Parshat Vayakhel-Pekuday
"Thus was completed all the service (of construction) for the Dwelling, the Tent of Appointment. The Children of Israel made according to all the God had commanded Moshe, thus they made." (Shemot 39:32)
"Thus was completed all the service for the Dwelling" - In Gematriya (mathematical equivalent of) "On the twenty-fifth of Kislev was it finished" . . . "Thus was completed" - it can be said that now was completed the construction of the entire world. (Baal Haturim, ibid., ibid.)
"All that God had commanded Moshe, thus they made." It being common knowledge that Israel deeply desired that the Shekhina dwell in their midst, one might be prompted to think that this was the motive for all their effort; therefore, Scripture explained that only because "As God had commanded Moshe, thus they made." (Haamek Davar, Shemot 39:32).
These words of the Rosh Yeshiva of Volozhin are directed against the idea of deveikut - of intense devotion, of amazement and fervor -- being the highest degree of service of God. He calls our attention here to the fact that the goal of service of God is not enthusiasm and exaltation of the soul or spiritual elation. It should be - "As God had commanded Moshe," this alone is what is to be done.
When one does something for the purpose of spiritual exaltation, he does
it for himself, there is no service of God in this. This is the case not
only with prayer. The significance of all the mitzvot lies not in the
satisfaction of man's urges as he serves God - service of this sort
ceases to be service of God and becomes service which Man provides for
himself.
(From Prof. I. Leibowitz. Seven Years of Discussions of the
Weekly Parasaha, p. 431)
One cannot exaggerate the importance of the Mishkan, which is compared by our Sages to the entire world. In the Yalkut Shimoni (Pikuday 419), we read:
Rabbi Nehemiah used to say: The Tent of Appointment which Moshe made in the desert corresponds to the act of Creation. The curtains correspond to heaven and earth. The basin and its pedestal to the six days of Creation. The altar of the burnt offering to all the animals . . . the menorah to the sun and the moon. The seven lamps to the seven planets which serve the world." Similarly, (Tanhuma, Pekuday 11) "And Moshe saw all the work ". . . it does not say "all the work of the Mishkan" but "all the work" - (thus teaching us that) it was all like the act of Creation." Even in the practical world, we look to the Mishkan in order to determine which are major acts of work forbidden on the Shabbat (Shabbat 96) - " That which was basic in the Mishkan is considered an Av [literally "father" - a principle category of labor]; that which was not important in the Mishkan was not considered an Av."
What is the significance of this equivalence? The question becomes especially interesting against the background of the prevailing understanding which considers the erection of a Mishkan to be a reaction, a mitzvah given as a result of the sin of the Golden Calf. The Sfat Emmet, for example, writes: " The Mishkan was the remedy for the sin, and before the sin there was no need for the ritual service." So, too, Rashi (Shemot 38, "Mishkan HaEdut"): "A testimony for Israel that the Holy One had forgiven them for the act of the Calf." Study of the issue will reveal that not only does the paradox touch upon the centrality of the Mishkan; its very existence is problematic. In actuality, it would seem that the erection of the Mishkan was, and is, . . . . impossible.
After they completed (the construction of the components of) the Mishkan, they waited anxiously for the Shekhina to rest there, and all were unhappy because the Shekhina did not come to rest there. What did they do? They went to him who was wise in the ways of the heart. He said to them: "Why are you sitting? Erect the Mishkan and the Shekhina will come to rest among us." They tried to raise it, but they did not know how, and they could not raise it, and when they thought to raise it, it collapsed. Immediately they went to Betsalel and Ohaliav and said to them, "You come and erect the Mishkan, for you made it. . . perhaps it is proper that it be set up by you." Immediately they began to erect it but were not able. (Tanchuma, Pekuday 11)
Let us emphasize that Betsalel, the wise of heart, did all that he did for the sake of Heaven. This is expressed by the change in order of activities which he initiated: When Moshe told Betsalel "Make a Mishkan", he replied, "What is the purpose of the Mishkan?" He said: "To have the Shekhina rest inside it, and to teach Israel the Torah." Said Betsalel: "And where will the Torah be placed?' He said , "When we construct the Mishkan, we will also build an ark". But he began with the construction of the ark, as is written, "And Betsalel made the ark." They began to complain, saying, "Look what the son of Amram did to us . . . he spent our money on this Mishkan, and involved us in all this bother, and he tells us that the Holy One will leave the highest places and come to rest in the midst of goatskin curtains, as is written, "And I will dwell in their midst!"
The Midrash brings the problem into sharp focus. There is no reason to think that curtains of any kind or any other physical materials, assembled at the command of a mortal, can connect us to holiness. Let us be precise -- the people have no reservations about holiness. On the contrary, they anxiously anticipate --- "When will the Shekhina arrive?" But it is reasonable to wonder how this or any other construction can be of utility.
The people give Moshe one more opportunity:
"Since they racked their brains, yet were unable to raise the Mishkan, all Israel gathered before Moshe, saying: "Moshe, our teacher, we have made everything you said, and we have spent and donated all that you commanded. Here all the [products of our] labor is before you . . . and they showed him every article. . . they said to him, "If so, why does it not stand?"
Hearing this, Moshe did approach -- but he, too, grasped the difficulty. The Holy One ordered Moshe to erect the Mishkan, but "Moshe said: Master of the universe, I don't know how to raise it." He replied, "Activate your hands, as though you were raising it, and it will stand on its own, and I will record that you had raised it."
What an amazing directive! When I becomes clear that Moshe is unable to assemble the Mishkan, the Holy One tells Moshe to go through the motions . . . and the Mishkan stands! The raising of the Mishkan by man is an illusion!
Actually, there can be no other solution. The erection of the Mishkan is a task which is both essential and impossible. Essential, because we are obliged to recognize the relationship between the world and the Holy One. The Rambam begins his magnum opus: "The basic foundation and the pillar of all wisdom is to know that there exists a First Reality, and that He creates all realitites, and all that exists in heaven and on earth, and all that is in between, exist only because of the truth of His existence." (Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Foundations of the Torah 1:1) We are commanded - yet we cannot carry out the order. The entire world, "and all that that exists in heaven and on earth, and all that is in between" are beyond our range. We need a smaller world, a miniature world, to which we can relate.
So we build synagogues, with the Holy Ark as its focal point; we place in it a scroll of the Torah (made of animal parchment). We kiss the Torah, we lay tephillin (made from the skin of cattle), we pray with words, and we try to touch holiness. To touch holiness! This is not something incidental or marginal in Judaism; how would Judaism look without Mishkan, without Bet Hamikdash, without the mitzvoth? Our religious consciousness is so bound up with practical mitzvoth. No other faith has innumerable commands and restrictions, with endless details and derivations. Take away the holy utensils, the holy places, the holy books, the holy prayers - and what have you? But all these are very close to magic and idolatry. The golden calf is not far away. It is so natural to worship the instrument, the person, the experience, or even the idea. The agaddah relates that when the yetser hara - the evil inclination for idol worship -- was extricated from extinction with great effort, his place of residence was in - of all places! - the Bet Hamikdash! He escaped "like a fire in the form of a young lion from the Holy of Holies"! (Sanhedrin 64)
Aside from the dangers, the Mishkan solution, essential as it may be, is also impossible. The idea of Mishkan is intellectually unacceptable - and this is not a particularly modern conception. "Will God dwell on earth? Behold, even the heavens and the heaven of the heavens cannot contain You, how much less this House that I have built!" (I Kings 8:27) said King Shelomo himself, as he dedicated the Mikdash on the Temple Mount.
He answers his own question: "even the heavens and the heaven of the heavens cannot contain Him, and who am I that I should build Him a house - except as a place for making burnt offerings to Him" (I Chronicles, 2:5). The justification for the establishment of the Mikdash lies in its facilitating Man's service of God, service which comes from the heart. The midrash explains the phrase "parochet ha-edut" - the curtain of testimony - testimony to all that the Shekhina dwells in Israel (Shabbat 22) The Sefat Emmet derives from a precise reading of the text: "The Shekhina dwells in Israel - within the hearts of Israel. Because through this act [of erecting the Mishkan] the Children of Israel made it clear that all creation is by the Holy One, Blessed Be He."
We asked how is it possible that the Mishkan be both a reaction and the equivalent of all Creation at one and the same time. Now it is clear that the very problem provides the answer. In the beginning, "O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name throughout the earth, You who have covered the heavens with Your splendor!" (Psalms 8:2) But because we are incapable of relating to the totality of creation, because we need a human scale, He commanded us to erect a Mishkan, and through it we shall worship God. Thus the Mishkan is in truth the equivalent of the entire creation - - and the acts performed are the equivalent of all acts. The fundamental mitzvah is to realize that all creation is by God. We strive to fulfill this mitzvah through the "Mishkan" - provided that we remember that its very existence is paradoxical. Our awareness of this transforms the Mishkan to the Mishkan Ha'edut -- the Mishkan of the Testimony.
Professor David Leiser lectures in Psychology at Ben Gurion University
. . . The term [malle - full] is also employed to signify the achievement of perfection in virute and of the latter's ultimate end . . . in this sense it is said "The whole earth is full of His glory"; the meaning of this verse being that the whole earth bears witness to His perfection, that is, indicates it. Similar is its dictum: "And the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle." Every mention of filling that you will find referring to God is used in this sense, and not in the sense of there being a body filling a place. However, if you wish to consider that the glory of the Lord is the created light that is designated as glory in every passage and that filled the tabernacle, there is no harm in it. (Rambam, Guide for the Perplexed, I, 19]
. . . This is to say that the Rambam leaves the matter to the understanding of the student and reader of Torah, according to his intellectual level and the depth of his faith.
From this it may be deduced that if the faith of the believer requires physical realization of recognition of God, he is permitted to explain this verse as relating to a visually perceived phenomenon, such as those experienced by Israel. But if one can ascend to a higher level of cognizance, and can deepen his faith, he does not need this physical expression. He understands very well that the gory of God mentioned here is only an idiomatic expression of the service of God in the Mishkan. (Leibowitz, Seven Years of Discussions on the Weekly Parasha, p.432)
"When all the work that King Solomon had done in the House of the Lord was completed, Solomon brought in the sacred donations of his father David - the silver, the gold, and the vessels - and deposited them in the treasury of the House of the Lord." (I Kings 7:51 - the beginning of the Haftara for Parashat Pekuday, when it does not fall on one of the four Parashot)
"Solomon brought" -- from that which his father had consecrated, he donated to the erection of the House in honor of his father, even though he did not need those materials because he had abundant silver and gold, and copper. But out of respect for his father David he gave some of it towards the work on the Mikdash and the remainder he deposited in the treasuries of House of Lord.
Regarding the midrash that states that Shelomo used in construction of the Mikdash none of the funds which David his father has consecrated, there are those who say: Since Shelomo knew that that it eventually would be destroyed, better that the nations of the world not say that it was destroyed because it was built with materials which David had stolen and plundered. Others say: Thus said Shelomo - In Father's days there was a famine which extended three years, and he should have spent these treasuries on keeping the poor alive; let them be put aside for times of need. (Radak, I Kings, 7:51)
In other words, if the Jewish people builds its House with spoils taken from the nations, or in a modern style, using available resources for splendor and honor - even if the splendor and honor are for religious purposes - instead of serving human needs and sustaining the impoverished of Israel, the project will be severely blemished.
The subject is very actual. It is important that all know that the possessions of the nation and the state exist not in order to glorify the state and the nation, and not even its holy sites and projects, but first of all they exist to meet the needs of the nation's deprived. (Leibowitz, ibid., p, 436)
Editorial Board: Pinchas Leiser (Editor), Miriam Fine (Coordinator), Itzhak Frankenthal and Dr. Menachem Klein
Translation: Kadish Goldberg
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