LET THEM MAKE ME A SANCTUARY THAT I MAY DWELL AMONG
THEM. EXACTLY AS I SHOW YOU - THE PATTERN OF THE TABERNACLE AND
THE PATTERN OF ALL ITS FURNISHINGS - SO SHALL YOU MAKE
IT.
The Renewal of Sanctity Requires a King, A
Prophet, and a Great Sanhedrin
The tribe, the false prophet and the High Priest,
are judged only by a Bet Din of seventy-one. An optional war is to be declared
only by Bet Din of seventy-one. The City and the temple yards are expanded only
by a Bet Din of seventy-one.
(Mishna, Sanhedrin 1:5)
"The City" - Yerushalayim, whose holiness
is greater than the holiness of the rest of Eretz Yisrael.
"The courtyards" - Their holiness is
greater than that of Yerushalayim. Sanctity may be renewed, as is written (Shemot
25), "Exactly
as I show you... so shall you make it" - for all generations. Just as
the sanctuary was sanctified by Moshe - who took the place of the Great
Sanhedrin - so in future generations all additions to the City and the
courtyards are to be determined by the Great Sanhedrin.
(Commentary
of Rabbi Obadiah from Bartenura, ibid., ibid.)
Expansion of the City and the courtyards is
determined by the king, by the prophet, by the Urim and Thumim, and by the
Sanhedrin of seven-one elders, as is written, "Exactly as I show you...
so shall you make it" - for generations, and Moshe our teacher was a king.
(Rambam,
Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Temple, 6:11)
THE TABLE AND THE BREAD OF
DISPLAY
Gabriel Weil
In memory of my father and teacher
Rafael
ben Avraham, of blessed memory,
Lover
of peace and pursuer of peace
The parasha of Teruma
focuses upon the Mishkan - the Sanctuary - and its utensils. The Torah orders the construction of the
table: "You shall make a table of acacia wood, two cubits long, one
cubit wide, and a cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold, and make a
gold molding around it." (Shemot 25:23-25)
And finally, "And
on the table you shall set the bread of display, to be before Me always." (Ibid.,
Ibid. 30)
We shall attempt to
understand the meanings which some commentators assign to the table, its
structure, and the Bread of Display.
It should be noted that
there exists an uncharacteristic degree of unanimity among the commentators of
various periods, seemingly because the Table and the Bread arouse universal
associations.
One commentator (quoted
from a collection in the "Rav Peninim" chumash) explains:
The Table and its
properties all allude to man's table as he eats, so that it be "a table
before God". And his table shall atone for him as does the alter, as
in the words of our Sages: Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Yochanan both said: When the
Temple was in existence, the altar atoned; now man's table atones. Therefore, the table was overlaid with gold,
reminiscent of the charity which man must give to the poor before and during
his own dining, and of the guests at his table... And Rashi, of blessed memory,
explained: And thus indigents come and are supported and this is considered as
the offering of a sacrifice on the altar. And so, too, the manner in which he
gives to the poor with a full heart, with love and joy, and a smiling and
welcoming countenance... this is "and you shall overlay it with pure
gold" - literally, with his coin and his fistful which he gives to the
hungry and the thirsting.
The Table, then, symbolized
man's obligation to share with the hungry before he attends to his own food.
Thus the table atones for him, just as the sacrifice would atone for him when
the Temple was functioning. The gold of the Table symbolizes the giving to the poor, the charity. When you
eat, remember that there are those who have not what to eat.
Perhaps this the reason for
the presence of the Table and its coverings in the Mishkan, to teach us that
this obligation is holy; it is a religious
obligation.
Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, in
his commentary on the Torah, sees the table as:
... a symbol of the source
of a comfortable existence, i.e., that phase of national life which creates a
comfortable standard of living: the development of the material aspect of the
national life.
He then continues to detail
his understanding of the significance of the bowls (those forms which kept the
breads in their prescribed shape until the times for arranging them on the
table):
"Through this form,
every bread was equal (or almost equal) for the purpose of bearing the next
loaf (they were ranged on the Table in two stacks of six loaves each) as it
used for its own base. Does this express anything else than, putting all
selfishness aside, the giving oneself up to the interests of one's brother-man
as being the condition demanded for a comfortable standard of living? That
every man acquires and holds as much for others as for himself, grants as much,
or nearly as much of the abundance of his table to his neighbor as to his own
table.
Hirsch goes on to say:
Apart from one's
fellow-men, Jewish wealth is to be directed to God. But directing one's wealth
to God is again only to be achieved by using it for the support of one's
fellow-men... brotherliness is one of the first conditions for our prosperity
and welfare.
(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch, The Pentateuch,
Shemot 25, translated from German by I. Halevy)
Rabbi Hirsch, then, moves
the discussion to the collective plane. The national welfare, symbolized by the
Table, is conditional upon solidarity, upon everyone's ability
to maintain a mutual relationship with the his fellow-man, upon his giving.
Here too, according to this explanation, there is no separating the mitzvoth
between man and God from those between man and his fellow - all are
inter-twined, defying differentiation.
The Jewish-French philosopher,
Emanuel Levinas (whose essays "Nine Talmudic Readings" have recently
been translated and published in Hebrew) speaks about the Table of the Mishkan
in a chapter of his book "Beyond the Passage" )L'Au Dela du Verset 1981).
In his view, the gold molding around the Table is a crown of sovereignty (as
per Rashi: "A gold molding - symbol of a kingly crown for the table has
wealth and greatness, as people say 'a table of kings'). The king, he whose
table is open, is the one who provides food for man. The Table with the Bread
of Display symbolizes the unceasing concern which the political rule must
exercise in order to satiate humanity's hunger. This is not a assignment for
the end of days, but for now; now
we must attend
to the needs of hungry humanity. According to Levinas, Jewish government is
always modeled after Yoseph the righteous who fed Egypt. He believes that this
is the primary goal of the political establishment, and this view is unique to
Jewish tradition.
The Bread of which we speak, the Bread of Display (translated
into French as "The laid out bread") is the "Lechem HaPanim"
[literally - Bread of the Faces]. Why? Rashi explains that it is
because the Bread had two faces - two sides which face the two sides of the
Mishkan. According to Ibn Ezra, "Lechem HaPanim" is so
called because it always faces
God.
Levinas sees the
explanations as being similar; what is bread which faces God doing - if not
facing man? Towards which goal is it to be directed if not to the nourishment
of people? The horizontal direction of the look (i.e., the look between man and
man) is the continuation of the look which comes from above (i.e., the look
between God and Man). "Horizontal" and "vertical" are
concepts which are today being discussed in the search for the meaning of
religiosity; is the emphasis upon 'between man and his fellow' as against 'man
and God' - or the converse? In L's view, both directions focus the same
movement.
Undoubtedly there is, in
these symbols, a tie between the spiritual and the nourishment of humanity.
They remind us of the political character of the hunger problem. Despite the
progress of modern thought and technology, despite the U.N. and UNESCO, western
politics have not succeeded in solving this problem. Therefore, maintains
Levinas, the Table and the Bread of Display are real and current issues.
In summation, he stresses
that we are dealing with "holy bread". The symbolism relates to bread
for the hungry; this merits its becoming holy bread.
Levinas's explication,
then, emphasizes another plane - beyond that of the individual and the
relations between individuals; the State plane, the plane on which
governmental care of the poor and hungry must be of primary concern. Again,
this obligation is symbolized in the Mishkan, i.e., it is a religious responsibility.
It seems that in a period
of economic crisis, with its privatization, globalization, the state's tendency
to disencumber itself of caring for the weak, and the weakening of the
solidarity between various sectors of society, the above-described messages
must learned again and again. The
concern for the weak is embodied in the Mishkan, it is a religious obligation. Do we meet this standard on
the individual and national plane? Does the religious world represent these
values and fight for them? Is not the construction of the national table for
those in need of it, in a period when soup kitchens are on the increase, is
this not the true establishment of the Temple?
Dr. Gavriel Weil, a member
of Kfar Maimon, is a clinical and educational psychologist
WHAT IS HOLINESS ON EARTH?
"I SHALL DWELL IN THEM" AND NOT "IN IT".
"And you shall make
the planks for the Mishkan" - said Rabbi Avin: This may be compared to a king who
had a beautiful portrait. He said to a member of his household: "Make me
one like it."
He replied: "My Master, the King, how can I make
one like it?"
Said the King: "You with your materials; I will
appear in my glory myself." So said The Holy One, Blessed Be He to Moshe: "See
and do."
Said he to Him: "Master of the Universe, am I a
god, that I can make such as these?"
Said He to him: "In their form, of blue and
purple and crimson yarn, and just as you see above, so shall you do below, as
is written "acacia wood upright" - as are placed in the royal
suite above - and if you make those below as they are above, I will
place there councilors from above, and will rest my Shekhina in your midst
below."
(Shemot
Rabba, Parasha 35)
... another midrash places an utterance of Shelomo in
Moshe's mouth: "But will God really dwell on earth?" (I Kings
I:27) and the
Midrash continues: Said The Holy One, Blessed Be He to Moshe: Not as you think,
but 20 planks at the north and twenty planks at the south and eight at the
west, and I shall descend and constrict my presence below . . yet more, I shall
descend and I shall constrict my presence within a square cubit.
The phrase "a square cubit" refers to that
cubit which is between the two poles of the Ark of the Testimony in the
Mishkan; between them Moshe would hear the voice of God "addressing him
from above the cover that was on top of the Ark of the Pact between the two
cherubim." (Bemidbar 7:89)
This description teaches us that man can serve God
beyond the concepts of place, for whoever desires to really serve God is found
in the proximity of Him whom heaven and the heavens of heaven cannot hold, and
if man does not intend to really serve God, then even heaven and earth are
insufficient.
The Mishkan was not erected in order to be a dwelling
for God, but to be a dwelling for Israel who accept upon themselves the word of
God, and this is not at all dependent upon dimensions.
(Y.
Leibowitz: Seven Years of Discussion on Parashat Hashavua, p. 370)
"And I shall dwell in them" - He did not say in it; that
the place which they shall consecrate for his dwelling shall be within the
Children of Israel.
(Ohr
Hachayyim, Shemot, 25:8)
And it says "And may the favor of the Lord
our God be upon us" (Psalm 90:17) [is best understood bearing in mind] that which is
written "And they shall make for me a sanctuary and I shall dwell in
them" - it does not say "in it"
, but in them, for the Shekhina is
primarily for Israel. There [in Psalm 90] he said
that the favor of God, i.e., the shining glory of his Shekhina, blessed
be He, will be upon us, "establish
for us the work of our hands; the work of our hands establish thou". It appears that that the
word "konneneyhu" - "establish thou" refers to the
Shekhina; therefore he said that the work of our hands - the Mishkan - made
preparation for the Shekhina and for ourselves so that we dwell together in one
compartment, for the Mishkan was a dwelling place for the higher beings and the
lower beings as one, and therefore he said "establish for us...
establish thou". Similarly it is written "the place, O Lord
which you have made for your dwelling" (Shemot 15:16). This it what I have to add
to all the commentaries on this psalm, to explain it as referring to the
erection of the Mishkan.
(Kli
Yakar, Shemot, Ibid., 43)
"And they shall make for me a sanctuary and I
will dwell in them". It would have seemed proper to say "in it".
But it says "and I will dwell in them," for every man must make a sanctuary, and this
is an everlasting obligation. The Zohar writes that the tephillin, which are the
secret of the carriage which man wears which is the Mikdash, will also purify
man and all his limbs, and then he is the image of the Mishkan and the Mikdash.
(Sefer
HaShelah, Rabbi Yeshaaya Horowitz, Tractate Taanit 28)
A simple way [of understanding this], since Israel
proclaimed "We shall do and we shall hear" we see that they received
the Torah with willing heart and soul, so much so that they preceded doing to
hearing. Immediately The Holy One, Blessed Be He, answered "Let them
take for me an offering etc." to establish a sanctuary, as is later
written, "And they shall make for me a sanctuary and I will dwell in
them" inside their
hearts they are a sanctuary of God, and they merited that their heart be in their domain...
(Yeytiv
Panim, II, p.12b)
Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotsk used to say: The Shekhina can be found wherever one lets Him in...
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