From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 1:08 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Terumah, 5764



                                                   Trust Me

                   By Rabbi Joshua (trustingly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


The Torah, in parshas Terumah, records God's command to build a mikdash, or sanctuary - also known as mishkan, or tabernacle - where His divine presence will reside: " And you shall make Me a sanctuary and I shall dwell among them" (Shemos 25:7). There is a dispute between Rashi and Ramban, based in part on different midrashic sources, regarding when this command was given. According to Rashi, the command is actually out of sequence, and was given after the sin of the golden calf, while according to the Ramban it was given before that sin, and is recorded in the Torah in chronological order. There is a midrash in Tanna deVei Eliyohu (17:21), that seems to support Ramban's approach. The midrash there says that when God heard the Jews proclaim, at Sinai, 'na'aseh venishma' (Shemos 24:7), meaning, we will do and we will listen, he understood that they had accepted the yoke of the kingdom of heaven with 'simcha,' or joy,  and, in response, said, "And you shall make me a sanctuary and I shall dwell among them." This midrash seems somewhat enigmatic. What connection is there between the people's acceptance of the mitzvos and the divine response of commanding them, specifically, to build the mishkan?

Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried, in his Torah commentary Aperion, cites the Tanna deVei Eliyohu  somewhat differently, as saying that God's response to the nation saying 'na'aseh venishma' was to command them to donate money for the building of the mishkan, as we find in the beginning of parshas Terumah. He also  explains God's satisfaction with their acceptance of His yoke as being based on the fact that they said 'na'aseh venishma,' - 'we will do and we will listen' - thus displaying a willingness to do the mitzvos even though they had not yet heard their entire contents. He explains the midrash based on the peculiar wording of that command : "Speak to the children of Israel and they shall take to me a portion…" (Shemos 25:1). In reality, he points out that they should have been commanded 'they shall give" rather than "they shall take," since they were being commanded to contribute. The reason they were told to take, he explains, is that by giving to the construction of the mishkan, they were really taking, because they would gain tremendously, in a spiritual sense, from the existence of the mishkan. However, the people could only appreciate that point if they trusted in God. By accepting the mitzvos at Sinai without first being told what they were, they demonstrated that trust, and, therefore, God responded by telling them to 'take' a portion to Him for the construction of the mishkan.

While Rabbi Ganzfried's explanation of the midrash teaches us the high degree of faith and trust that the nation had in God, it does not address the actual wording of the midrash. The midrash, as we have seen, records that God's response to the nation's acceptance of the yoke of the mitzvos was to command them to build the mishkan. Moreover, the midrash notes that this acceptance was done with joy, and Rabbi Ganzfried's explanation does not address this factor at all. I believe, however, that the joyous nature of the nation's acceptance of the mitzvos is the major point of the midrash, and the key to understanding the connection between that acceptance and God's response of commanding them to build the mishkan.

Rabbi Yosef Albo, in his Sefer HaIkkarim - Book of Principles - (3:33), explains the nature of simcha. The upshot of his explanation is that a person attains joy when he acts according to the nature of his soul. Following this explanation, when the Jews accepted the yoke of mitzvos with joy, they came to a recognition that God's laws are imprinted upon their souls, and constitute their essence, as individuals and as a nation. The Midrash Rabbah in the beginning of Bereishis tells us that God gazed into the Torah and created the world. Rabbi Avrohom Yitzchok Bloch, who was the mashgiach ruchani, or spiritual guide, of the yeshiva in Telshe before World War Two, explained that human nature - specifically the inner nature of the Jew - is fashioned in conformity with the laws of the Torah. When the nation accepted these laws with joy, they demonstrated that they understood that the Torah would help them actualize their inner essence. It was this recognition, I believe, that led them to say 'na'aseh venishma,' expressing their willingness to perform the mitzvos even though they did not yet know what they were precisely. By connecting with their inner essence, they would, in truth, strengthen their connection to God, as we will explain further on. When God heard that they accepted His laws and His kingship in this manner, and saw that they appreciated the relationship that they were meant to have with Him, He then commanded them to build a structure for Him, so that he could dwell among them, establishing a relationship with them on a permanent basis.

Rabbi Aharon Dovid Goldberg, in his Shiras Dovid, cites our Tanna deVei Eliyohu, and notes that it is consistent not only with Ramban's opinion that the command to build the mishkan preceded the sin of the golden calf, but, in addition, to Ramban's comments in his introduction to the book of Shemos, that the process of redemption was not completed until God's divine presence dwelled above the mishkan. Rabbi Goldberg does not mention this, but Rav Avrohom Yitzchok Kook explains that true freedom is the ability to be oneself, to act in accordance with one's nature. God, he writes (see Oros HaKodesh, volume 3), created the world out of His freedom to act according to His will. Man, by connecting to his inner self, thereby attaches himself to this divine freedom, and actualizes the divine element within himself. Following this definition of freedom, then, when the Jewish nation accepted God's laws with joy, and demonstrated that they understood that these laws were imprinted on their souls and constituted their inner essence, they were demonstrating that they had attained freedom. God then responded, as the Tanna deVei Eliyohu tells us, by commanding them to build the mishkan as a place where the relationship they had with God would attain a sense of permanence. The building of the mishkan, then, constituted the culmination of the process of redemption, bringing God's presence into the lives of each individual, and, in effect, in touch with the essence of their souls.  


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

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