From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 3:08
AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Ki Sisa,
5766
It's the Thought that
Counts
By Rabbi Joshua (thoughtfully known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
In
this week's parsha, there is a command to observe the Shabbos, although the
nation had already been commanded concerning Shabbos previously. Rashi explains
that the command here is mentioned in juxtaposition with the completion of the
details of the mishkan, and teaches us that the construction of the mishkan does
not supersede the command to cease from work on Shabbos. A number of
commentaries try to find additional reasons for this juxtaposition. However, as
we will see, more significant than the juxtaposition of Shabbos to the
construction of the mishkan is the juxtaposition of both these factors to the
incident of the worship of the golden calf, which follows immediately after the
command concerning Shabbos.
Rabbi Mordechai Gifter, zt"l, in
his Pirkei Torah, in an essay entitled, "Kedushas HaMakom VeKedushas HaZman," or
"Sanctity of Place and Sanctity of Time," asks, why would one think that
construction of the mishkan would override the sanctity of Shabbos, to the
extent that the Torah needs to teach us that it does not? He answers that one
may have thought that since the purpose of the mishkan is to bring God's
presence among us, and Shabbos itself is a sign that God sanctifies us, it is
more important to be engaged in building the mishkan, the seat of God's presence
in this world, than in observing Shabbos which merely serves as a sign of His
presence. Therefore, the Torah teaches us that Shabbos, which brings sanctity to
time, is of more importance than the mishkan, which brings sanctity to place.
Rav Gifter explains that the world exists because of its connection to God. The
further one is distanced from his ultimate source, he continues, the further he
is from sanctity. Place is more connected to the physical, and therefore more
removed from sanctity than is time. Time, although created by God, is, in
essence, something spiritual, removed from any connection to the physical.
Shabbos represents that aspect of spirituality inherent in time, since
Shabbos, as the rabbis teach us, is akin to the world to come, and above any
restricted notion of a particular point in time, just as God is. Thus, Shabbos
overrides the building of the mishkan, because its sanctity is of a higher
nature than that of the mishkan.
In light of this analysis,
says Rabbi Gifter, we can understand why the section on Shabbos and the mishkan
precedes the Torah's account of the sin of the golden calf. The people sinned
because they thought Moshe delayed in returning from Mt. Sinai, and therefore
thought he was not going to return at all. They made this mistake because they
had failed to grasp the notion that spirituality is beyond time. Instead they
descended to the world of the physical and judged matters based on physical
considerations. Instead of bringing sanctity to the physical things of the world
by connecting them to the timelessness of God, they did the opposite and placed
artificial limitations onto the notion of time. It is for this reason, he adds,
that in parshas Vayakheil, before the Torah records the actual construction of
the mishkan, which was to atone for the sin of the eigel, it mentions the
observance of Shabbos, in order to teach the nation that the sanctity of time
must be recognized as a prelude to the sanctity of place represented by the
mishkan, and that, indeed, it is the sanctity of time that they must inculcate
into their service in the mishkan.
Perhaps we can add to Rabbi
Gifter's comments that it is for this reason that Rashi, unlike the Ramban,
explains that the command to build the mishkan, presented in Terumah and
Tetzaveh, is out of chronological order. The command to build the mishkan came
as an atonement for the eigel. Therefore, we would expect the Torah to record it
after the sin of the eigel. However, says Rashi, the Torah is not written in
chronological order. Rashi, however, does not explain what the purpose behind
this change of order is. Based on Rav Gifter's analysis, we can explain that
since the sin of the eigel represented a failure to have a sense of the
timelessness of God, and the sanctity of the mishkan was to be based on that
sense, the command to build the mishkan is recorded out of chronological order,
to underline the factor of timelessness that the mishkan represents (for a
somewhat different application of this idea, see Netvort to parshas Terumah,
5766, available at Torahheights.com).
The idea that, by
sinning with the eigel, the nation was imposing physical dimensions upon the
more spiritual notion of time, can help us understand the midrash that connects
the beginning of this week's parsha to the sin of the eigel. The parsha begins
with the command, "When you will take a census of the children of Israel,
according to their counts, every man shall give God an atonement for his soul
when counting them... This is what they shall give… half of the shekel… You
shall take the silver of the atonements from the children of Israel and give it
for the work of the Tent of Meeting ; and it shall be a remembrance before God
for the children of Israel, to atone for your souls" (Shemos 30:12-16). The
rabbis tell us (Yalkut Shimoni, Terumah, 368) that this half shekel was given as
an atonement for the sin of the eigel, and precedes the Torah's recording of
that sin in order to provide a cure before the actual sickness. Rav Shlomo Yosef
Zevin, in his LeTorah VeLamoadim, points out that the word for' taking a census'
- sisa - really means to elevate. The external difference between a man and an
animal, he explains, is that a man holds his head erect, emphasizing his
cerebral aspect, and indicating that it rules over his physical aspect, while an
animal keeps its head down, emphasizing its physical dimension, which rules over
its mental aspect. When the nation sinned, using its gold to construct an idol
that it would bow down to, it emerged as a calf, an animal, thus emphasizing
that their behavior was similar to that of an animal, whose physical dimension
rules over it. Thus, when they were given a means of atonement, they were told
to lift their heads up, thereby emphasizing their more spiritual
aspect.
Rabbi Avrohom Aharon Yudelevitch, famed spiritual
leader of the Eldridge Street shul on the lower east side of Manhattan in the
early part of the twentieth century, writes, in his Darash Av, that of the two
types of sins, those involved with the spiritual aspect of man, and those
involved with the spiritual, those involved with the spiritual aspect are much
more grave. The Talmud (Yoma 29a) tells us that thoughts of sin are worse that
the sin itself. The Rambam, in his Guide for the Perplexed (3:8), explains that
the spiritual aspect of man is of greater importance than his physical aspect,
and, therefore, when man rebels against God through heretical thoughts, he is
staining a more important part of himself than when he sins against God with his
body. According to Rabbi Gifter's analysis of the sin of the eigel, as we have
seen, the people placed more emphasis on the physical than on the spiritual, and
this is why the sin of the eigel is considered so egregious. For this reason, as
an atonement for that sin, the people needed to lift their heads up as they were
counted to give the half-shekel, and elevate themselves above the more physical
aspect of their existence.
Please address all
correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address -
JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
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