Parshath Pëqudei (Exodus XXXVIII,21-XL,38) 3/4/11

A.

אלה פקודי המשכן משכן העדת אשר פקד על פי משה עבדת הלוים על יד איתמר בן אהרן בכהן: (“These are the accounts of the Mishkan, the Mishkan of testimony; it was drawn up according to Moshe, the work of the Lëviyyim under the supervision of Ithamar ben Aharon ha-Kohén”). So begins our parasha.

Yet another iteration of the work done on the Mishkan and its accoutrements, this one detailing the precise amounts of materials collected, allocated, and disbursed. As the lack of a vav ha-hibbur clearly tells us, it is not a continuation of last week’s parasha, and indeed the midrash asserts that Moshe had these accounts drawn up in order to dispel any notion that he had in any way profited from the rich and generous donations which resulted in the Mishkan (מדרש תנחומא ישן, פקודי סי' ד').

That said, our attention is drawn to the odd repetition in the introductory sentence of ha-Mishkan, Mishkan; surely there was only one Mishkan, such that it should not have been necessary to specify that it was the “Mishkan of testimony.” What was Moshe trying to tell us with the arresting repetition of the word?

B.

The Talmud records the following insight: הכי א"ר יוחנן אמר הקב"ה לא אבוא בירושלים של מעלה עד שאבוא לירושלים של מטה ומי איכא ירושלים למעלה? אין דכתיב "ירושלים הבנוי' כעיר שחוברה לה יחדיו" (“Thus said Rabbi Yohanan, 'Said the Holy One, Blessed is He, "I will not come into the supernal Jerusalem until I have come into the Jerusalem below."'' And is there indeed a supernal Jerusalem? Yes, for it is written, ‘Jerusalem, built like a city which has been connected together’ [Psalms CXXII, 3]”; תענית ה.), and Rashi explicates: ירושלים שלמטה תהא בנוי' כעיר שחוברה לה שהיא כיוצא בה חבירתה ודוגמתה מכלל דאיכא ירושלים אחריתי והיכן אם לא מעלה (“Jerusalem here below will be built like a city which has been connected, so that one is the same as the other, its twin and its model, since there is another Jerusalem, and where would it be if not Above?”). In other words, every aspect of the Holy City (indeed, of our physical world) is rooted in the infinite, metaphysical realm which surrounds and contains the physical cosmos. Hence, the Mishkan, which G-d described to Moshe as a מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם (“a sanctuary – miqdash – such that I shall dwell [vë-shachanti] amongst [Israel]”; XXV,8) is that “dwelling place.” The Divine Presence, resident amongst Israel in this world, is thus termed the Shëchina.

It follows logically that the word Mishkan is commonly considered to be derived from the root shin-kaf-nun. The root itself is a prefixed derivative of the primal root kaf-vav-nun, which has the general meaning of “established, firm, certain, ready to hand.” The radical prefix shin imparts a sort of causative, inchoative, or inceptive flavor to the primal meaning, as is evident from its use in creating principally quadriconsonantal roots as secondary derivatives of triconsonantal ones, for instance: shichna‘, “persuade, convince”, from kaf-nun-‘ayin meaning “give in, give up”; shihrér, “liberate,” from the root of the word héruth, “freedom”; shihzér, “restore, reconstruct,” from hazar, “return, come back”; and so on. We may thus infer that the metaphysical “dwelling” of the Shëchina in the Mishkan here below is intended to solidify, establish more firmly, and ensure the continual existence and replenishment of our ephemeral, entropy-ridden cosmos.

Interestingly, Rabbénu Bëchayé approaches this same idea in a comment on our verse from a different angle, taking advantage of what I have previously called the “creative ambiguity” inherent in the Holy Language: למה שני פעמים משכן, אלא ללמד שהיכל של מטה מגוון כנגד היכל של מעלה שנאמר "מכון לשבתך פעלת ד' וגו'" אל תקרי "מכון" אלא "מכוון" כו' בית המקדש של מטה מושך כח ממקדש של מעלה וגו' (“Why [does the verse read] Mishkan twice? To teach that the Temple here Below is directed toward the Supernal Temple, as it is said, ‘An establishment [mëchon] for Your seat have You effected, Ha-Shem’ [Exodus XV, 17]; read not mëchon but ‘directed’ [mëchuvvan]... The lower Béyth ha-Miqdash draws down [moshéch] power from the supernal Miqdash....”). Rabbénu Bëchayé thus appears to relate the word mishkan to the root mem-shin-kaf, which connotes “draw out or down,” emphasizing its role in stabilizing the universe and replenishing its “stuff” used up in the processes of entropy.

All well and good, so long as there is a Mishkan or Béyth ha-Miqdash in the world; but neither is standing today. Does this not suggest that the Divine dispensation has been changed, that perhaps Israel is no longer the ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש, the “kingdom of kohanim and holy nation” (Exodus XIX, 6) which they once were, that the mantle has been inherited by some successor?

C.

Halila vë-has! The midrash records another insight into the doublet in our verse: מהו משכן שני פעמים? אמר ר' שמואל בר מרתה שנתמשכן שני פעמים על ידיהם וזהו שאנשי כנה"ג אומרים "חבול חבלנו לך ולא שמרנו את המצות ואת החקים ואת המשפטים". מהו "חבול חבלנו לך" הוי שנתמשכן ב' פעמים ואין חבול אלא משכן שנא' "לא יחבול ריחים ורכב" וגו' (“Why [does it state] Mishkan twice? Said Rabbi Shëmu’él bar Marta, 'Because it was mortgaged [nithmashkén] by them,' and this is what the Anshei Këneseth ha-Gëdola say, ‘Taking collateral, we took collateral for You [havol havalnu lach], and we did not keep the mitzvoth, the laws and the judgments’ [Nehemiah I, 7], such that it was mortgaged twice; and havol refers to a mortgage, for it is said, 'One should not take as collateral the mill or upper stone.... [Deuteronomy XXIV, 6]....”; שמות רבה פנ"א סי' ג' וע"ע מדרש תנחומא פקודי סוף סי' ה' אותו המאמר בלשון קצת שונה וגם פירוש עץ יוסף שם על אתר).

Rabbi Shëmu’él bar Marta thus sees in the repetition an allusion to the Mishkan’s successor, the Béyth ha-Miqdash which King Shëlomo would one day build in Jerusalem, which would eventually be destroyed, the built again by the shavei Tziyyon under Zërubbavél ben Shë’alti’él, in the days of ‘Ezra and Nëhemya.

The Mattënath Këhunna explains what Rabbi Shëmu’él bar Marta means by “mortgage” or “collateral”: חרב שני פעמים ע"י עון ישראל כו' (“It was destroyed twice because of the iniquity of Israel...”). The word havol has destructive connotations (the modern Hebrew word for “sabotage” is derived from the root), as well as conveying the sense of a mortgage, collateral, a surety bond. The Béyth ha-Miqdash, with all its sublime purpose in serving as the portal and conduit for the flow of abundance into this world from the next, also served, as it were, as a fuse-box: When there was (as the Talmud tells us was the case in both instances; יומא ט:) a “surge” of iniquity, the fuse blew, to protect the integrity of the circuit as a whole.

Rabbénu Bëhayé, continuing his comment, takes note of the midrash, and goes on: ואם תשכיל במלת "המשכן משכן העדת"תמצא בהם רמז למספר השנים שעמד בית ראשון ובית שני וכן מיציאת מצרים עד שבנה שלמה את ה בית וגו' (“And if you penetrate the secret of the words ha-Mishkan, Mishkan ha-‘éduth, you will find in them allusion to the number of years the First Temple, and the Second Temple stood, and also from the Exodus until Shëlomo built the Temple....”).

The allusion is as follows: the gimatriya or numerical value of Mishkan is 410; the first Béyth ha-Miqdash would stand for 410 years until it was destroyed by the Babylonians under Nëvuchadnetzar. The word ha-Mishkan, comes to 415; with the addition of an extra five for the total number of letters in the word, it is 420. The second Béyth ha-Miqdash would survive 420 years, until razed by the Romans. Finally, the word ha-‘éduth, “the testimony,” is spelt anomalously without the usual vav; its gimatriya is 479; a total of 479 years would elapse from the first erection of the Mishkan until Shëlomo would dedicate the Béyth ha-Miqdash in Jerusalem, 480 years after the Exodus (cf. I Kings VI, 1; ע"ע בעל הטורים שגם הוא כתב כעין זה).
וכל אלו החשבומות ראה אותם משה ברוח הקדש וגו' (“And all of these calculations were observed by Moshe through the power of ruah ha-qodesh...”, a level of prophecy. Our verse is thus ‘éduth indeed that all of Israel’s history was laid out before them from the beginning, both the triumphal erection of the Béyth ha-Miqdash and its sad downfall. Whilst the proximate cause in each case of the destruction was the accumulated sinfulness of the respective generations, when G-d took out his rage on its stones and mortar. The very fact that it was so laid out in the beginning tells us that the prophets and rabbinical authorities of the respective times were well aware of heir limitations, the temporary nature of the first two structures.

D.

What is not specifically captured in the words of our verse is the length of the Babylonian exile, the hiatus between the two Battei Miqdash (seventy years), nor, indeed, the length of our present exile, before we shall see the permanent erection of the Bayith Shëlishi. For the precise length of such interludes is up to us.

The Torah predicts that it will be (as it has been) a long exile, filled with many twists and turns, a people decimated, a land abandoned and desolate: והארץ תעזב מהם ותרץ את שבתתי' בהשמה מהם והם ירצו את עונם יען וביען במשפטי מאסו ואת חקתי געלה נפשם: ואף גם זאת בהיותם בארץ איביהם לא מאסתים ולא געלתים לכלתם להפר בריתי אתם כי אני ד' אלקיכם: וזכרתי להם ברית ראשנים אשר הצאתי אתם מארץ מצרים לעיני הגוים להיות להם לאלקים אני ד': (“And the land will be abandoned by them, and will fulfill its Sabbaths in desolation of them, and they will repay their iniquity, because they despised My judgments, and their soul was revolted by My laws. And yet even so, whilst they are in the land of their enemies, I shall neither despise them nor abhor them to wipe them out, to overturn My covenant with them, for I am Ha-Shem their G-d. And I shall remember to them the covenant of the ancients, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations to become their G-d; I am Ha-Shem”; Leviticus XXVI, 43-45).

However dark things may appear, we must remember that the integrity of the circuit was indeed preserved; in the absence of the Béyth ha-Miqdash, the morning service of Qorbanoth stands in place of the sacrifices (cf. תענית כ"ז:, and especially also Hoshéa‘ XIV, 3, wherein the prophet plainly alludes to prayer in place of sacrifice, when necessary), and so faithful Israel must and will persevere. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, for Moshe and the Sages of Israel knew what was coming, recording it and preserving its secret so that every succeeding generation, even ours, can take heart....

Parshath Pequdei (Exodus XXXVIII,21-XL,38) 3/7/08

A.

אלה פקודי המשכן משכן העדת אשר פאד על פי צשה וג' (“These are the accounts of the Mishkan, the Mishkan of testimony which were made on Moshe’s order....”).

So begins our parasha.

The repetition of the words ha-Mishkan, Mishkan ha-êduth is striking, and apparently unnecessary: To any human editor, it would appear perfectly reasonable to delete the first word, so that the phrase would read: “These are the accounts of the Mishkan of testimony” without any significant change in meaning.

So why does the verse not read that way? What is the Torah trying to tell us?

B.

To begin seeking an answer, we first ask the question: What, precisely, does the word Mishkan mean?

The definition is a bit slippery, due to that quality of the Holy Language which the linguists term its triconsonantalism, that is, the fact that nearly every native word is based ultimately upon a root of three consonants. It will be noted that Mishkan has four and, as anybody with a חוש חי לשפה העברית (“a living sense of the Hebrew language,” as one of my teachers was wont to say) knows, the letter mem could either be part of a root, or a common nominal preformative such as we find in such other nouns as mizbéach “altar,” mitbach, “kitchen,” or mishpat, “judgment,” and likewise the letter nun could be a common nominal suffix, as in korban, “sacrifice,” or shulchan, “table.” These facts leave scope for what I have termed the Torah’s creative ambiguity, the likelihood that multiple derivations and meanings can be attributed simultaneously to particular words.

Let us begin by assuming that the root is mem-shin-kaf (chaf); where does this get us?

The Talmud asks: ומי איכא ירושלים למעלה? אין, דכתיב ירושלם הבנוי' כעיר שחברה לה יחדיו (“Is there in fact a Jerusalem Above? Yes, as it is written: ‘Jerusalem which is built like a city which has been twinned together’ [Psalms CXXII, 3];” תענית ה.). As Rashi ad loc. notes, King David’s use of the word chubbra indicates that the city has a chavéra, a “companion,” and since there is no other city on earth like it, that companion must be heavenly.

The heavenly, metaphysical Jerusalem corresponds in every respect to the physical city here below, to include, therefore, the Temple Mount, site of the Holy Temple, the most sacred spot on earth. Rabbeinu Bechayyei, commenting on our verse, notes this relationship between the heavenly Miqdash and the earthly one, and sees it reflected in the repetition in our verse: וגם יתכן שנבין מלת משכן מלשון המשכה לפי שהמשכן וכליו ציורים ודוגמא למקדש של מעלה כי בית המקדש של מטה מושך כח ממקדש של מעלה וכו' (“For it also makes sense that we may understand the word Mishkan from hamshacha [“drawing”], since the Mishkan and its vessels are representations of the Mikdash Above, for the Temple Below draws [moshéch] strength from the Temple Above....”).

The verb mashach signifies “to draw, attract;” the repetition of our word, understood as derived from its root, is that the Mishkan draws down sanctity and blessing into this world from its Heavenly counterpart, in the next world.

C.

And if we understand the mem to be a prefix, and the root to be shin-kaf (chaf)-nun, what then?

Rabbeinu Bechayei offers: וכן לשון משכן לשון שכינה וזהו שגתוב "לשכון כבוד בארצנו" (“And so Mishkan has the meaning Shchina [the Divine Presence or Residence], and this is what is written: ‘that glory/honor dwell in our land’ [Psalms LXXXV, 10]”). The Béyth ha-Miqdash is the Divine “residence," so to speak, the verb shachan signifying “to reside, dwell.” The Divine “residence” was built and then rebuilt; hence, we find the word Mishkan repeated; for two long periods in our history, Israel merited having the Divine Presence in their immediate midst.

But there is another word derived from the same root, mashkon: “pledge, collateral, mortgage,” and the midrash asks: למה "משכן משכן" שני פעמים? שנתמשכן על ידיהם, הוא שאנשי כנסת הגדולה אומרים "חבול חבלנו לך", הרי שנתמשכן שני פעמים (“Why [do we find] Mishkan, Mishkan, twice? For it was forfeit [as collateral] for [Israel] twice, as the Men of the Great Assembly say, ‘Corrupting we have been corrupt with You’ [Nehemia I, 7; note that the verb occurs twice]. Hence, [the Temple] was forfeit twice”; מדרש תנחומא פרשתנו ה'). The Êtz Yoséf adds that this is the reason why the first occurrence of the word has the definite prefix hé and the second does not, an indication of the five regular miracles which occurred in the first Béyth ha-Miqdash but not in the second (five is the gimatriya, the numerical value, of the letter hé).

But, as Rabbeinu Bechayei continues, that is not the only reason.

D.

As Rabbeinu Bechayei goes on to point out, the gimatriya of the four letters of Mishkan is 410, which equals the number of years the first Temple stood. Ha-Mishkan adds five to that number, and the word itself contains five letters, which altogether indicates the number of years that the second Temple stood, 420. The word ha-êduth (“the testimony”), spelt lacking the usual vav, is equal to 479, the number of years from the erection of the Mishkan to King Shlomo’s dedication of the first Temple (cf. I Kings VI, 1). V’chol elleh ha-cheshbonoth, concludes Rabbeinu Bechayei, ra’a otham Moshe b’ruach ha-qodesh (“and all of these calculations Moshe saw through prophecy”).

As our verse testifies: “These are the accountings of the Mishkan, Mishkan ha-êduth, which were made according to Moshe”).