When Bill Gates was still running the Microsoft Corporation, twice per year he would take a seaplane to Hood Canal, a fjord inside the beautiful Olympic Mountains. Upon arrival he entered a small cottage on the waterfront and stayed for a week. Alone. No family. No colleagues. His only company? Scores of research papers and books.
Fueled by a constant supply of Diet Orange Crush soda, Gates would sit reading, thinking about and commenting on papers written by Microsoft engineers and managers from around the world. “Think Week”, as it came to be known around Microsoft, took on major importance in Gates’s vision and strategy for the company. One week inspired the development of the famous Internet Explorer program, for example. Gates later explained that the time alone in the little cottage helped to energize his mind.
The Midrash describes how a king’s only daughter was due to marry another king. When the groom set out to take his bride back to his own kingdom, her father pleaded: “She’s my only daughter. While I cannot bear to part with her, it also is not right of me to stand in the way of your returning home with your wife. So do me a favor. Wherever you go, make me a small room so I can live with you.”
Though the father was not saying he’d be with the couple always, he asked to at least always be able to visit. The Midrash teaches that G-d told the Jewish people that while the Torah belonged to them, He could not part from it either. So build a sanctuary, thereby taking Me with you, He asked them.
Rabbi Ariel Shoshan, rabbi of Scottsdale, Arizona’s Ahavas Torah congregation, notes a lesson from the contemporary work Nesivos Shalom: When this week’s Torah portion records this commandment to build a holy sanctuary for G-d, it cannot be a requirement only for the Jews of Biblical times. It must also somehow be meaningful for us today. But how?
A sanctuary connotes an area of the physical world now sacrosanct, a medium dedicated to holiness. We, too, can take an area of our lives where we might now be a little self-indulgent and become less so. Let’s take a habit or routine activity and tweak it to be a little less earthy.
In the beginning of creation. G-d “declares” Shabbos to be holy, the first occurrence of that word in the Torah (Bereshis 2:3). Even if we miss finding G-d throughout a busy week, there is always Shabbos, the “little house” in time for us to step into holiness. Our activities on Shabbos can be uplifted, dedicated to being together with G-d.
To have an ongoing relationship with the Almighty, we need to build spaces within our lives in which to visit together with Him. Whether through elevating a segment of our lives or our weekly Shabbos experience, we should find our own little cottage to keep our vision alive and energize our souls.