The Torah says God would meet Israel at the door of the Tent of Meeting. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan hears that verse and adds one carefully chosen word: Memra. Not simply, "I will meet thee there," but "I will appoint My Word to meet thee there, to speak with thee there" (Exodus 29:42).
The Memra — "the Word" — is one of the most distinctive theological moves in the targumic tradition. Where the Hebrew Bible speaks of God meeting, speaking, dwelling, the Aramaic targumim often interpose the Memra: God's speaking-self, the utterance that creates and commands. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, which reached its present form by the 8th century CE but preserves centuries-older traditions, uses the Memra to preserve both intimacy and transcendence. God is not a body walking to the tent door. And yet God is truly there. The Memra holds both truths at once.
What was the perpetual offering really for?
The daily burnt offering — morning and evening, every day, through every generation — was the hinge. It opened the door. The smoke rising at dawn and at dusk was Israel's standing appointment with heaven. Moses would come, and the Word would be there, and words would pass between them that no stone altar could hold on its own.
The sages drew a powerful lesson: the altar did not summon God. The altar made room for God. The offering was not payment; it was the set table at which conversation could happen. Later, when the Second Temple fell in 70 CE, the rabbis transferred this logic to prayer — the daily Shacharit and Minchah kept the appointment alive even when the altar was ash.
The Maggid learns: set the table daily, and the Guest will come.