A thought on Parshas Vayakhel

...kol n'div libo yivi'eha es terumas HaShem..."
"...each motivated donor should bring it, the offering for HaShem..." (35:5)

The Torah tells of the communal instruction to donate precious materials for constructing parts of the Mishkan. Gold, silver and copper, fabrics and colorings, fragrances and gemstones, were to be brought by all who had them, and these were gifts from the heart.

The curious wording here is the extra hae in the word yivi'eha. The Torah might have written yavi and the verse would have the identical message. Had it said, " each donor should bring the offering for HaShem", we would understand the instruction. Why does it say "bring it?" That extra letter (which is a full word pronoun in Hebrew) seems superfluous. What does it teach us, or worded more accurately, what does "it" teach us?

The Recanati offers this insight: The Torah asks for more than the donation of material. The Torah asks that we donate our very selves. It is not enough for you or I to give money or other belongings "for HaShem's sake." In building the holy Mishkan, the collective heart of the nation needed to be built into the structure. This Sacred Shrine was the worldly connection between the Upper Realm and the lower world. It was the place of convergence, into a dimension beyond tangible reality, between HaShem's people, and HaShem's Presence. It required more than our materials. We needed to put a precious part of our selves into it.

In donating things, the real donation was the heart and soul of a people united, Knesses Yisroel, in reaching out and upward and in every direction in a yearning gesture to connect with the Above. To the degree that mortal beings can transcend their narcissistic selves and forge a harmonious presence in search of the Highest Presence, they needed to let go of their riches and wealth as if to demonstrate that "all of this is secondary to us; what is real and primary is what happens when we ascend past all material things." That is when the Jewish people are ready to give up every thing, and give over their collective heart, as one.

This is the "it" of our verse. It is the motivated heart of the donor which must be brought forth in the process of giving away things. "It" refers to the collective heart of Knesses Yisroel. Our heart is given over and infused with HaShem through our immersed devotion to the Word of HaShem which we adhere to by living by His Torah. This is why, writes the Recanati, the Torah begins with the letter "bais" (in Bereishis) and closes with the letter "lamed" (in Yisroel, the final word in Devarim.) Those letters together spell lev which is the word for heart noted in our verse above. The fusing of self with Torah is the melding of the collective heart with the bridge between this world and Above. That connection is where the heart belongs. We must put ourselves into that connection in donating our selves.

This even helps us understand a verse in Psalms (Tehillim 147:20, familiar to us from morning davening) "the nations do not know His teachings" - which in Hebrew is "mishpatim bal yida'um" - which is those same two letters together in reverse order. The nations look at Torah as some nice ideas, and may fulfill its ideals at times because they seem moral and sensible. The get "it" backwards. The Jewish nation knows that the zenith of the bais and lamed is when it is formulated as lev, as the total fusion of Yisroel v'Oraisa v'Kudsha B'rich Hu - of the Am HaShem with Dvar HaShem l'maan HaShem.

While each of us can strive to give of our personal selves as we rush to fulfill the words of Torah, the Recanati teaches us that the goal is not that of martyrdom or sacrifice, but of fusion and converging with the entire Jewish nation in its quest to ascend. That is what it is all about.

Good Shabbos. D Fox

A thought on פשרת כי תשא

"...v'henei koran or panav va'yiru mi'gehes elav..." (34:30)
...and they saw that Moshe's face glowed, and were fearful of being close..."

Moshe Rabeinu glowed. His face shone with luminescence of a rare and transcendent form. When he would turn to his nation to teach the holy words of Torah given to him by HaShem, that light burst from within him so that people were afraid to go near.

The Recanati helps us grasp some of the metaphysical dynamics here. What was the nature of this light which beamed from Moshe Rabeinu?

Moshe acquired the words of HaShem in a transmission unlike that of other prophets. He was able to apprehend the Presence in a waking state, by day, and grasped the Word with a purity, a clarity, which needed no interpretation, no translation, no conversion of the abstract or the symbolic into more concrete or verbal forms. This is known by Chazal as ispaklaria ha'meira, "seeing through the polished glass."

The soul seeks union with that which is sacred. When one devotes himself to sensing that closeness with the Above, and when the soul clings to that quest, it transcends the physical self. It adopts something of the supernal and the numinous. All that we know about light in the physical world is but a metaphor for the light of creation. That higher light attracts the yearning soul, which in turn radiates with it's glow. This is the nature of the "light" which could be sensed emanating from within and around Moshe Rabbeinu.

What was the function of that radiant glow? Part of it was for the sake of the nation. We needed to know that the work of Moshe, the utter devotion of our "faithful shepherd", was unlike that of other leaders who may come and go. His higher plane of apprehending the Presence was made evident to us by way of the illumination which surrounded him as he served as a vehicle for transmitting Toras HaShem.

So, if the light was for our own sake, why did we fear to draw close?

The Recanati writes that it was our vivid recognition that the light came from Above which gave us pause. Grasping the reality that Moshe ascended to such heights that the highest light above remained with him was astounding and not something that we could entirely get used to experiencing. Knowing that the teachings of Moshe were the selfsame teachings of the One Above was powerful, and people were apprehensive about the meaning of such greatness, and the distance which separated each one from reaching that lofty place.

The Recanati adds that many great Torah teachers had the practice, after studying Torah in preparing their lessons, of turning away, sitting down, then covering their faces as they taught their students. They would signify that the experience of listening to words of Torah is like hearing Torah from Moshe Rabbeinu. The students around them would capture a trace of that same feeling, as they heard and looked towards their great teachers sharing and transmitting Dvar HaShem.

Many years ago, not long after obtaining my first ordination, I was invited as a visiting scholar to a number of communities. I remember giving the guest drasha in Beth Jacob, a large shul in Beverly Hills. As I approached the amud, I first faced the Aron Kodesh and kissed the paroches. As I turned to begin my drasha, the rabbi, Rav Maurice Lamm shlit'a came and draped a large talis over me, whispering "Kavod HaTorah, Kavod HaTzibur." I was still single, a yeshiva bachur, and not yet accustomed to wearing a talis!

As the years have gone by, particularly as I learned this Recanati, the depth of that custom has been illuminated for me. We are not prophets, and we are not Moshe Rabbeinu. Yet, when we learn, we are learning Toras Moshe, and Toras Moshe is Toras HaShem. When a person delivers, gives over, the words of Torah, his dvar Torah is in that sense Dvar HaShem. We aim to capture some of that sense by covering our heads, cloaked in a talis.
We are recreating an image of that first sacred transmission of Torah. Kavod HaTorah, Kavod HaTzibur. We must look the part. We must act the part. We are links in a sacred chain, and have a holy mission.

Good Shabbos. D Fox

A thought on פרשת תצוה

ונתת אל חושן המשפט את האורים ואת התומים

"...within the breastplate you shall place the Urim and Turim..." (28:30)

The Kohen Gadol, the High Priest serving in the Holiest of Places, wore a breastplate in which were set gemstones. This is well described in the Torah and was one culmination of the mitzvos which were given us in constructing garments and ornaments for the kohanim.

One of the curious points in our parsha is that the instruction about this Urim and that Tumim makes its first appearance here. Nowhere in the Torah's commandments about constructing the garments and ornaments was there mention of these items or objects. We were told to make a robe, a cloak, a belt, a breastplate, a turban...but there was no prior mention of making Urim v'Tumim. To add to our puzzle, they are given the ha prefix which makes them the Urim and the Tumim. That implies that we already know what they are! So what were they and what were they for?

Since we have not seen the Urim v'Tumim, we must go on what our tradition tells us. It is our mesora that the Urim v'Tumim lit up, or perhaps illuminated the letters which were engraved upon the breastplate. The sequence of lit letters, glowing beneath the various gemstones, or glowing because of the light shed by those sparkling gemstones, could be deciphered in giving a Divine message. This was their function. But what was their actual nature? What were the Urim v'Tumim?
As we probe deeper into the writings of our sages, beginning with the Gaonim and leading to our greatest Rishonim, we find that there are three prominent views about the nature of the Urim v'Tumim. Some hold that they were synonymous with the gemstones (which would explain why they are not mentioned in the commandment phase; they were mentioned but were termed gemstones.) When those gemstones lit up, they took on the Urim v'Tumim function.

Others hold that they were signs or images with mystical connotations. The Kohen Gadol would meditate and his inspiration would lead him to enlightenment in channeling or "divining" the Word of HaShem. Why there was no prior commandment about constructing these images or signs would remain hidden from us.

The Recanati takes the third view and illuminates the matter for us: the Urim v'Tumim were not made. They were not among the donations crafted by skilled artisans. They were not in fact things, or objects. They were sacred pronunciations of HaShem's names which were given to Moshe, who in turn disclosed their secret to Aharon, his brother, the first High Priest.

The Urim feature was that energy which enabled the Kohen Gadol to detect the letters within the breastplate writing which encoded the message from Above. The Tumim feature was that energy which empowered him to determine the correct sequence in which to place those letters and the words which they alluded to, in order to divine the correct message.

Urim refers to the inspiration or illumination of the kohen's clarity. Tumim refers to the completion of the task, which entailed the ordering of letters into words. Knowing the Divine Names and directing mindful, soulful focus in order to sense the Will of HaShem was one of the sacred tasks of the Kohen Gadol. His empowered, heightened sensitivity to the Above fell short of formal prophecy, yet exceeded that dynamic known as bas kol, which was a more diminished means of sensing a trace or echo of the messages from Above.

Since knowing the names was part of Moshe's unique kabbala, it was not known prior to this point. Moreover, it could not be given at the time of instructing the making of garments and ornaments, for it was neither a garment nor an ornament requiring construction. Thus, the Recanati's view fits well within the flow of the verse and the passage, and helps cast a bit of light on the vast reaches of our Sacred mesora.

Good Shabbos. D Fox

A thought on פרשת תרומה

"...v'nosata al ha'shulchan lechem...""...and on this table place the bread..." (25:30)

The Torah instructs us to place the lechem ha'panim on tubes and to leave it on the Temple table.

The Recanati writes that the function of having bread on the table was to show our recognition that on HaShem's "table," namely, the Temple table which was a symbol for the higher concept of a "table" Above from which HaShem's will showers His people with sustenance, there is never a shortage of Divine resources and shefa. We make this gesture of placing bread below in that consecrated spot, as a means of boosting our awareness that we must make an effort here to display our fervent quest for Heavenly care and shefa which comes to us from Above.

(We actually find this paralleled in halacha. In Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 180:1) we are given the rule that bread must be placed on the table at the time of bentching. Even though our meal is finished, we signify our recognition that all of our sustenance comes from HaShem, Who is there to sustain His people.)

The question which remains is "why the tubes?" Why was the bread placed in holders rather than put on the bare table? What is the symbolism or lesson to be learned from this?The Recanati writes that we must be aware that there are times when we are not aware. When we lose our sense of being connected to HaShem by forgetting our role below, when we fail to engage in serving Him and doing His will, our access to Divine sustenance is affected. He will still sustain us, but that blessing will be indirect. It will be manifest in obscure or hidden ways.

The bread will descend, but it gets to the table through conduits. Those tubes are symbols of those pathways and conduits which disguise the sense of Presence in the same manner in which our preoccupation with our selves has distracted us from an awareness of the Above.

In my home, as in my parents home, we keep the challa on the table when it is time to bentch, and we are among those who are also accustomed to cover the challa at that time, as well. This custom may well be traced to the insight of the Recanati here: by covering the bread, we signify our sober awareness that our sustenance is not necessarily readily available. There are times when the gift of sustenance is rapid and uncomplicated but there are times when our own errors and straying may impede the flow of shefa from Above. Like the tubes which enclosed some of the lechem ha'panim and left it hovering just above the shulchan, we cover our bread, encasing it in a way which partially conceals it, delaying our immediate access as we bless HaShem and ask Him to bless us in return by sending us "bracha meruba b'bayis ha'zeh v'al shulchan zeh sh'achalnu alav" - abundant blessing to this home and upon this table at which we have eaten.

Leaving you with yet another insight to implement this Shabbos at your se'udos. Good Shabbos. D Fox