For many years, I made my living as a fundraiser in the Jewish community. This week‘s Torah portion was one of my favorites. It begins with Children of Israel giving gifts from the heart to help build the Mishkan, the portable tabernacle they carried through the desert.

People giving willingly to help the community? It’s a fundraiser’s dream come true.

The big payoff for these gifts comes just a few verses into the passage, when God declares,“Let them make for me a sanctuary, that I made dwell among them.” Exodus 25:8

This is both wonderful and a bizarre promise. What god deigns to leave his/her/its heaven and descend to live among the people? It’s crass. Unseemly. Not how we expect a god to behave.

But this God is different. Through this startling passage the Torah wants to teach us something important. Not about our donations. About God.

God isn’t far away. Not in a distant heaven, not floating among the clouds, not prowling around the universe.

The God of Judaism wants to be close enough to turn to in times of trauma and times of deep joy, and on every thoroughly normal day (and night).

And God wants to remind us that we too can create beauty. God doesn’t have a monopoly on making things that are lovely to behold. Artists and artisans are beloved by this God.

We may not be able to make trees or sunsets or a bird in flight, but we can use the things of this world — metals, cloth, and more — to create beauty.

After all, we are told that we are made in God’s image. Creativity of all kinds is a God-given gift.

Today as a rabbi and a writer, I am much more interested in this message of the Torah portion called Terumah. Yes, it means a gift, a free-will offering. But not only a gift of material goods, but also a gift of our unique essence.

I am encouraged by the idea that I — a mere drop in a sea of billions of humans —have something special to offer. To God, to my family, to my community. May we each feel so blessed.