“V’yikchu li terumah – let them take for Me a portion” (Shemos 25:2)
Why does G-d need our contribution? After all the whole world and all of its human possessions belong to G-d: “All the world is mine” (Shemos 19:5, Vayikra 25:23).
But by giving G-d a portion of what we have, we earn the right to enjoy the remainder we keep for ourselves and thereby we elevate its status. That is why the portion we give to G-d is called “terumah,” which comes from the word leharim, to lift up.
The concept of terumah is similar to the concept of the beracha we make before eating and drinking. We are told (Berachos 25a) that one who derives benefit from this world without first reciting a beracha has misappropriated the sacred and turned it into something secular, because the whole world belongs to G-d, “La’Hashem ha’aretz u’meloah” (Tehillim 24:1). On the other hand we are told “V’haaretz nasan livnei adam” (Tehillim 115:16), the earth belongs to man. There is no contradiction. The first verse applies before we make a blessing; the second verse applies after we make the blessing (Berachos 35a). When we acknowledge the source of our possessions, either by making a beracha or by donating some of them for a holy purpose, we elevate them from the secular and sanctify what we keep.
But all of that would have been clear from the words V’yikchu terumah. Why does G-d throw in the word li – for Me?
We know that the purpose of the Mishkan was for G-d to reside among us, “V’asu li Mikdash, v’shachanti b’socham” (25:8). We know too that it was G-d, not us, who asked for the Mishkan to be built, like a parent who asks for a small room to be built in his adult, married child’s home (Medrash Rabbah, Shemos 23:1). But why is it that this request came from G-d and not from us? Why did we not take the initiative to build the Mishkan and invite G-d to stay with us?
The answer is that as long as the Jews were in the desert experiencing the proximity of G-d, nestling in His clouds of protection, drinking water from Miriam’s wells, eating mannah from heaven, wearing clothes that never wore out and witnessing His spectacular appearance at Sinai, they did not need a Mishkan to remind them of His presence. He was right there.
The only reason to build a Mishkan was because G-d asked for it. That is what V’yikchu li means. As Rashi says, it means l’shmi, build it for My sake. It was something that the Jews at that time received no added value from. They did it only because G-d had asked for it. The greatest mitzvah one can do is the one which is done for purely altruistic reasons (“Shelo al menas lekabel peras”). Such a mitzvah achieves a much greater degree of sanctity than one which bestows some personal benefit. Out of such a mitzvah a Mikdash can be built, not just a Mishkan.
But soon the Jews forgot about all the miracles they had witnessed. Or perhaps they got so used to them that they took them for granted. They slipped back into their previous mode of idol worship and built themselves a golden calf. It was only then that they realized that they too needed a house for G-d to live among them. They needed something concrete to remind them of His presence so that they would not fall off the wagon again. So this time it was the Jews who initiated the request, not G-d. They needed to witness the ten miracles that took place regularly in the Mikdash. They needed a house of G-d to visit rather than a memory to recall. And in Vayakhel, G-d accepted their offer and said, “Kechu m’itychem terumah la’Hashem – take their donation” (Shemos 35:5).
That is why the parshiot of Veyakhel/Pekudei repeat all the details of the building of the Mishkan that are already written in Terumah and Tezaveh. In Terumah and Tezaveh, before the sin of the golden calf, the Jews were building the house because G-d needed it. In Vayakhel and Pekudei, after the sin of the golden calf, they were building the same house because they needed it.
The first and most important item brought into the Mishkan was the aron, because that was the precise location where G-d would reside, between the wings of the two Cherubim on top of the ark. The ark symbolized the human being which is the vessel that houses the Torah. The Torah was not given to angels, but to fallible human beings (Berachos 25b). That is why the aron was not made solely of gold, but of wood plated with gold on the inside and the outside.
Gold is entirely pure and immutable, like the angels. Wood swells and shrinks and it rots and dies like the human being. We cannot change our basic human nature, but we can refine it with gold, with the purity of the Torah. “Cover it with a layer of pure gold on the inside and the outside” (25:11). The Torah first has to be internalized and only then will it shine on the outside. If the Torah is only worn on the outside and is not given the opportunity to generate the inner serenity that comes from studying it, its luster will soon fade like a painted smile.
“Place the cover on top of the ark after you place the Testimonial tablets inside…” (25:21). The human being is complete only once the Torah is placed inside of him. Without it, he is just an empty box. Neither should any other culture be cultivated in the person before the Torah. That is why we are told that as soon as a child can talk, he is to be taught the Aleph-Beth and how to read basic sentences of the Torah like “Torah tzivah lanu Moshe” and “Shema Yisrael….”
“The poles must remain in the Ark’s rings and not be removed” (25:15). Although the Torah tells us (25:14) that the purpose of the poles was to carry the aron when it was on the move, we are nevertheless instructed not to remove the poles even when the aron is at rest. Indeed, when the aron reached its ultimate destination in the Beit HaMikdash and never needed to travel again, the poles still remained in the rings. In fact, the poles pierced through the door of the Holy of Holies in the Temple and created in the curtain covering the door the shape of protruding female breasts (Yoma 54a).
The message here is that the poles served a double purpose. They were there to facilitate the carrying of the aron as it traveled with the Israelites on their journeys (see Bamidar 10:35). But unlike the poles of the shulchan, which were removed when at rest, the poles of the aron were never removed. The Torah is not to be imprisoned in the synagogue or even in the Holy of Holies. It is part and parcel of our existence and we carry it with us wherever we go, even long after the Temple has been destroyed. Like mother’s milk, it nourishes us from the get go and we cannot survive without it.
“Place inside the Ark the Eidus that I will give you,” (25:21). What exactly were the Eidus that were put inside the aron? Were they the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments? Or was the whole Sefer Torah with its 613 mitzvos deposited in the aron? According to Rabbi Yehuda, it was only the two tablets that were placed in the aron and the Sefer Torah was placed on a chest next to it. According to Rabbi Meir the two tablets were placed in the aron together with the whole Sefer Torah (Bava Basra 14a). Rashi seems to take the position of Rabbi Meir and says that the Torah with all of the mitzvos written in it were placed in the aron (Rashi to 25:16).
In any event, all agree that at least the two tablets were placed in the aron.
The two tablets were living testimony that the Torah is divine because all could see that the letter samech and the letter mem–sofi, which were cut out of the stone, remained suspended in the air without dropping out (Shabbos 104a, Rashi to Shemos 32:15).
But once the Temple was destroyed, the luchos were no longer visible and could no longer serve as a proof that the Torah is divine. What serves as Eidus today that the Torah is divine is the Torah itself. Not just the written Torah, but mainly the Oral Torah.
Our Sages realized that the light of the ten miracles so ever present in the first Temple became less visible in the second Temple and then disappeared from plain sight altogether after the destruction of the second temple. So they had to rediscover that light in the words of the Torah itself. With the aid of debate and keen discussion and utilizing the 13 principles with which the Torah is expounded, they began to dissect and analyze the words of the Torah in great detail until the light of Sinai shone through in all its brilliance, meitzitz min ha’charakim (Shir Hashirim 2:9).
This is the task of the great poskim of each generation. Old answers have to be found for new questions. The answers are there, in the aron of each of them already from the time of Sinai. But the poskim have to drill down deep to find them.
We are often told in the Talmud that a halacha was not known “ad she’ba Rabbi Akiva v’limeid,” until Rabbi Akiva came and taught it (Nedarim 66a). Rabbi Akiva was not teaching anything new. What he taught had always been there from the time of Sinai. It was just hidden in the aron, until Rabbi Akiva, like all the renowned poskim after him, up till this very day, used their diligence, wisdom and fear of G-d to rediscover the halacha and apply it to the contemporary issues of their time.
