Doorways to Heaven (Sermon 17 February 2024)

Written by Student Rabbi Eleanor Davis — 20 February 2024

Some of the best love stories involve two unlikely people who turn out to be a great match – like the young aristocratic heiress Isabel de Clare who married a decorated war hero twice her age.  It turned out to be a very happy match, producing five sons and five daughters, making their marital home in a property that had belonged to the bride’s family, on the Welsh borders near where I grew up.  As a newly-married man, William Marshal wanted to bring that century-old home up to date – which, as the year was 1189, the groom was the most famous knight-warrior in Britain, and the home in question was Chepstow Castle, meant equipping the castle with domestic luxuries and all the latest military-grade kit.

Over eight centuries later, much of the castle is once again a ruin, but there’s a remarkable survivor from William Marshal’s renovations: Chepstow Castle’s doors are now the oldest surviving castle doors in Europe.  Sixty years ago next month, a group of army apprentices in the town made exact replicas which now hang in the gatehouse, but you can see the original doors on display inside the castle – and either version is impressive.  At 8’ 5” wide and 11’ 7” tall (2.5m x 3.5m), to stand before them is to feel very small.  They’re made of solid English oak, covered in iron plates: the oak is so sturdy that battering rams stood no chance of breaking through, and the iron plating meant no attackers could set fire to them; on the inside, the lattice work is simply beautiful.  Chepstow Castle’s doors are both formidable defences – state of the art for the 1190s – and gorgeous examples of the craftsman’s art.

That blending of function and beauty also appears in the section of Parashat T’rumah that we read today.  Over half of Exodus 27 is devoted to the enclosure of the Tabernacle: the original curtain-walls 5 cubits high (around 7’ 6” or 2.3m), that enclosed an space 100 cubits long and 50 cubits wide.  Among all that length of curtain, however, there’s something special on the eastern side: at one edge, there are 15 cubits of hangings, and another 15 cubits at the other edge.  That leaves 20 cubits between them, which are filled in by the gate of the enclosure: the doorway into the Tabernacle compound.  Whereas the curtain walls are made of fine but simple twisted linen, this screen-gate is elaborate: made of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, with fine twisted linen that has been done with embroidery or somehow woven with different colours.  There’s just one point at which it’s possible to enter the outer area of the Tabernacle, and it must have been hard to miss: the screen-gate is made of fabric in brighter colours than the rest of the enclosure.

As you head deeper into the Tabernacle, the same is true of each portal to increasingly holy areas: the screen for the entrance to the Tent of Meeting looks just like the outer screen-gate (Exodus 26:36), and the entrance to the innermost, holiest part is even fancier, with a design of cherubim worked into the colourful fabric (Exodus 26:31).  If castle doors can be impressive, these curtain-doors are even more so – yet although they are designed to mark a gateway between one place and another, there’s something important about them being made of fabric.  These are not gates to barricade against invaders; rather, they’re portals to make you pause and acknowledge that you’re moving from one realm into another.

As we think about how we move into and out of various Jewish spaces today, habit can make us all but forget how frequently it feels more like entering a fortress than an holy place.  We are much concerned with security, especially now (and for good reason), but I wonder what impact our desire for stout, lockable doors has on us, as individuals and as a community; it takes effort not to let our fears close our minds along with our doors, making us view ‘others’ as a threat.  Here at Alyth, our current entrance doors may not be quite as fancy or as large as in the Tabernacle (perhaps in the new building…), but we work with our security team and our greeters to ensure our metaphorical doors are open wide to welcome people in and send them out with blessing.

One caveat: having doors is no guarantee of people wanting to come in.  As the Jewish-American poet Adrienne Rich says [in “Prospective immigrants please note”]: “Either you will / go through this door / or you will not go through. … The door itself / makes no promises. / It is only a door.”  Yet without a door, the opportunity for that choice does not exist: doorways represent possibility – and they are designed to be opened, whether from the inside or out.  Even the stoutest of doors made in wood and iron was not designed to be permanently closed: Chepstow Castle’s doors could be closed to shut out danger, but they would also have regularly stood open to allow in people and animals, goods and ideas.  For most people, the castle was a safe refuge, not a prison.

We are human and vulnerable: it is not crazy to want protection, or to control movement through our doors, but too much preoccupation with creating barriers is not good for us.  What could our Judaism look like if we spent more time thinking about how we open our doors?  We might need to think more about when they should be open and when they need to be close, or about what it takes to be allowed to pass through them.  By definition of being here today, in person or online, each of us in this sanctuary has discovered a way in.  So what could you do to help someone else find the doors to this community and be assured that they too may pass safely through them, and find beauty within?  Which doors do you approach, confident of being welcomed in – and how could you help others to do the same?  (Beyond Alyth: if you’re even vaguely thinking about doorways to becoming a rabbi– Student Rabbi Nicola and I, or any of the rabbinic team here, are always happy to help you find ways into Leo Baeck College…)

Just imagine what Progressive Judaism could look like if we made our doorways beautiful like the Tabernacle screen-gates and if our entrances were easily findable by those who come looking for them.  Imagine what blessings might come through a doorway wide enough to accommodate anyone who walks, wheels, or is carried in; imagine what could happen if we didn’t wait for Pesach to open our doors to others.  Imagine – and may we all play our part in making such a future real.