What Actually Matters?

The Torah tells us of the ancestral burial place of the founders of Judaism is in the cave of Machpelah, in Hebron.

Does this look like a cave to you?

Think of the mindset. Here is something with great religious and historical import. Abraham was the father of all monotheistic (anti-pagan) religions, after all — so he and his wife were the single most influential couple in the history of the world. They were buried in a cave.

But that cave is underground. When Avraham and Sarah were buried in that cave, perhaps there was nothing more visible than an opening in the ground, a mere entryway. Really, not much to look at, at all.

But what do people do when they think something needs to attract more attention? Herod, the great builder, spoke to his age — the age of Rome, influenced by the Hellenistic focus on visual reality. He built this edifice, using whopping big stones, so that everyone could see this historical landmark.

It seems to me that this approach, like the huge Herodian building expansion of the Temple in Jerusalem, is exactly backward.

Why? Because Torah Judaism is all about appreciating that the things of greatest importance are things we cannot easily see. Love. Loyalty. Intimacy. Ideals of responsibility for our choices, and to those around us.

The world is built on intangible and ethereal wisps of nothing more than mere words, thoughts, and ideas. The love between man and G-d, and between man and wife. Avraham and Sarah. None of these things exists as a large edifice. Nevertheless, the entire world stands upon them.

It confuses the eye — and the mind — when we think that in order to be important, something must be visible. It compounds the error when we think that importance scales with size: the more impressive something looks, the more important it must be. After all, a single person is as nothing compared to the universe, at least in size. But the data we have thus far is that no supernova or galaxy is even aware of itself, let alone capable of perceiving and considering something or someone else. Size is less than nothing: size is a mere façade, an illusory poltergeist for what is really important.

The Tabernacle in the desert, the center of the entire Jewish religious experience, and the place in which G-d’s spiritual presence dwells among the people, was small. It was no bigger than 6-10 modern parking spaces. Even counting the external wall, the entire structure was only the size of four tennis courts. The Tabernacle, not the huge Temples that emerged, forms the only part of the Temple that actually mattered.

This is no accident. Nothing is meant to be beyond our grasp. No idea, no matter how large and world-shaking, requires a physical housing that is one iota more substantial than a single person.