~
Thoughts on the Parsha ~
Parshas Terumah
Halfway There, Outside In, and
Everywhere You Go
By: Daniel Listhaus
וְעָשׂוּ אֲרוֹן עֲצֵי שִׁטִּים
אַמָּתַיִם וָחֵצִי אָרְכּוֹ וְאַמָּה וָחֵצִי רָחְבּוֹ וְאַמָּה וָחֵצִי קֹמָתוֹ: וְצִפִּיתָ אֹתוֹ זָהָב טָהוֹר מִבַּיִת וּמִחוּץ תְּצַפֶּנּוּ
וְעָשִׂיתָ עָלָיו זֵר זָהָב סָבִיב: וְיָצַקְתָּ לּוֹ אַרְבַּע
טַבְּעֹת זָהָב וְנָתַתָּה עַל אַרְבַּע פַּעֲמֹתָיו וּשְׁתֵּי טַבָּעֹת עַל
צַלְעוֹ הָאֶחָת וּשְׁתֵּי טַבָּעֹת עַל צַלְעוֹ הַשֵּׁנִית:
וְעָשִׂיתָ
בַדֵּי עֲצֵי שִׁטִּים וְצִפִּיתָ אֹתָם זָהָב: וְהֵבֵאתָ אֶת
הַבַּדִּים בַּטַּבָּעֹת עַל צַלְעֹת הָאָרֹן לָשֵׂאת אֶת הָאָרֹן בָּהֶם:
בְּטַבְּעֹת
הָאָרֹן יִהְיוּ הַבַּדִּים לֹא יָסֻרוּ מִמֶּנּוּ
“They shall make an Aron
of shittim wood, two and a half amos its length; an amah and
a half its width; and an amah and a half its height. You shall cover it
with pure gold, from inside and from outside you shall cover it, and you shall
make on it a golden diadem all around. And you shall pour for it four rings of
gold and place them on its four corners, two rings on its one side and two
rings on its second side. You shall make staves of shittim wood and
cover them with gold; and insert the staves into the rings on the sides of the Aron,
with which to carry the Aron. The staves shall remain in the rings of
the Aron; they shall not be removed from it.
-Terumah 25:10-15
There is no question that the Aron was the center
point of the entire Mishkan and all its keilim (vessels); not in
terms of location, but in terms of focus. Placed in the Kodesh Ha’kedoshim (Holy
of Holies), and housing the luchos (tablets with the Ten Commandments),[1]
the Aron was the porthole connecting the Shechina to this world.
One who even quickly reads through the details of the Aron, will most
likely notice three interesting points. The first is its measurements. The
dimensions of the Aron were two and a half amos by one and a half
amos by one and a half amos.[2]
Interestingly, each of the three dimensions of the Aron, as well as its
lid, did not contain whole numbers but rather half-measurements. What is the
reason for this?
The second unique thing that stands out regarding the Aron
is its construction. The Aron itself was actually made of three separate
Arons: A gold one, a wooden one, and another gold one.[3]
The gold ones were on the outside and inside while the wooden one separated
them in between. No other keili was made in such an interesting way. What
was the reason for such a unique design? Why were three Arons necessary
to be placed within each other? And why was there a wooden Aron separating
the two main Arons? What does the pattern symbolize?
The third fascinating thing that stands out about the Aron
is the fact that Hashem commanded that the badim (poles) never be
removed from the Aron.[4]
In general one could split the mitzvos into two categories: ones within
our understanding which we could reason and accept easily as logical, and those
mitzvos which are beyond us but we are commanded to keep and trust
Hashem’s infinite wisdom. However, the commandments having to do with the
Aron’s poles elicit mixed feelings. On the one hand, having a set of
poles was necessary for the Aron as it was for every large keili in
the Mishkan. After all, the B’nei Yisroel travelled in the midbar
(desert) for forty years. The Mishkan had to be constructed with
flexibility for mobility. The keilim all had to be carried and therefore
all required poles. When B’nei Yisroel would travel and arrive at the
next destination, they would reconstruct the MIshkan and set up the keilim.
Setting up the keilim meant “unpacking” them from their poles and
setting them in their proper place in the mishkan. However, the Aron was
different. Hashem commanded that the poles must never leave the Aron. What
was different about the poles of the Aron from all the other keilim that
they were not allowed to be removed?
In order to approach these questions, we must first come
to the realization that each person is a microcosm of the Mishkan
itself. As the Kuzari explains, the various keilim of the mishkan
represent the different vitals of one's body. The Aron – the life
force of the mishkan and the world, is our heart which is needed to pump
life to our entire bodies. On another level, each of us as a whole represents
an Aron in the sense that we have Torah within us. That being said, perhaps
we could extract from the laws of the construction of the Aron three
guidelines which we must adhere to in order to build a proper relationship with
the Torah.
The
first lesson of the Aron is that no measurement is complete. As we know,
no matter how much a person learns it is but a drop in the sea of what there is
to learn. One could learn Torah from birth to death and will not come close to
covering all the information contained in the Torah. After all, it is
impossible to accomplish an infinite number of things in a finite amount of
time.
This
idea is reminiscent to what Zeno, an Ancient Greek philosopher best known for
his series of paradoxes, painted as a slightly different version of the
“tortoise and the hare” story to ponder. The paradox is as follows. Imagine
that a tortoise and a hare are about to have a one mile race. The hare allows
the tortoise a head start to be fair because the hare can run much faster than
the tortoise can even dream. However, immediately after letting the tortoise
go, the hare realizes that it is now impossible for him to overcome his
opponent. After all, in order to overcome the tortoise, it must first catch up
to the point that the tortoise is at. The problem is that every time the hare
catches up to where the tortoise was last, the tortoise will be more ahead.
Granted, the space between the tortoise and the hare will get smaller and
smaller between intervals, however they will never meet. It is impossible for
the hare to win!
Of
course, this is not really true and is nothing more than a fun paradox to discuss.
However, to use it as a stepping stone moshol (parable), the “race to
finish Torah” is even more unachievable. At least if you keep walking half way
to a door you will get closer and closer even though you will never reach it; when
it comes to Torah, however, the closer one gets the more depth one realizes
there is and the distance becomes farther, in a sense. Our job is to do as much
as we can based on what Hashem expects of us and what we should expect from
ourselves. Certainly we should feel good about our accomplishments, however,
feeling great about an accomplishment is very different from feeling satisfied
and finished. Happiness is good, but a feeling of completion or full
satisfaction is incorrect. Even when one finishes a mesechta (tractate) or
even a perek (chapter), the first thing we say is “hadran alach”
(we will return to you). This statement is one of realization that not only is
there more to learn in upcoming perakim and mesechtos, but even
in going back and learning the same exact piece over again there is another
layer to uncover which could only be done once having completed a first time. This
is the first lesson of the Aron. The measurement is never complete.
There is an infinite amount to accomplish in a finite amount of time. As the mishna[5]
says, “There is much work, so little time, the workers are lazy, and the
master is insistent.”
The Gemara[6]
quotes the passuk (verse) in our parsha which describes
that the Aron had to be made of wood with an outer and inner Aron around
it both made of gold. The Gemara says that we learn from here that that
any talmid chochum whose inside is not like his outside, is not
really a talmid chochum. As the Maharsha[7] explains,
a talmid chochom is compared to a tree, represented by the wood of the
middle Aron; and just like the Aron had a gold inner container
which matched its outer container, so too a real talmid chochom is one
who has an inner self as golden as his portrayed outer self.
The demand of a person to have a matching interior and
exterior goes beyond just a requirement of “practicing what one preaches”,
there could be a talmid chochom who not only teaches to keep the mitzvos
and gives off the appearance of a righteous person, but even does so
himself. However, even that is all still exterior.
The Orchos Tzaddikim[8]
writes that although Torah is the greatest thing on Earth, without the
proper vessel to contain it in, it is worthless, or even worse – detrimental.
Imagine you have delicious, expensive wine which you put into a rusty keg or a
barrel. No matter how fine the wine is, if poured into a rusty keg it will
change taste, and if poured into a barrel with holes – it will leak out. The same is true when it comes to the Torah.
If we learn Torah without first perfecting our middos (character traits),
or at least committing to do so, then the Torah we intake will be
mis-colored, off-taste, and will leak right out of the holes that form from the
imperfections of our middos. The real talmid chochom is one whose
inside – his middos – are pure as gold. This is the second lesson that
can be learned from the construction of the Aron. In order to be a
recipient of real Torah, the vessel must have an inside which is as pure and
golden as its’ outside.
The
third aspect about the Aron is the fact that although it had poles on
its side, the Aron had the unique associated commandment that its poles
must stay in even after the Mishkan is built at a given destination. If
we stop and think about this for a second it seems not only purposeless but
even improper and disrespectful. First, why did the poles have to remain in the
Aron if they were setting down? Why not remove them as they did with all
the other keilim? Additionally, it seems disrespectful to leave the
poles in the Aron situated in the Kodesh HaKedashim. It gives off
the impression of “living out of your suitcase”. As mobile as the Mishkan was,
would it not be more proper to take out the poles of the Aron and
demonstrate our complete faith in Hashem and in His plan leading us through the
midbar? Why the specific commandment to leave the poles in?
Perhaps
we could learn from here a third important lesson in building our relationship
with the Torah and Hashem, and that is that the Aron is never set in one
place. Even when physically placed in the Kodesh Ha’kedashim inside the Mishkan,
the poles must be left in to represent that virtually, the Aron must be everywhere.
The Torah is not something only learned in a Beis Medrash, nor is it
merely a list of things to do in Shul depending on the season. Rather it
is the true approach to life itself and must be carried by every single person
every second of the day.
The
details of the construction of the Aron are vital to understand when
constructing our own Arons to contain the Torah. The decimal
measurements, matching interior and exterior, and the requirement to leave the
poles attach teach us that when we build a relationship with the Torah we must
ensure that although we should feel accomplished we should never feel fully
satisfied, that our middos must be pure and reflect our exterior, and
that we must take the Torah with us wherever we go.
No comments:
Post a Comment