From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 3:59 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Vayakheil-Pekudei, 5766





                                               
                                                      The Equalizer

                  By Rabbi Joshua (egalitarianistically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


  In parshas Vayakheil, Moshe gathers the people together in order to command them to make their contributions to the mishkan and to construct it, under the oversight of Betzalel, whom he appoints for this task. Before issuing his directives concerning the mishkan, however, Moshe again commands them to observe the Shabbos. The rabbis derive, from this juxtaposition, besides the principle already derived from an earlier, similar juxtaposition, that the construction of the mishkan does not override the prohibition of doing labor on Shabbos, the further principle that the thirty-nine types of labor that are prohibited on Shabbos are the same thirty-nine types of labor that were done in the construction of the mishkan. Why were these principles of Shabbos mentioned here, when Moshe was about to call for contributions to the mishkan, appoint Betzalel over its construction, and command him to proceed with the construction ?


  The key to answering this question lies in the opening word of the parsha, 'Vayakehil,' which means 'and he gathered.' Rav Ya'akov ben Rabbeinu Asher, in his commentary Ba'al HaTurim, comments that Shabbos is mentioned in the context of this word to teach us that Jews should gather on Shabbos to learn Torah as taught by their leaders. There is, of course, a purely functional reason for Shabbos serving as day when people gather to hear Torah lessons, since they are free from their usual weekday duties, and have the time needed to attend such lectures. However, there is, I believe, a wider function in these gatherings, which is to unite the people around the study of Torah. While, during the week, each person pursues his own activities, each one with varying degrees of success and consequent station in life, on Shabbos, everyone gathers as equals to study Torah together. These kinds of gatherings may also underscore the notion, as explained by Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik based on some passages in the Talmud (see Niddah 30b and Sanhedrin 7a)  that every Jew has a unique part of Torah to reveal, and our understanding of Torah can only be complete when we recognize this factor, and enable each Jew to teach us his portion of Torah.


  The need for the kind of unity brought out in the word 'Vayakheil' was especially important in the aftermath of the sin of the golden calf. Ramban writes that there was a need to bring the people together, to reconcile them, because they had split into various factions at the time of the sin. This comment has special significance in view of the Ramban's approach to the mishkan, which he sees as an extension of the experience of God's divine presence at Mt. Sinai. The rabbis tell us that the people were unified when they received the Torah, and, in fact, this unity was a precondition for receiving it. As Rabbi Gedaliyohu Schorr explains in his Ohr Gedaliyohu, this is because, as we have mentioned, each person in the nation contributes to our understanding of the Torah. Since the mishkan is an extension of the experience at Mt. Sinai, then, there was a need to reconcile the people with each other and unify them in order for the mishkan to serve its purpose. We may add that the contributions for the construction of the mishkan, which included a half-shekel, no more and no less, required of each person from age twenty, added to this sense of unity that needed to be generated at this time, and that is why the contributions are again mentioned here by Moshe.


  Rabbi Schorr also mentions that the mishkan, on a wider scale, represented the entire universe, as created by God. This is why the midrash tells us that Betzalel knew how to combine the letters through which God created the universe. The mishkan was, in miniature, a representative of the universe as a whole, which God created through ten 'ma'amoros,' or utterances, and just as the world, as created by God, is a reflection of His unity, so, too, the mishkan, which is a miniature representation of the world, must also reflect that unity. Betzalel, the grand architect of the mishkan, knew how tocombine the leters of the aleph-beis in a way that brought out this unity. Rav Shlomo Goren, in his book Toras HaShabbos VehaMoed, advances the theory that God actually used thirty-eight of the thirty-nine labors later used in the construction of the mishkan in creating the universe. The one type of labor, or melacha, that God did not use in the creation was that of carrying from one domain to the other. Since God is referred to as 'Makom,' or the location of the world, we cannot speak of Him as 'carrying' when He created the universe. This factor, according to Rabbi Goren, is reflected in the fact that 'carrying' is considered, by a number of medieval Talmudic commentators, as a 'melacha gerua,' or an 'inferior' type of labor, and this distinction generates, according to them, several halachic consequences. Resting, on Shabbos, from the types of labor that God used in creating the universe, and which were later used in building the mishkan, serves as an acknowledgment that God created the world in six days and 'rested' on the seventh day.


  The world, as created by God, was a reflection of His unity ; and until the Jewish nation worshipped the golden calf, it reflected the divine unity, as well. By worshipping the eigel and declaring ‘these are your gods, Israel,’ they shattered that reflection of unity. Moshe’s task, when he gathered the people together after pleading with God on their behalf, was to restore their lost unity. The mishkan, made through use of the thirty-nine categories of melacha, reflected the unity inherent in the universe created by God, and its construction was therefore a means of restoring the unity that was lost at the incident of the eigel. Following our discussion regarding the unifying factor of Torah, we can add that the Torah actually served as the blueprint of the universe, as the Midrash Rabbah (Bereishis 1:2) tells us, and, therefore, the labors used in creating the world, and its miniature representative, the mishkan, are reflections of the Torah itself. By gathering on Shabbos to learn Torah, we are able to realize the kind of national reconciliation that is necessary in order to bring down the divine presence among us, through the vehicle of the mishkan, which, as the Ramban says, perpetuated the experience the nation had at Mt. Sinai.



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

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