AND THE GLORY OF THE LORD RESTED ON MOUNT SINAI, AND THE CLOUD COVERED IT FOR SIX DAYS, AND HE CALLED TO MOSES ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM WITHIN THE CLOUD.

(Shemot 24:16)

AND THE CLOUD COVERED THE TENT OF MEETING, AND THE GLORY OF THE LORD FILLED THE TABERNACLE.

(Shemot 40:34)

 

The secret of the Tabernacle is that the Glory which abode upon Mount Sinai [openly] should abide upon it in a concealed manner. For just as it is said there, And the glory of the Lord rested upon Mount Sinai (Shemot 24:6), and it is further written, Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness (Devarim 5:21), so it is written of the Tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle (Shemot 40:34). Twice is this verse, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle mentioned in connection with the Tabernacle (also 40:35), to correspond with His glory and His greatness. Thus Israel always had with them in the Tabernacle the Glory which appeared to them on Mount Sinai. And when Moses went into the Tabernacle, he would hear the Divine utterance being spoken to him in the same way as on Mount Sinai. Thus just as it said at the Giving of the Torah: Out of the heaven He made you to hear His voice, that He might instruct you; and upon the earth He made you to see His great fire (Devarim 4:36), so it is written of the Tabernacle, and he heard the voice speaking unto him from above the ark-cover... from between the two cherubim; and He spoke unto him (Bamidbar 7:89). The expression "speaking unto him" is mentioned here twice in order to indicate that which the Rabbis have said in the Tradition that the Voice would come from heaven to Moses from upon the ark-cover, and from there He spoke with him; for every Divine utterance with Moses came from heaven during daytime, and was heard from between the two cherubim, similar to what is said, and you did hear His words out of the midst of the fire. It is for this reason that the two cherubim were made of gold. And Scripture so states: where I will meet with you, to speak there unto you (Shemot 29:42); and it shall be sanctified by My glory (29:43), for there [in the Tabernacle] will be the appointed place for the Divine utterance, and it will be sanctified by My glory (29:43).

(RaMBaN Shemot 25:2)

 

The glory of the Lord is to hide the greatness of his majesty, for it is impossible to achieve the goal [of describing God's majesty] and less is better than more, as it is written: to You silence is praise (Psalms 65). However, it honors [human] kings to investigate the greatness of their majesty, since that is an achievable goal. If so, he who [praises a human king] less will be counted as if he had achieved the goal, so it is better to multiply praises than to reduce praise.

(Metzudat David Proverbs 25:2)

 

House of Prayer: Open - Closed - Open

Ruthi Lazare

The command to build the Tabernacle brings the spiritual journey of the People Israel to a new height. All of the religious emotions of excitement and agitation find expression; they are cast into a ritual framework that is bound to regular and defined times and places.

It would seem that the building of a Tabernacle for God is illogical and certainly at odds with the monotheistic world-view. The incorporeal God does not need a place in which to dwell! The various solutions to this quandary are well known: that the command to build the Tabernacle was post facto rather than a priori and that it served as a kind of response to the spiritual weakness revealed in the sin of the Golden Calf. However, it may be that the instructions for the creation of God's special home express the tension between the desire to institutionalize and formalize in detail the worship of God and the urge to include the pre-institutionalized within it.

Immediately following the instruction that the construction of the Tabernacle must be based upon the gifts and generosity of the Israelites, a brief, wonderful verse comes to tell us: They shall make Me a sanctuary, and I shall dwell in their midst. From here we learn that personal constructive involvement, generosity, and wisdom are the prerequisites for God's dwelling within the human heart. The passages treating the Tabernacle and the chapters relating to the Temple attempt to transform a system of instructions and a list of building materials, changing them from matter to spirit, from the profane to the holy. This deed combines mundane details with metaphysics, facing the tension between materialization and abstraction, between a feeling of distance and a feeling of closeness to God, between the divine and the human.

It is possible to read some of the details that appear in the descriptions of the Tabernacle and Temple (in the haftorah from I Kings 8) as constituting an attempt to preserve the personal and spontaneous aspects of prayer and worship, even within a sanctified building that is built in a careful and painstaking fashion.

In the days following the destruction of the Temple (and even in the Second Temple Period), the question of the essence of the worship of God is translated into a discussion of "the service of the heart" in prayer. Our Sages debated how prayer should be fashioned and struggled with the choice between the quality of spontaneous personal prayer, which they called tahnunim ["supplications"] as against the importance of organizing and institutionalizing prayer in the bounds of rules and norms - prayer which they called keva ["fixed"]. The establishment of one center and the construction of God's House are in some ways similar to the formulation of one fixed and obligatory liturgy, as against the personal and unestablished forms of worship.

Several pairs of opposites can be juxtaposed: revelation and worship in any time or place as against ceremonious ritual worship in a specified building dedicated to that purpose; fixed prayer as against spontaneous prayer; individual vs. communal prayer; fear and distance as against intimate closeness to God; concretization vs. abstraction.

The house built for God may have served the need for greater closeness and for creating the feeling of intimacy that is not achievable for every person in every place and every time. The price of this framework is the loss of spontaneity and the weakening of authentic and immediate expression of religious feeling. The establishment of common boundaries and rules is certainly a compromise stemming from recognition of the fact that only a few individuals can do without such restrictions in order to attain spiritual ascent and the feeling of closeness to God.

The Sages tried to define the place of prayer where God could be worshipped. In the Jerusalem Talmud (Berakhot 37a; 5:5), R. Yohanan describes one who prays at home as if he were surrounded by an iron wall. This comment embodies the need to disengage oneself from the profane environment and create a reality of sacredness within everyday domesticity. There arises from this a sense that prayer should be disengaged from its environment, that a special place should be dedicated to it.

Similar to this is the suggestion to pray "from the depths" (Berakhot 10b), which calls for the worshipper to gather himself inwards as a precondition for correct prayer, in the spirit of the verse from Psalms, A prayer for a poor man when he enwraps himself.

In the continuation of the Talmudic discussion (in Berakhot 34b) Rav Kahana expresses an even more extreme opinion, saying that "To me, he who prays in an open field is arrogant."

The above implies that the proper state of mind for prayer and worship of God is one of concentration and discipline, of ingathering within a building. These attitudes jibe with the outlook underlying the construction of the Tabernacle and later the Temple. It is an approach which forgoes the worshipper's direct contact with his environment, and, perhaps, even contact with his own personal, natural emotions.

Later in the discussion about the structure of the building in which it is proper to pray, an intermediary option is forwarded, a kind of compromise between closedness and openness: "And R. Hiya bar Abba said in the name of R. Yohanan: ‘One should only pray in a building that has windows... facing Jerusalem" (ibid).

R. Hiya prohibits prayer that completely lacks contact with the outside. The windows are an opening between the inner and the outer, between the individual and the national (Jerusalem) between periphery and center. Personal experience must be connected with that which is outside it. Indeed, King Solomon created special openings in the Temple he built: And he made transparent, sealed windows for the House (IKings 6:4).

The nature of these windows is the subject of many and varied interpretations. Some saw them as a sign that the Temple would shine light outwards but not receive light from the outside, because it itself was the source of light. As the midrash says regarding the verse from Ezekiel's vision of the Temple, And sealed windows for the cells and for their doorposts [facing] toward the inward of the gate all around, and likewise for the halls and windows all around [facing] inward (40:16)

...that they were wide on the outside and narrow on the inside, in order that they shine light outwards. Know, that when a human builds a house he makes windows that are narrow on the outside and wide on the inside so that the light can enter from the outside and illuminate the inside, but Solomon did not do so when building the Temple. Rather, he made the windows narrow on the inside and wide on the outside in order that the light go forth from the Temple and illuminate the outside, as it is said: And he made clear, sealed windows for the House (IKings 6:4), to inform you that it [the Temple] is all light and does not need their light. (Tanhuma Beha'alotkha)

R. Yitzhak Abarbanel also offers a technical and ideological solution to this strange description:

[windows that are] shekufim ["transparent"] are not open; rather it comes from the idea of hashkafa ["view"] and it is sight. It seems that Solomon ordered that windows be made of glass and placed in the House so that light could enter through them, but no one would be able to see through them... transparent... that are bright and illuminate of their own accord... and they were sealed rather than open, for they were closed-up, being made of glass... they are called winderadis [stain-glass] in the foreign tongue, and even today it is customary to set them in the walls of large buildings."

It has become clear that Solomon's windows could not completely cancel the disconnection between worship of God and the environment, so that the worshipper would be connected to the reality that lies outside holiness and the spirit. However, in contrast to the midrashic explanation, Abarbanel describes how the colored windows exploit the outside light in order to beautify, illuminate, and lend grandeur the space of the house of prayer.

The Hassidic revolution in its various hues attempted to cancel the disconnection between the life of spirit and the life of action. It viewed each everyday act as part of the worship of God and brought a new spirit to the question of the place of prayer. The following Hassidic story exemplifies this outlook in connection with the question of the place of worship:

Once, someone traveled to spend Yom Kippur with the Ba'al Shem Tov. The day before Yom Kippur Eve, the man traveled all day and all night in order to hasten the trip. On the morning before Yom Kippur he found himself one mile away from the town of Mezibov. He said to himself that since he was already close to the town, and the horse was very tired from traveling all night long, "I can pray here while the horse pastures." After praying he became sleepy. He told himself, "What could happen if I sleep here a couple of hours? The horse will rest from his labors and afterwards I will be able to travel quickly and certainly reach the town by noon. He lay down in the wagon and fell into a deep sleep. He awoke to discover that it was twilight of Yom Kippur. He was very upset, for after taking so much trouble to reach the Ba'al Shem Tov by Yom Kippur, he would end up spending Yom Kippur alone in a field adjacent to the town. Recognizing his sin, he cried out and wept bitterly all through the night and day. When Yom Kippur ended, in his bitter mood he rode quickly to the Ba'al Shem Tov. The Ba'al Shem Tov laughed at him when he arrived. The thing was that the man had needed to ascend with the prayer of the folk of the fields, and Heaven forced him to do so.

True, it does seem that the Ba'al Shem Tov had held a prayer service in a building, but that is not enough to negate the great value of prayer in the field, connected with nature, to the flora and fauna, and to people who do not find their place in a synagogue, with its sealed windows. The windows of the praying Hassid emit light, but they also receive the light coming in from outside. It is proper that a place of worship not be surrounded by a wall of iron, but rather that its openings allow those inside to see and to be seen, that they allow dynamism and vitality to enter it from the outside and also allow light to shine out of the house of prayer onto its surroundings.

Which windows should be opened or closed in our day? A hint at an answer can perhaps be borrowed from Barry Zimmerman, who uses a play on the word hiloni [secularist] to define himself as a Yehudi haloni - a "window Jew." He explains his newly-coined term: "Who is a Yehudi haloni? One whose windows are open and look out upon other Jews and other possibilities; one who is aware of the existence of other windows from which he himself is being watched" (In his article, "Avinu Malkeinu" in the volume Tarbut Yehudi be'Eyn ha'Se'ara, - a festschrift honoring Yoske Ahituv - pg. 762).

Perhaps our house of prayer can also no longer make due with sheets and hooks, with sockets and planks alone. Its windows must be widened and its shutters thrown open to other Jews and additional paths.

Ruthi Lazare is a Teacher and Educator.

 

Giving - Equally and Humbly

Here is another explanation why the first two contributions (terumot) are ordered specifically in God's name, whereas the third is not. Wherever we find humility and submission among mortals, there we find the secret might of Holy One, who dwells among the oppressed and the meek; but wherever there is the slightest hint of pride, the Holy One refuses to bestow his name. Therefore, the first two contributions, which were given equally by all, for The rich are not to pay more, and the poor are not to pay less, and no one can boast "My contribution is greater than yours", these God attributed to himself:

1.        The first is preceded by And they may take Me - to my Name. We have already explained, at the beginning of Parashat Miketz, and on the verse Every place where I call my name to be recalled I will come to you and bless you, (Shemot 20:21) - every letter of His great name points to humility.

2.        The second contribution is termed my contribution.

Similarly, the use to which the contributions were put offers the same message. Just as all contributions were equal, forestalling any boasting, so were the boards - all of equal length. They were at the bottom of the entire edifice, a trodden threshold, the foundations of the entire building. Those who fashion them shall become like them - just as the givers were equal in their contributions, none having excuse for pride over his fellow, so were these boards acquired by the contributions, symbolic of humility, for humility is the foundation of the building upon which the entire House of Israel is established. They are called adanim - which hint at mastery and rule [Trans. note: adan means board; adon means master], because whoever makes of himself a trodden threshold below, is appointed master above, for whoever lowers himself, the Holy One raises him us and makes him the foundation and support for the entire building, just like these boards which were foundation and support for all the edifice. And so the nasi - (highest official) is so called such because he carries the others, for they all depend on him [Trans. note: The Hebrew for "high official" and "carry" share a common root].

(Kli Yakar, Shemot, 25:1)

 

Even the Grandeur of the Temple Worship is Compromised for the Sake of Humans

And you shall cover it with gold: The Ark was worthy of being made completely of gold, but [it was only covered with gold] in order that it not be heavy to carry. The rule is that it should be carried upon the shoulders, as it is written, for the holy service is upon them, they shall carry it upon their shoulders. Similarly, we find that the altar was made hollow, out of boards in order that it not be heavy.

(Hizkuni 25:11)

 

Study as a Sublimated and Updated Substitute for Concrete Action

Do not let it enter your heads for one moment, that these descriptions of the Tabernacle and its appurtenances, the priestly garment and sacrifices, the laws of purity and those dependent on the soil and all the rest of the ordinances practiced in antiquity have no relevance for us today in exile. What use, you may well ask, does it serve us to study them today?

My answer is this: Everything recorded in the Torah is designed to provide us with a permanent source of inspiration and Divine wisdom, to perfect our souls therewith. This is the message of the text (Devarim 29:8): You shall preserve the words of this covenant and do them in order that you may be discerning in all that you do. Our Sages explained: (Sifrei, Re'eh, Rashi on Devarim 4:6): You shall preserve - this refers to the Mishnah (Oral Tradition): You shall do - in its primary sense of actual doing. The doing consists in the study of the text and deriving of the spiritual lessons to be learnt there from by student and scholar, whether during the time they were actually performed or afterwards (when they were no longer in vogue).

Thus our study and explication of the symbolism of the Tabernacle and its furniture today is as relevant now as it was then when they were in full use. In the same way the sacrificial rites are not obsolete even though their actual physical performance is not feasible. For their spiritual lessons remain fresh. Through them man can learn humility before God, in accordance with the text (Psalms 51:19): The sacrifices of God are a contrite spirit.

(From Abarbanel's Commentary, towards the end of parashat Trumah,

as quoted by Prof. Nehama Leibowitz in her Studies in Shemot pp. 504-5,

Aryeh Newman, translator)

 

 

 

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