Maureena’s Torah Reflections
Parashat Terumah. Exodus 25:1-27:19
“There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony…” Ex. 25:22.
Though God fills the heaven and the earth (Jer. 23:2) God concentrated the divine Self to the space above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim: “From there I will meet with you.”
In early Midrashic writings this concentration of God to a specific place is called Tsimtsum, which is an act of divine self-limitation out of love. Through this divine self-concentration, each of us can enter into an I-Thou relationship with God without the necessity of intermediaries:
“I am my Beloved’s and my beloved is mine” (Song 6:3).
“I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD (Hos. 2:20).
Prepared by Prof. Sr Maureena Fritz
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“Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies.”
Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions: Nostra Aetate, No. 4