Parshas Terumah - Thoughts on the Mishkan

Parshas Terumah - Thoughts on the Mishkan

מיכאל ריטש

Matching the vessels in the kodesh and the kodesh kodashim

I think my point is clear. What were two separate objects in the outer kodesh - are two parts of one single object in the Holy of Holies.

We know that the menorah is the symbol of חכמה, wisdom, and the shulkhan is the symbol of עשירות, wealth: ב“ב דף כה: הרוצה להחכים ידרים, והרוצה להעשיר יצפין

“If someone who wishes to become wise, pray slightly to the south, since the menorah was on the south. If someone who wishes to become rich, pray slightly to the north, since the shulkhan was on the north.” (Bava Basra 25b)

In our world, wisdom and wealth are very different forces. Someone who wants to acquire one, must turn away from the other: you can’t turn both ways. People have to specialize, ואין הכל זוכים לשתי שלחנות. As we see with Yissachar and Zevulun, a person has to choose his goal.

But there is another level to the world: complete Oneness, as Hashem is One.

חגיגה יב• אדם הראשון מן הארץ עד לרקיע, שנאמר למן היום אשר ברא אלהים אדם על הארץ כו' אדם הראשון ־ מסוף העולם ועד סופו היה, שנאמר למן היום אשר ברא אלהים אדם על הארץ ולמקצה השמים ועד קצה השמים כו'

“First Man stretched from the ground to the heavens ... First Man stretched from one end of the earth to the other...” (Chagigah 12a)

This is the world of Adam before the sin. There were no two sides then, no limitations. One man could encompass it all.

And that is the world of the Holy of Holies. From there, G-d’s blessing flows out to fill the world, and it will divide into many outward forms. But Hashem is One, and the blessing is from one source. It is only out here, in the world of division, that the blessing divides into different forms - the spiritual wisdom of the menorah and the physical wealth of the shulkhan. In the kodesh kadoshim there is only one vessel.

For years I have wondered: The aron represents Torah: it contains the luchos and the sefer Torah of Moshe Rabbeinu, and has the crown of “keser Torah”. And the menorah represents wisdom. Why vessels to represent both Torah and wisdom: what is the difference, exactly?

Now we can see the answer. Wisdom - the menorah - means the spiritual side, as opposed to the physical. But Torah - the aron - that includes everything. When Hashem looked in his Torah to create the world, that’s the kind of Torah we mean.

And that is the level of Israel as a unity.

ויקרא טז(יז) וכל־אדם לא־יהיה באהל מועד בבאו לכפר בקדש עד־צאתו כו‘.

“No man shall be in the ohel moed, when he comes in... until he leaves...” (Vayikra 16(17))

When the kohen gadol went into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur in the Tent of Meeting, representing all of Israel - that meeting can only be one on one^[1].

The gemara in Kesubos 103a discusses R’ Yehudah Hanasi’s death. He commanded that every Shabbos afterwards they should set up for him a table and menorah. Chazal say he was a man who merited “two tables”, wisdom and wealth together. Perhaps I’d suggest that the Mishnah and the תורה שבע"פ could only have been compiled by such a man, who encompassed the entire Torah, both sides of the world. The Torah is really one, the oral Torah must be one as well.

(Chazal also say this about Rav Ashi, who compiled the Talmud.)

Kapores, above and below

שמות כה(יח) ועשית שנים כרבים זהב מקשה תעשה אתם משני קצות הכפרת.

(כא) ונתת את־הכפרת על־הארן מלמעלה ואל־הארן תתן את־העדת אשר אתן אליך. (כב) ונועדתי לך שם ודברתי אתך מעל הכפרת מבין שני הכרבים אשר על־ארון העדת כו‘

“You shall make two keruvim, beaten gold, from the two ends of the kapores. Put the kapores on the aron, and into the aron put the [tablets of] testimony that I shall give you. I shall meet with you there, and speak with you from above the kapores, between the two keruvim that are on the ark of testimony...” (Shmos 25(18))

The kapores had two functions, one above and one below. It was the base of the keruvim above, and the word of G-d came from between them. And it was the cover for the ark below, containing the Torah and the luchos.

סוכה דף ה• ז“ל שמעולם לא ירדה שכינה למטה כו' למעלה מי"ט, ולא עלו משה ואליהו למרום כו‘ למטה מי"ט עכ"ל

The shechina never came down below ten tefachim (handbreadths), and Moshe Rabbeinu and Eliyahu never went up above ten tefachim... (Sukkah 5a)

Hashem has his realm, and we have ours.

The gemara there discusses the kapores, mentioning that it was right at this boundary between above and below, reaching just up to ten tefachim. Think of two views of the aron hakodesh, an earthly one below and a heavenly one above - with the kapores serving in both views.

שחרית של שבת: "ישמח משה במתנת חלקו, כי עבד נאמן קראת לו. כליל תפארת בראשו נתת, בעמדו לפניך על הר סיני. ושני לוחות אבנים הוריד בידו, וכתוב בהם שמירת שבת, וכן כתוב בתורתך. ושמרו בני ישראל את השבת, לעשות את השבת לדרתם ברית עולם... אות היא לעלם כו' "

“Moshe may well rejoice in the gift of his portion; for he was called a faithful servant. You put a crown of glory on his head, as he stood before you on Har Sinai. The two tablets he brought down in his hand, and it was written on them shemiras Shabbos. And so too was written in the Torah - “Israel shall keep the Shabbos, making the Shabbos a covenant forever for all generations; between me and Israel it is a sign forever...” (Shacharis for Shabbos)

“He was called a faithful servant” - as it says במדבר יב(ז) לא־כן עבדי משה בכל־ביתי נאמן הוא - “In all my house he is trusted.” (Bamidbar 12(7)) In all my house: he is trusted to go anywhere, even the treasure room (Ibn Ezra). As Chazal say, Hashem had Shabbos, his most precious treasure, and entrusted Moshe to take it and bring it to us.

“And two luchos he brought down in his hand, and was written on them shemiras Shabbos”. Luchos habris, tablets of the covenant, the sign of the covenant between us - and Shabbos is on them, a critical part of that covenant.

“And so too is written in the Torah... to make the Shabbos a covenant forever... it is a sign forever... - not just that Shabbos is written in the Torah, but that it is described again as a fundamental part of the covenant.

We have gone through the prayer, and seen that each part describes how Moshe brought us Shabbos, and how that is central to the bris between us and Hashem.

But what about this phrase in the middle? “You put a crown of glory on his head...” Beautiful, but what does it have to do with the theme of the prayer?

Rambam, Hilchos Teshuva Ch. 8: “When Chazal say that in Olom Haba, tzaddikim sit with their crowns on their heads, it doesn’t mean physical crowns. It means the da’as and connection with Hashem that they achieved in their lives - they enjoy that in the next world. Those are their crowns.”

Perhaps we can say the same for Moshe Rabbeinu. The crown was the connection he had achieved, the bris he had been given; he was to be the shaliach of Hashem to bring it to Israel.

But that bris itself has two aspects, as I described earlier, seen from above and seen from below. Thus: A crown of glory on his head, as he stood before you on Har Sinai. And the two tablets he brought down in his hand.

In the aron hakodesh too: Two tablets below - and a זר זהב סביב - a golden crown of glory reaching up. As R’ Shimson Raphael Hirsch explains, זר means נזר, crown; it reaches up, indicates the connection of a man above. And in the other direction the luchos, that indicate the connection of Hashem with us below.

[1] Note that in the gemara Yoma 43b, it brings this same law even for the ketores incense of the whole year. But I have written elsewhere that there is a hint to this level in the mitzvah of ketores every day. The mizbeach for the ketores stood in the middle of the mishkan, midway between the north and the south. And here’s how the Torah describes its position: שמות ל(ו) ונתתה אתו לפני הפרכת אשר על־ארן העדת לפני הכפרת אשר על־העדת אשר אועד לך שמה - “You shall place it before the paroches curtain, that is by the aron of testimony, before the kapores that is on the testimony, that I meet with you there.” A very long and detailed description! It sounds as if the kohen is also there standing directly before Hashem - from the outside.