In the Torah reading this week, the record of the design of the Mishkan contained in the two preceding parshiot is divided from the account of its construction by the incident of the Golden Calf and its fallout. This isn’t only a clever narrative tool; it speaks to the tension between the ideal and the real. This year, in the city of Yerushalayim, Purim is celebrated on Shabbat. This joyous holiday, one of the only ones that will be celebrated after the Third Beit Hamikdash is constructed (according to the Midrash on Mishlei), is also a testament to the distance dividing intention from outcome. Indeed, our Sages taught (Chullin 139b) that an allusion to Haman is found in the Chumash when Hashem chides Adam for eating from the forbidden tree – “Hamin [in Hebrew, written the same as Haman] ha’etz asher tziviticha achalt?” (Bereishit 3:11). To paraphrase the infamous antisemite T.S. Eliot, between the idea and the reality falls the Golden Calf.
In recent weeks we have seen how Ramchal focuses on the ideal form of the Mikdash in his text, Mishkenei Elyon, often mapping it onto the physical structure in our world. We have looked at how the archetype was manifested in the design of the Mishkan, and how the vessels of the Mishkan might be understood as assemblages of Divine light, in the framing of Ramchal.
Our very notable parsha covers a lot of material, chiefly concerned with the end of the revelation on Sinai (and the unpleasantness that ensued below the mountain, as already noted). In the aftermath of this ordeal, Moshe seems to struggle with his understanding of the omnipotence of Hashem and the instantiation of His will in the affairs of men. He is disappointed in the spiritual failure of Israel, and by extension he seems frustrated with Hashem’s plan for them and his own role as the executor of this plan. “Show me please your honor,” (Shemot 33:18), he beseeches Hashem, but he is informed that this simply is not possible for a mortal living man such as he. But here again, literally in the cleft of two rocks (a motif also borrowed by T.S. Eliot in a different poem), Hashem vouchsafes Moshe a fleeting glimpse of His glory that is normally only available at the end of history when the Divine plan becomes apparent and Hashem’s mastery can be perceived by all who witness it.
At the end of Mishkenei Elyon, Ramchal describes the manner in which the effluence of Divine benevolence flows into our world through the geography of the Temple Mount. Just as light is a recurring motif and metaphor for this description, the theme of water is also pervasive. This also has a parallel in the beginning of our parsha, as we learn of the kiyor, the special vessel used by the kohanim to purify themselves with collected water. It’s interesting that this seems entirely out of order and detached from the descriptions of the rest of the vessels. We find it here between the design and the execution. Ramchal explains that all of the Divine light comes into our universe in the form of letters, the letters join to form words – Names of G-d, in his telling here – and these create the possibility of life as they demarcate our material world. Just as the Temple Mount is divided into concentric precincts of elevated sanctity, there are levels of consciousness in sentient beings that draw one closer to knowledge of the Divine. There is a designated path that one must follow through stages of revelation, and the physical layout of the Mikdash leads one, quite literally, along this path.
In the Mishkan, although it had to be carried through the wilderness by the levi’im, the same basic pattern remains in the “Camp of Levi” that was at the center of the encampment. The courtyard of the Mishkan is set apart from this camp-within-a-camp, as the outer wall of the Beit Hamikdash distinguishes it from the general area of the Temple Mount. The tent itself, the Ohel Mo’ed, demarcates another boundary, another point of transition between this general sanctity that is perceptible to all in the outer courtyard and the special status reserved for an elect and purified few inside the enclosed structure. It is also worthy of note that the most important passages between barriers in the Beit Hamikdash are marked by staircases, as the Ramchal points out; but in the midbar, in the Mishkan, we find curtains and screens.
Moshe encounters the presence of Hashem through his prayer and is gifted the four-letter Name that Ramchal associates explicitly with the architecture of the Mikdash. Aharon serves Him in his capacity of Kohen Gadol and officiant of the sacrificial service, and he too has a path into the innermost chamber where the Divine Intellect resides in the form of the tablets Moshe broke in our parsha, resting inside the Aron that Betzalel formed in an approximation of the image Moshe beheld on the mountain.
