We don’t do much “God talk” in my house. I grew up in a yekke household — we spoke about kashrut, Shabbat, all the practicalities — but not about God directly. Then we moved to a Yemenite moshav with a Chabad rabbi, and everything shifted. Nobody here is embarrassed to say “Hashem loves you” or “Let’s speak to Hashem.” I love giving lifts to the Yemenite women because they shower me in blessings — they pray with their feet, as Heschel would say, literally talking to and about God as they walk through their day.

Once, I asked my then 5-year-old: “Where do you think Hashem is?” Without hesitation, she pointed outward — to the sky — and then inward, to herself.

She was more theologically sophisticated than she knew.

We have, I think, been somewhat ruined by the philosophical revolution of God. The God of the philosophers, the God we can only speak of in “negative terms,” describing what He is not, rather than what He is — transcendent, ineffable, abstract — is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Torah laughs, cries, regrets, and gets angry (Bereishit 6:6, Shemot 32:14). He searches for humankind, calls us into partnership, listens to our prayers, and responds to our actions (Devarim 4:7).

But perhaps the most radical idea the Bible introduced is not just that God is “out there” — not merely the God of Spinoza, embedded in nature, or the God of the mystics, diffused through the cosmos — but that God is in here. We are created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God (Bereishit 1:27). Each of us carries a divine element, something like a superpower. God is near — recognizable, if we dig down deep enough. He is also present in the face of the other: the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the one who is different from me but to whom I owe dignity and respect because they too carry Divinity within (Shemot 22:20-21).

Even those of us who don’t naturally “speak God” have deeply imbibed this idea. I realized this when a non-Jewish friend remarked: “You Jews — your greatest downfall is your greatest strength. You believe in the goodness of humankind. It makes you hopeful but also naïve.” He was right. Too often we assume the divine spark within every person will prevail. History — and very recent history — has shown us how dangerous that assumption can be.

God warns us about this tension in one of the Torah’s earliest battles. After leaving Egypt, the people complain about water. The place is named Massah u’Merivah because of what they ask:

הֲיֵשׁ ה’ בְּקִרְבֵּנוּ, אִם-אָיִן “Is God among us, or is there nothing?” (Shemot 17:7)

הֲיֵשׁ ה’ בְּקִרְבֵּנוּ, אִם-אָיִן

“Is God among us, or is there nothing?” (Shemot 17:7)

B’kirbeinu is usually translated as “in our midst,” but means something more intimate: within us. And ayin — literally nothingness — is the alternative they fear. Is God out there, or is He in here? And if neither — is there simply nothing?

Immediately after, Amalek attacks. This is not, I believe, a punishment for doubting God. It is an answer to their question. Yes, God says: I am inside you and outside of you. But I will not show you through a miracle — I will show you through brit, covenant. God and human beings together, fighting evil in the world. You possess the power to fight for yourselves.

Moshe ascends the hill with Aharon and Hur; Yehoshua chooses men to fight. When Moshe raises his arms toward heaven, Israel prevails; when they fall, Israel falters. His hands grow heavy and Aharon and Hur support them (Shemot 17:12). The text calls them yadei emunah — the arms of faith. Not propositional faith. Not the faith of the philosopher. Covenantal faith — raising my eyes to the divine in heaven while finding divine strength within. It is, in other words, my daughter’s gesture.

The battle against Amalek is the paradigm of biblical faith: human arms reaching toward heaven, divine strength flowing into human endeavor. By juxtaposing Amalek to God’s pedagogical lesson of covenant, the Torah teaches us that this faith must not turn into blind naivety: Not everyone chooses to awaken the divine spark within them — there are those who embody its opposite. The Torah does not ask us to ignore this or wish it away. It asks us to fight it: not by becoming ruthless ourselves, but by drawing on the divine powers invested in us — the courage, the moral clarity, and the responsibility to act.

The Turn Outwards as an Antidote to the Selfie Culture

It is no accident that Parshat Terumah is almost always read around Rosh Chodesh Adar, as we prepare to remember Amalek. This week’s parsha offers another, quieter version of the same lesson.

Moshe faces an extraordinary challenge: to take former slaves shaped by decades of self-interested survival and transform them into a cohesive people. The task is not merely logistical — it is, above all, psychological and spiritual. The mechanism he uses is striking. He asks the people to build a home for God.

וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ, וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם “And they shall make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them” (Shemot 25:8)

וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ, וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם

“And they shall make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them” (Shemot 25:8)

Note: not b’tocho — within it — but b’tocham — within them. God does not promise to dwell in the building. He promises to dwell within the people.

The parsha hints to two types of giving — nedavah and terumah — material and personal — both freely offered, without expectation of return.

דַּבֵּר֙ אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְיִקְחוּ־לִ֖י תְּרוּמָ֑ה מֵאֵ֤ת כָּל־אִישׁ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר יִדְּבֶ֣נּוּ לִבּ֔וֹ תִּקְח֖וּ אֶת־תְּרֽוּמָתִֽי: Speak to the Israelites and have the treasurers take a contribution for Me. Tell the treasurers: ‘You must take the contribution for Me from every man whose heart prompts him to give. (Exodus 25:2)

דַּבֵּר֙ אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְיִקְחוּ־לִ֖י תְּרוּמָ֑ה מֵאֵ֤ת כָּל־אִישׁ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר יִדְּבֶ֣נּוּ לִבּ֔וֹ תִּקְח֖וּ אֶת־תְּרֽוּמָתִֽי:

Speak to the Israelites and have the treasurers take a contribution for Me. Tell the treasurers: ‘You must take the contribution for Me from every man whose heart prompts him to give. (Exodus 25:2)

As Rabbi Sacks argues, in The Home We Build Together, when we build something together, we transcend our divisions and orient ourselves toward a common good. And embedded in this project is a profound theological shift: this God does not diminish us — He empowers us. He is not just outside of us, but when we make space for Him, inside us too.

The “believe in yourself” culture of our time points the needle exclusively inward — toward what I need, what is good for me, how I can nurture my authentic self. This parsha offers a radically different formula. The divine spark within us is awakened not by turning inward, but by stepping outward — litrôm and lehitnadev — to give of ourselves without expectation of return. True self-knowledge begins not with self-focus but with recognizing the divine spark in others. That is how self-love becomes not narcissism, but altruism.

The God Talk Renaissance  

Like the generation who fought Amalek in the wilderness, those in Persia who fought Haman, and the freed slaves who built the Tabernacle in the desert, our generation too has witnessed extraordinary acts of giving — soldiers sacrificing their safety, volunteers giving their time, and too many giving their lives. And something else: a renaissance of God talk. Hostages returning from the tunnels of Gaza describing encounters that defy easy explanation. Israeli artists writing songs that are, at their core, soliloquies to God. A people that thought it had outgrown such language is finding its way back to it.

None of this surprises. When we give to a sacred cause and make a home for God in this world, we discover that He is not so far away after all. He is, as my daughter showed me so simply, both out there and in here.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)