Abarbanel
(1) Thus said Adonai: The heaven is My throne And the earth is My footstool: Where could you build a house for Me, What place could serve as My abode?
(27) “But will God really dwell on earth? Even the heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this House that I have built!
(1) Adonai spoke to Moses, saying: (2) Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves them. (3) And these are the gifts that you shall accept from them: gold, silver, and copper; (4) blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair; (5) tanned ram skins, dolphin skins, and acacia wood; (6) oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the aromatic incense; (7) lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece. (8) And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.
- It says "among them" and not "among it," to teach you that each person must build the Mishkan in his own heart; then God will dwell among them.
- R. Menahem Mendl of Kotzk was once asked where God is, and he replied: "wherever they let God in." "Let them make Me a Mishkan" – if a person is filled with love and fear of God, then "I will dwell among them," literally among them.
DEFINITIONS.
- VI. By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite—that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.
- Proof.—As God is a being absolutely infinite, of whom no attribute that expresses the essence of substance can be denied (by Def. vi.), and he necessarily exists (by Prop. xi.); if any substance besides God were granted, it would have to be explained by some attribute of God, and thus two substances with the same attribute would exist, which (by Prop. v.) is absurd; therefore, besides God no substance can be granted, or, consequently, be conceived. If it could be conceived, it would necessarily have to be conceived as existent; but this (by the first part of this proof) is absurd. Therefore, besides God no substance can be granted or conceived. Q.E.D.
- Corollary I.—Clearly, therefore: 1. God is one, that is (by Def. vi.) only one substance can be granted in the universe, and that substance is absolutely infinite, as we have already indicated (in the note to Prop. x.).
- Note.—Some assert that God, like a man, consists of body and mind, and is susceptible of passions. How far such persons have strayed from the truth is sufficiently evident from what has been said. But these I pass over. For all who have in anywise reflected on the divine nature deny that God has a body. Of this they find excellent proof in the fact that we understand by body a definite quantity, so long, so broad, so deep, bounded by a certain shape, and it is the height of absurdity to predicate such a thing of God, a being absolutely infinite...
This week we celebrated Rosh Hodesh Adar א, ushering in two months of Purim observance due to the leap year. Compare and contrast the story of the Exodus with the Purim story, particularly around the concept of God.