Netvort Parshas Ki Sisa 5770:                   Table Manners

By Rabbi Joshua (uprightly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

There is a dispute among midrashim, which carries over to the classical Torah commentators, regarding whether the command to build the Mishkan was given before the sin of the golden calf, indicating that the Mishkan had its own inherent value and purpose or whether it came only after the sin and served as an atonement for its commission. The Shem Mishmuel, however, says that even according to the first approach, once the sin of the eigel was committed the Mishkan besides its independent value, also served as atonement. In what way was it an atonement for that monumental sin?  In the past we have mentioned the Abarbanel who says that the Torah emphasizes, in relating the construction of the Mishkan, that everything was done in precise detail, exactly as God commanded Moshe. This was in contrast with the violation of Moshe's command not to construct gods of silver that was that was perpetrated as part of the sin of the eigel. 

The explanation of the Abarbanel can be better understood in conjunction with the approach to the sin of the eigel of Rav Yehudah HaLevi, in his Kuzari.  As we have mentioned many times in the past, he says that the people did not really seek to worship idols.  Rather, in Moshe's absence, they needed some visible frame of reference through which to approach God. In fact, the Mishkan, and especially the cheruvim which sat atop the aron, constituted a recognition of this human need. The mistake that the people made was that they transgressed the Torah law which forbids making images of silver and gold.  On a broader scale, the people failed to recognize that the Torah demands that in approaching God one must follow the guidelines that God himself  prescribes rather than making these guidelines himself.  The Mishkan thus served as an atonement for this sin because, as the Abarbanel says, the people followed the exact details that God gave in constructing it.  This explanation, however, deals with the manner in which the Mishkan was constructed, but not with the Mishkan itself.  How, we may ask, did the nature of the Mishkan itself serve as an atonement for the incident of the eigel?  I would like to suggest an answer based on a comment of Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin in regard to another means of atonement for that sin.

Rav Zevin in his LeTorah U'LeMoadim to parshas Ki Sisa, cites the verse at the beginning of the parsha, “When you take a census of the children of Israel before God" (Shemos, 30:12).  The verse speaks of taking a coin from each person as a means of counting them.  Literally, the first two words of the verse, 'ki sisa,' mean, 'when you elevate.'  Why, asks Rav Zevin, is taking a coin from someone considered an elevation?  He explains that the primary physical difference between a man and an animal is that man walks in an upright position, with his head held high, while an animal's head is facing the earth. This difference symbolizes the fact that the head of the animal focuses on the ground, where it's food is, while man's head, ideally, is focus on his intellect, which controls the desires of his heart. Those who worshipped the eigel rejected this ideal characteristic of man when, after the gold that they threw into the fire emerged as a calf and they said,  “these are your gods, Israel" (Shemos, 32:4). They were saying that the gold, the physical aspects of creation, are their gods, to which they bowed their heads. This is why we find, in Tehillim (106:20) the worshippers of the eigel are described as having "substituting their honor structure of an ox"  The rabbis, however, say that the gold  which the people gave to the Mishkan, as recorded in the beginning of the parsha, atoned for the sin of the eigel.  When the people gave their machatzis hashekel to the Mishkan, says Rav Zevin, they were using their coins for spiritual matters, and thereby restored their upright position which had been lost when they worshipped the eigel.  In this way, the giving of the coins elevated them.

Following Rav Zevin's explanation, we can say that the Mishkan itself served as a means of restoring the people to the status of men standing upright, in regard to the way in which they partake of food. The animal, as Rav Zevin pointed out, focuses solely on its food, on its physical utility.  In fact, Rav Kook says that the purpose behind the halacha of feeding one's animal before partaking in one's own meal is that the human being, while waiting for his food, can contemplate intellectual or spiritual matters, while the animal cannot do so, and therefore suffers more while waiting than does its owner while waiting. The Mishkan, as pointed out by Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra and others, has all the elements of a Jewish home, including a menorah for light, a table for eating, etc.  The way that the Mishkan is constructed, then, should teach us something about the essence of the Jewish home. The Shulchan, or table, in the Mishkan is directly opposite the menorah, which symbolizes the light of the Torah. This would seem to suggest that when one eats, he should keep in mind the spiritual aspects involved, as well. The Mishnah in Avos (3:4) speaks of the importance of being involved in words of Torah while eating at one's table, and tells us that a person's table serves as an atonement for him. The manner in which the Mishkan is constructed, therefore, reminds us of the need to elevate ourselves by using the physical aspects of our lives to serve our spiritual side, which, in effect, reverses the reversal of this process that took place when the people worshipped the eigel. 


Archives are available at  http://www.yucs.org/heights/torah/bysubject/

In addition, archives from 5764-5768 are now available at yeshivasbrisk.freeservers.com/netvort.html