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AND THE LORD SAID TO MOSES:
"GO, DESCEND, FOR YOUR PEOPLE THAT YOU HAVE BROUGHT UP FROM THE
THEY HAVE QUICKLY TURNED AWAY
FROM THE PATH THAT I HAVE COMMANDED THEM; THEY HAVE MADE THEMSELVES A MOLTEN
CALF! AND THEY HAVE PROSTRATED THEMSELVES BEFORE IT, SLAUGHTERED SACRIFICES TO
IT, AND SAID: 'THESE ARE YOUR GODS, O
(Shemot 32:7-8)
The point is that the Torah and faith are what is essential for the
Israelite nation. All of the types of holiness, [that of] the
The mind is too poor to grasp the necessary, eternal, and inconceivable Existent,
and so they invented for themselves ways to make shapes and images, or thought
of the celestial system, saying: this is the chariot of the Divinity, and this
observes and causes all worldly happenings, and they worshipped it and
sacrificed to it and burnt incense before it. And that which is grasped through
the senses and is seen brings about dancing of the soul and boiling blood. And
when they saw that Moses was late to return, they fell from their faith and wanted
to make for themselves a calf, and to bring down spirit from above upon that
image and to think of it as the chariot of the Divinity, that which presides
over the lower world, and which took them up from Egypt... regarding this Moses
cried out like a crane: Do you think that I am of any importance and that there
is any holiness besides God's commands, so much so that when I was absent you
made a calf for yourselves?! God forbid! I am a human like yourselves and the
Torah does not depend on me - even if I never had arrived the Torah would exist
without any change... Do not imagine, God forbid, that the
(Meshekh Hokhma Shemot
32:19)
The
Construction of the Tabernacle: Work or Art?
Dov
Abramson
Take me to the Israelite camp by the
mountain
To see this busyness in the desert
In the slum of immigrant tent-dwellers.
I will wander a bit and breathe the smell of
laborers
In the immigrant slum the smell of laborers
. . .
I will go to the carpenters who carve acacia
wood
The Tabernacle's walls, tablets, altar, and
furniture.
From the smell of glue and sawdust, alcohol
and turpentine
They dream to grab a good place in the
middle of Florentine
Show me the carpenters who carve acacia wood...
And here a doubt attacks me from show
business
Will all of the crafts be allotted air time?
Or only those craftsmen who think thoughts
Who draw shapes that are embroidered or carved?
Show me the craftsmen who draw the thoughts.
(Meir Ariel, Shir HaTa'asuka)
See, I have called by name Bezalel... and I have imbued him with the spirit of God, with wisdom, with
insight, with knowledge, and with [talent for] all manner of craftsmanship.
In our parasha we make acquaintance with Bezalel ben Hur, who we have
learned to think of as being the first Jewish artist. It is interesting to note
that Scripture does not use the word for "art"– omanut - in
connection with Bezelel.1 Furthermore, we do not find its root, alef-mem-nun
used in this sense in connection with the building of the Tabernacle; it
appears nowhere in the five books of the Torah.2 Perhaps in our day
we would have described Bezalel's tremendous and undoubted talent as more of a
craft than an art.3 It is reasonable to assume that Bezalel did not
create "art for art's sake."We can also assume that the strict,
precise and dictated framework of the Tabernacle's construction left him no
room for expressions of his own feelings, emotions, or beliefs. Such expression
is usually taken in our day as a basic criterion for the production of art.
Together with this, we can see that the Sages made a great effort to
attribute to Bezalel in particular, and to all those involved in the
construction of the Tabernacle in general, special virtues and qualities that
turn them into much more than mere skilled and professional artisans.
Rashi (Shemot
31:3) plainly states that
Bezalel was imbued with the Holy Spirit, and RaMBaN (Shemot 31:2) backs this up with the argument that someone
who came out of Egypt where he worked only with mud and filth all the days of
his life could not possibly be expert at crafts such as embroidery and weaving,
not to speak of fine arts such as gold and silver-smithing. Thus he explains
the need for God to call out Bezalel's name and to fill him with the divine
spirit, as mentioned in Scripture.
The Gemara in Berakhot 55a goes to even greater lengths in describing
Bezalel's unique qualities:
R. Yitzhak said: A leader should not be set upon the public unless the
public accepts him first, for it is said: See [plural], I have called by name Bezalel . The Holy One blessed be He said to Moses: "Is
Bezalel acceptable to you?"He told Him: "Master of the Universe, if
he is acceptable to You, shall he not be acceptable to me as well?"He told
him: "Even so, tell them [the Israelites]. He went and said to
And further:
R. Shemuel bar Nahmani said in the name of R. Yohanan: Bezalel was named
for his wisdom.
When the Holy One blessed be He told Moses: Go tell Bezalel "Make Me
a Tabernacle, an ark, and vessels,"Moses reversed the order and told him: "Make
an ark, vessels, and a Tabernacle.”
[Bezalel] told him: Our Rabbi Moses, it is customary for a man to first
build a house and then bring vessels into it, and you tell me to make an ark,
vessels, and Tabernacle? Where am I to put the vessels I make? Perhaps the Holy
One blessed be He said to make a tabernacle, ark, and vessels?
He said to him: Perhaps you were betzel el [in God's shadow] that
you know this?
And finally:
R. Yehuda said in the name of Rav: Bezalel knew how to combine the letter
from which heaven and earth were created.
All of these sources form a picture of Bezalel in which he is not only a
talented and versatile artist/artisan (after all, he worked in architecture,
interior design, typography, metalwork, weaving, etc.) but also a leader ("leader
of the community”), a mystic ("combines letters”) and Moses' interlocutor.
It seems that the multicolored image of Bezalel springs from the nature
of the Tabernacle project as understood by the Sages.4 The
Tabernacle, which the Sages viewed as constituting a physical this-worldly
expression of the Holy one blessed be He's presence, could not have been
constructed by a lesser person.
It seems that the Sages of Israel - even unintentionally - used the
figure of Bezalel to relate to the complex issue of "the essence of art"in
general and "What is Jewish art?"in particular.5 They did
this by giving expression to Bezalel's multi-dimensionality, thus sketching a
portrait of Jewish art as art which cannot remain at the level of work alone. By
its very nature it calls for a combination of the elements of originality,
spirituality, and leadership.
1 Onkelos translates and in hewing stone (Shemot 31:6) as "in the art of stone..."see also Rashi.
2 The word
3 The issue of craft vs. art is quite complicated. The boundaries between them are unclear and are being constantly re-examined. Usually we attribute greater emotional involvement to art than we do to craft. Of course, this issue is interwoven with the general debate over the nature of art and the criteria for identifying a work of art
4 See R. Samson Raphael Hirsch on our parasha in which he treats the symbolism of the Tabernacle’s construction at length.
5 In connection with the question, "What is Jewish Art?"one should mention the Adi Fund for Jewish Expression in Art and Design, which recently ran an international symposium in this precise topic.
Dov Abramson is an artist and designer and a
graduate of Bezalel. His work, Ner Mitzvah, is currently on display in
the Jewish Museum in
When He had
finished speaking with him on
speaking with him [The word "with”] teaches [us] that Moses would hear
[the laws] from God and then they would both repeat the halakhah together.
(Rashi Shemot 31:18,
Judaica Press translation)
...Scripture said speaking with him;
would it not be better to have written to him?
Rather, this includes the Oral Torah and, as explained in Midrash Rabbah, it
was if they studied together, and so Rashi explained it. This
means that Moses was imbued with a great overflow of heavenly help, enabling
him to bear its [the Torah's] tremendous never-ending power.
(The NeTziV mi'Volozhin's Ha'amek
Davar, ad
loc)
A
soon as Moses came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing... (Shemot 32: 19): Rabbi Hilkiyah said in the name of Rabbi Aha: "From here we learn
that a person should not judge on the basis of an assumption."
(J. Ta'anit 4:5)
Saw
the calf and the dancing:
around it. Another says: The writing on the Tablets disappeared, so he broke
them.
And
some say that God commanded him to break them. It seems most reasonable to me
that it happened as it is written, that he was zealous for God and broke them
in his anger.
And I
have already told you about the allegory of "the husband of youth" in
the beginning of the parasha [i.e., God is the husband of
(Ibn Ezra's Short Commentary on Shemot 32:19)
No one shall ascend with
you Since the first
ones [i.e., tablets] were accompanied by loud noises, sounds, and with a
multitude, the evil eye affected them. [Our conclusion is that] there is
nothing better than modesty.
(Rashi
Shemot 34:3)
The
Breaking of the Tablets
Rabbi
Meir said: Moses did not break the tablets [of his own volition] , but was
directed to do so by the All Powerful, as is written asher shibarta [Literally
which you broke]: [Understand it thus] Ye-yasher kochacha
sheh-shibarta [More power to you] for having broken them.
(Avot DeRabbi Natan, 2:3)
When
Moshe saw how they had sinned by making the calf, he said: How can I give them
the tablets? I will be obligating them to observe serious commandments and I
will be condemning them to death by divine power [when they transgress those
commandments], for it is inscribed upon them You shall have no other gods
before Me. He turned to go back. Seventy elders saw him, and ran after him;
he held the top of the tablet, and they held the top of the tablet. Moshe was
stronger than all of them, as is written (Devarim 34): And in all the strong hand and in all the great, awe-inspiring acts
that Moshe did before the eyes of all
(Avot DeRabbi Natan 2:3)
and he flung the tablets
from his hands, shattering them - not out of shock; it seems that he did this in order to frighten the
people and show them that the covenant between them and God had been broken.
(ShaDaL
Shemot 32:19)
Then the Lord would speak
to Moses face to face, as a man would speak to his companion...
This does not contradict what
he said later, You will not be able to see My face, because the
intention here is that the speech came to him clearly while he was awake rather
than in a vision at night; not as a parable or riddle, but rather as one man
speaks to his companion. The expression face to face is similar to that
which was said of Moses, who knew the Lord face to face (Devarim 34:10), which refers to the overflow of the light
of wisdom from he who overflows to him who receives the overflow without
mediation. Of this it is said I shall speak to him mouth to mouth, and
that is the difference between Moses' prophecy and the prophecy of the other
prophets.
(R.
Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio, 32:11)
And He said, "You will not be able to see My face, for man shall not see
Me and live."
For seeing the face in an
actual vision of fire - as you have requested - that you cannot see while you
are still alive. For man is composed of body and soul, but when the body
separates from it the soul is able to better grasp the Divine things, and this
is one of the Torah's allusions to the World-to-Come.
(R.
Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio, 32:20)
And the word of the Lord
came to me, saying: "Son of man! The house of Israel, as long as they
lived on their own land, they defiled it by their way and by their misdeeds,
like the uncleanness of a woman in the period of her separation was their way
before Me. Wherefore I poured My wrath upon them for the blood that they had
shed in the land, because they had defiled it with their idols. And I scattered
them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries.
According to their way and their misdeeds did I judge them... For I will take
you from among the nations and gather you from all the countries, and I will
bring you to your land. And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you will
be clean; from all your impurities and from all your abominations will I
cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put
within you, and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I
will give you a heart of flesh.
(From
the haftarah for Parashat Para, Ezekiel 36)
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