His Job Is To Shed Light, And Not To Master (Jerry Garcia & Robert Hunter - "Lady With The Fan")

Last Friday night after dinner was finished, the table was cleared and Birkat HaMazon was recited, we adjourned to the family room. A fire that had been lit just prior to Shabbat, burned warmly. My wife lying on one sofa with a magazine and I sat on the other sofa studying. Our kids sat by the fire and took out our son’s Leggo set. This was  not the big Leggos but the small sized Leggo set that comes with an instruction guide for building all types of objects: garages, airplanes, cars, and homes to name a few. I was amazed that all three kids concentrated intently on  working together to build this stuff. At one point our son asked me if I ever used Leggos as a kid. “I was not a Leggo type of kid – I did not have the patience nor did I particularly enjoy building things”. All three children exclaimed that I had no idea what I was missing. I smiled and said “my idea of Leggos would be to pull the Leggos out of the box already built into those amazing designs!”

This week’s Parshah is Terumah. Terumah means “a portion”. In the context of this week’s Parsha, the portion in question is the portion of wealth that B’nai Yisroel would dedicate to the construction of the  Aron, the ark that would hold the Luchot Habrit (the stone tablets upon which the Ten Commandments were written), the lamp, the table, and the material for the Ohel Moed (the tent of the meeting). All of which comprised the Mishkan or the Tabernacle. If you are in construction, interior design, or architecture, the details in Parsha Terumah are fascinating. If you’re not in any of those occupations then all the details might seem, shall we say, a bit dry. Whether a fan or not, whether an architect or not, there are certain objects, the construction of which is nothing less than miraculous and perhaps more allegorical than literal in meaning.

Perhaps the most surreal and “miraculous” sets of instructions concern the Menorah, the Lamp that stood outside the Holy of Holies and next to the Table. For three psukim (Ex. 25:31-34), the Torah tells us the Menorah, the Candlestick, is to be made of pure gold that is a “beaten work”. This means that the candelabrum is made from one huge hunk of gold as oppose to separate parts that become attached or fused together. Emanating from the base is the main shaft with three branches on either side, decorated with cups, knops and flowers. The cups should be in the shape of almond blossoms and almond flowers from an almond tree.  According to commentary, the Menorah would ultimately stand about 18 handbreadths, roughly the same height of a medium sized man. For the first time in the Torah, there is a distinct line of thought that believes that these verses should not be taken literally but rather allegorically. The 15^th century Portuguese commentator Abarvanel explains the table, the Menorah and the altar of incense: Though a man worships God without thought of reward, he will not begrudge him the reward for his actions. There are two types of reward: material –wealth and honor corresponding to the table and showbread and the reward of wisdom and attaining greater spiritual heights.  The Menorah symbolizes this. The lamp of the Lord is the soul of man. The seven branches symbolize the seven degrees of wisdom to be found in the Divine law. All six branches turn inwards toward the middle one, towards the Holy of Holies. This symbolizes that true wisdom must harmonize with the fundamentals of Torah, housed in the ark. The candlestick was made of pure gold implying that wisdom must not be tainted by alien ideas…It was “beaten work” out of one piece, symbolizing that all the various types of sciences have one common source.

Mankind’s intellect is a gift from the “one true source”, God. As such, there are limits to our knowledge. Perhaps in some disciplines we have not yet reached those limits, but ultimately there is a limit whether it is our own mortality, the frailty of the human condition, or the man made threats to human existence including weapons of mass destruction religious fundamentalism, terrorism and dictators. Yet, despite these limitations, Abarvanel reminds us that the text uses terms like HaGeD (tell) or “HoDAh (make known) rather than HaReH “show”. “Telling” and “making known” or informing; the transmission of knowledge is substantially different then showing the next generation how to make the item. Wisdom and knowledge, or the inner meaning of things; is transmitted through teaching and learning. The superficial is transmitted through the instruction manual. Make no  mistake, there is a value in the superficial instruction manual is valuable. It allows my kids to sit quietly and built beautiful Leggo objects. But in a few days they will have no emotional attachment to their Leggo construction. Instead they will pull it apart and build something else. Where our children learn the deeper symbolic meaning of moments, of experiences and objects –they carry that meaning with them all their lives.

Peace,

Rav Yitz