From: Netvort@aol.com

Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 3:38 AM

To: JoshHoff@aol.com

Subject: Netvort : parshas Vayakhel, 5768

                                                Not Just Words

                   By Rabbi Joshua (rhetorically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


  After Moshe tells the people which items are needed for the construction of the mishkan, the various groups among them bring their contributions towards this end. The Torah tells us that "every man whose heart inspired him came : and everyone whose spirit generously moved him brought.... The men came along with the women ... every wise woman spun with her hands : and they brought the spun yarn...All the women whose heart inspired them with wisdom spun the goats... The princes brought the shoham stones and the filling stones for the Ephod and the Choshen" (Shemos 35:21-28). In the verse concerning the princes, the word for princes - nesi'im - is written without any 'yud,' even though we would usually expect the word to have at least one 'yud ,' or perhaps two. Rashi, citing the midrash, explains that the nesi'im made their contribution with the wrong attitude. They decided to wait until everyone else had brought their contribution - which, according to the Ohr HaChaim, is why they are mentioned last among all of the contributors - and bring whatever was missing. Because they acted in such a lazy way, says Rashi, the letter 'yud' is left out. My teacher, Rav Aharon Soloveichik, zt"l, explained  the significance of the letter 'yud,' albeit in a different context. Rav Aharon said that the letter 'yud' indicates the possessive. Shulchan means 'a table', while shulchani - with a yud at the end -  means 'my table. 'Thus, the 'yud,'  when added to a person's name, as when the name Hoshea was changed to Yehoshua by adding a 'yud' at the beginning,  represents the personal element of the individual. In our context, what the nesi'im did was not merely a consequence of laziness, but of a failure to infuse the personal element into their contribution to the construction of the mishkan. We have discussed the significance of this personal element in regard to the mishkan in the past, but I would like to add an additional dimension, based on an of explanation of the nesi'im's mistake given by Rav Moshe Tzvi Neriah in his Ner LeMeah.


  Rav Neriah writes that a nasi, or prince of a tribe, is supposed to elevate the spirit of the members of the tribe, helping it to actualize its material and spiritual potential. That is what the word nasi means - to lift up. The nesi'im, by waiting until everyone else had made their contribution before they made their own, failed to energize the inner desire of the nation to serve God in their own unique way. The nesi'im were given the task of elevating the members of the nation by recognizing their sense of dedication to God and guiding them in bringing it to fruition, and, in this instance, they failed to do so. Rav Neriah illustrates this approach to the role of the nasi  through the story of how Hillel became the nasi of the Sanhedrin after bringing a source for the halacha that when Pesach eve falls on Shabbos, it is permissible to slaughter the Pesach sacrifice in the Temple. Without gong through the entire story, as Rav Neriah does in his commentary, we will only mention what Hillel said when asked how the Jewish nation would manage to slaughter the Pesach sacrifice on Shabbos once they discovered that it is permissible to do so. How would they be able to bring their knives to the Temple? Hillel answered, 'Let (bnei) Yisroel alone. If they are not prophets, they are the sons of prophets.' In other words, Hillel was confident that they would find a way to bring the knives in a way that was consistent with halacha, which they, in fact, did.

  Rav Neriah shows, from the wording of the text of the Tosefta, that it was this sensitivity to the inner spirit of the people, rather than his ability to show that the Pesach offering can be brought on Shabbos, that gained the position of nasi for Hillel. Hillel understood their inner essence, their devotion to serving God, and concluded that they would find a way to slaughter the Pesach sacrifice. It was the failure to have this kind of sensitivity to the inner spirit of the people and to help them actualize it that was at the core of the failure of the nesi'im in the time of Moshe. Perhaps according to this explanation, we can explain the significance of the 'yud' as being the first letter in God's four-letter name, as pointed out by Rav Moshe Shternbuch in his Ta'am Va Da'as. The failure of the nesi'im consisted in not bringing out the inner devotion to God that the members of the nation held within them. The 'yud,' alluding to the name of God, was left out of their name when they brought their own contributions.


  Based on Rav Neriah's explanation, we can understand why the verse describing the contribution of the women immediately precedes the verse describing the contribution of the nesi'im. The Torah tells us, as we have seen, "All the women whose heart inspired them with wisdom spun the goats." Rashi, citing the gemara, tells us that it was an especially difficult task to spin the hair of the goats into curtains, as it had to be done while the hair was still attached to the body of the goats. Rav Aharon Soloveichik explained the phrase 'whose heart inspired them' - asher nesa'am libam' - to mean, literally 'whose heart elevated them,' meaning, whose spirit elevated them to go beyond their natural abilities and be able to perform the difficult task of sewing the hairs while they were still attached to the goats. In other words, their single-minded devotion to God enabled them to increase their previous potential and perform this task. In contrast, the nesi'im, whose contribution is described in the following verses, failed to tap into the inner devotion of the people and thereby raise them to greater heights in their service of God. Because of that, the 'yud,' alluding to God, was left out of their names, to allude to the fact that they had failed to bring out the people's inner devotion to God.


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

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