, ‘80’s, and ‘90’s, Butler’s only book to reach the New York Times Best Sellers list was Parable of the Sower in 2020 when everyone and their mother turned to it for guidance on how to navigate what felt like the end of the world, which shows just how prescient her writing was. She was a prophet of the 20th century, and there is deep Torah in her works. 

This Shabbat, let us honor Octavia Butler’s legacy, and the legacy of our ancestors building the Mishkan, and create a holy space for liberation and divine connection here. May we learn with and from one another, may we find the center and the foundation needed to move forward toward freedom and peace for all, and may we allow ourselves to be living sanctuaries for the Divine spark. Amen and Shabbat Shalom. 

 

Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784