Isaiah 66

The haftarah for this past Shabbat was taken from Isaiah, chapter 66. One need go no further than the very first line to be captivated by its poetry and, reading it somewhat midrashically, with its call to live in harmony with the physical world.

The opening verse reads: "Thus says God: The heavens are my Throne and all the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? What kind of resting-place will you make for me?"

The setting is the end of the first Babylonian exile. The author is experiencing, or anticipating, the Jewish people's return to the land of Israel and the rebuilding of the Temple. This return good indeed, but not good enough. For, as the book of Isaiah tells us, the holiness of theTemple is not found in its stone. The holiness of the Temple resides in the faith and behavior of the people who fill it. After all, God does not need the Temple. God built the universe. The earth - expansive beyond measure to the people of antiquity - is but a footstool to God. The Temple is only valued in so far as it resembles, and calls forth, the goodness of the Jewish people.

God wants us to build a sacred home not for God's sake, but for ours. In the context of the present day, we should read the words "home" and "resting place" as synonyms for all of creation. The verse becomes then not a rhetorical question meaning: "How can you build a home for me when I am the Builder of the ultimate Home? How can a mere earthly home contain the infinite space of Me?"

Rather, the question becomes this: "I reside, as it were, with you here in this universe. We are partners in building this physical world. I have given you the tools and resources to build buildings that honor Me. What will they be like?"

Isaiah acknowledges that while God does not need real buildings, people and civilization do. The question for us is, what makes a building sacred? What makes a building, or more broadly, what makes the built environment and the earth that results from it worthy of being in partnership with God?

Surely it must be something that gives life, that comforts and heals and does not destroy the world or make us ill. Something that is, in today's jargon, sustainable. Isaiah challenges us in God's name to wonder, what kind of world will we make? Would God be proud of the "house" we built?

It is a good question indeed.