From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 3:58 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Ki Sissa, 5765





                                                 Socket to Me

                       By Rabbi Joshua (fixedly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


 The major element of parshas Ki Sissa is the incident of the worship of the golden calf, or eigel, and its aftermath. However, a number of sections precede this major incident, and, at first blush, they do not seem to be related to it. I believe, however, that these opening sections do, in fact, relate to the tragic incident of the eigel, and serve as an introduction to it, as I will try to demonstrate.

The parsha begins with God's command to Moshe to collect a half- shekel from each man between the ages of twenty and sixty. Rashi notes that the word for this contribution, 'terumah,' is mentioned three times, once each in three successive verses (Shemos, 30:14-16), and therefore refers to three different contributions that were made. Two of the three terumos were a half-shekel each, one to be given each year and used to purchase the daily communal offerings brought in the mishkan, and the other one,  which was collected only once, to be used to pay for the silver sockets into which the boards of the mishkan were placed to give them stability. The third terumah was a free-will offering, also collected only once, with each person making a contribution towards the construction of that component of the mishkan  towards which his spirit moved him to make a donation. Since the purpose of collecting for the communal offering was to assure that the offering, would, in fact , constitute a collective effort, everyone gave the same amount - a half-shekel - so that each person would have an equal share. The purpose of the free-willed offering was to give everyone an opportunity to relate to that part of the mishkan with which he most identified, and, therefore, the amount given varied with the person (see Netvort to parshas Vayakheil, 5763, available at Torah heights.com, for more on this). However, it is not readily apparent why the sockets, of all parts of the mishkan, were singled out as needing to be paid for equally by every person. Wouldn't the ark, housing the Torah, which was the focal point of the entire mishkan, be a more likely candidate for such inclusion?  Rabbi Yosef Salant, in his Be'er Yosef, raises this question, and offers a beautiful solution, which I would like to present and expand upon.

Rabbi Salant notes that various midrashim and commentators explain the symbolism of the mishkan as corresponding to the world in general, to the mitzvos of the Torah, and to the Jew himself and his fulfillment of those mitzvos (see especially the commentary of Malbim to Yechezkel, 43:10, where he explains the 'bayis,' or Temple, as hinting to the 'beis ha-nefesh' - the  inner soul - as well). The Talmud in Makkos (24a), continues Rabbi Salant, cites the verse in Chabakuk (2:4), " but the righteous person will live through his faith" - to show that the basic foundation for all the mitzvos is faith in God. Thus, the sockets, which give the entire structure of the Ohel Moed - the Tent of Meeting - its stability, are symbolic of this basic requirement of emunah, or faith in God. While each Jew has a different portion in regard to Torah, depending on his abilities as well and circumstances, when it comes to emunah, everyone has an equal obligation to have faith in God and to believe that the entire Torah was given to us by God, and, therefore, everyone had to give an equal amount to pay for the sockets, which symbolize this requirement of belief. The reason that a half-shekel, rather than a full-shekel, is given, is because in order to maintain one's faith in God, in face of all the seeming lack of justice in the world, one needs to realize that he only sees part of the picture. From the perspective of God, Who alone sees the larger picture, everything that occurs is a consequence of His judgment and is therefore perfect in its nature. However, from our limited perspective, we often do not understand why the righteous suffer and the evil prosper. Therefore our faith in God, in order to be stable, must be grounded in the understanding that we do not see the whole picture, and, in the end, when we see how history finally plays itself out, we will understand that all of God's ways are just.


Although Rabbi Salant does not mention this, according to the Talmud (Berochos 7), one of the requests that Moshe made after the incident of the worship of the golden calf was, in fact, to understand why the righteous suffer and the evil prosper. God's answer was that He would pass before Moshe, and Moshe would see his 'back', but not His face (Shemos 33:23). My teacher, Rav Aharon Soloveichik, explained that we can only understand history through hindsight, long after the events have taken place, but not while they are occurring. In retrospect, when we can see the bigger picture, we will understand that God's judgment is just. This, too, according to Rav Salant, is the lesson of the half-shekel collected for the terumah of the sockets. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why this section is mentioned by the Torah as part of its prelude to the incident of the golden calf, whose aftermath prompted Moshe to ask his question of God.


Rabbi Salant further says that based on his explanation, we can understand a remark of the Ba'al HaTurim in the beginning of parshas Pekudei, where he says that corresponding to  the one hundred sockets supporting the boards in the tent of meeting, the rabbis (Menochos 43b) enacted that a person is obligated to make one hundred blessings each day. The function of making blessings, says Rabbi Salant, is to remind a person that everything in the world comes from God. Since the sockets represent faith, which serves as the foundation of existence and of man's inner essence, they also serve as a hint to the obligation of blessing God one hundred times a day. Actually, as we pointed out in Netvort to parshas Eikev, 5758, almost all of the blessings that we make are themselves only of rabbinic origin. The only blessings that are Biblically required are Grace after Meals, which is mentioned earlier in this week's Torah portion, and, according to some opinions, the blessings made over studying Torah, which have a source in parshas Ha'azinu. Still, the rabbis find a hint to the daily requirement of making one hundred blessings in a verse in parshas Eikev : "And now, Yisroel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul" (Devorim 10:12). Although this obligation is generally understood to be rabbinic, there is an opinion among medieval authorities, mentioned in the halachic compendium Shibbolei HaLeket, that it is a Biblical obligation. We mentioned there the explanation of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik zt"l, that according to the Rambam, this obligation is one of arranging one's day in a way that he realizes the presence of God through making blessings to Him one hundred times a day, seeing Him in all aspects of his life and in the world around him.


In his 'Laws of the Foundations of the Torah' (2:2), Rambam explains the path toward attaining love and fear of God. He writes that when one considers the actions and wonderful creations of God and sees His wisdom through them, he immediately loves and praises God, and when he thinks about these very things he immediately recoils backward and fears, and knows that he is a small, lowly creature standing before God. In other words, by looking at nature in the proper way man can come to love and fear God. The requirement of one hundred daily blessings awakens us to the many wonders of God that surround us, reminding us that God lies behind them. One hundred times a day we must stop to consider God's workings in nature and in our lives. Following this directive properly leads to an appreciation of God's workings in the world, and to love and fear of Him. Thus, even though almost all of the blessings we say are of rabbinic origin, by directing our attention to God one hundred times a day through the vehicle of blessings, we are able to fulfill the Biblical requirements of love and fear of God. We can therefore understand why the rabbis attached their requirement of one hundred daily blessings to a verse that tells us to love and fear God. The goal of these blessings, according to Rabbi Soloveitchik's explanation of the Rambam, is to sharpen our awareness of God in the world and in the daily events in our lives by directing our attention to Him as we experience them, and, in this way, come to love and fear Him, thereby filling our daily lives with infinite meaning.  According to Rabbi Salant, the function of the hundred daily blessings that we make is to strengthen our basic faith in God, and, thus, according to Rabbi Salant, as well, we can understand how this obligation can be Biblical, even though most blessings that we make are only rabbinic. Belief in God is counted by the Rambam as one of the six hundred thirteen mitzvos of the Torah. Therefore, by making one hundred blessings a day, we strengthen our faith, and thereby fulfill this fundamental mitzvoh.

Following Rabbi Salant's explanation, we can understand why the contribution of a half-shekel for the purchase of the sockets precedes the incident of the golden calf. Since the sockets, which serve as the foundation of the mishkan, project the message that faith in God is the foundation of our lives, of the Torah, and of the entire world, a reference to them is hinted to in the beginning of the parsha which describes the incident of the golden calf, in which part of the nation abandoned this faith. Rabbi Salant, in fact, cites a passage in Yerushalmi Shekalim (2:3), according to which the requirement for contributing a half-shekel to the mishkan was an atonement for the sin of the golden calf, and the Maharal of Prague, in his super-commentary to Rashi, Gur Aryeh, at the beginning of parshas Terumah, explains all three terumah obligations as being in atonement for the eigel. The section that immediately precedes the incident of the golden calf is that of observing the Shabbos. The midrash notes that placing this section immediately before that of the golden calf reflects the principle of providing the cure before the illness. In other words, observance of Shabbos inculcates within a person a belief in God and in His control of the world, beliefs that were compromised in the incident of the golden calf. Thus, the section referring to the sockets and the section on Shabbos both relate to belief in God, and thus serve as introductions to the incident of the eigel. We still need to understand, however, how the intervening sections, those of the construction of the laver, used to wash before entering the mishkan to do the service, the section on the anointing oil, used to consecrate the mishkan and its various vessels, as well as Aharon and his sons, and the section on the ketores, or incense, burned on the golden altar twice a day, relate to the worship of the golden calf, and serve as an introduction to it.

Regarding the laver and its base, the Torah tells us that they were constructed from the copper mirrors which the women contributed as part of the free-will offering hinted at by one of the three mentions of the word 'terumah,' as pointed out by Rashi. Rashi tells us that while Moshe felt that these mirrors, which were used by women to beautify themselves for their husbands, were an unseemly object to use in the construction of the mishkan, God told him, on the contrary, that they were an ideal object to use. When the men in Egypt lost their faith under the harshness of the enslavement, the women went out to the fields and used the mirrors to make themselves appealing to their husbands and renew their faith in God's promise. The annointing oil is the means of consecrating the mishklan, thus bringing the entire process of its construction to its culmination, so that it can function as a way of connecting us with God on this earth, and qualified Aharon and his sons to do the holy service there. The incense included the ingredient of the chelbanah, which, the rabbis tell us, had a foul odor, when burned by itself. The chelbanah, or galbanum, they tell us, represents the sinners among the Jews, who must be included in our prayer services and fast days. While one explanation of this could be that by incorporating them with the rest of the gathering, they will be influenced for the good, another explanation can be that even the evil-doers in Israel have something to contribute, the hidden point of belief in God which comes to the forefront in pressing situations. Seen in this way, then, all of the sections in our parsha which precede the incident of the golden calf are of one piece, highlighting the fundamental importance of belief in God, as brought out through the mishkan, and undermined through the construction and worship of the eigel.


****** Correction : In last week's Netvort, the attachments to the me'il were erroneously referred to as cloth bells and golden pomegranates. Actually, the Torah describes them as cloth pomegranates and golden bells. I apologize for the error.


Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

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