Shabbos Parashas Vayakhel - 5774
Shabbos Parashas Vayakhel - 5774
Rabbi Hal Miller
Take from yourselves a portion for Hashem, everyone whose heart motivates
him shall bring it [Shemos 35:5]
Every man who donated, every man who separated, every wise-hearted woman spun,
every man and woman whose heart motivated them. This week's portion is full of
verses that go to great lengths to say, in effect, that everyone participated
in the building of the Mishkan. Why are all these verses necessary? What do we
learn from the specifications?
The first question we might ask, as did Nechama Leibowitz, is, "Who did the
bringing?" She lists the specifics in each verse of the Torah, then says,
"All classes and sections of the people, men, women, the leaders and the wise
hearted, were united in bringing." This is an interesting statement, though.
Are the men, women, leaders and wise-hearted in fact "all classes of the
people"? Why are these singled out?
Midrash Rabbah in Bamidbar discusses the role that the princes of the tribes
played. Here in the book of Shemos, the princes sat back and said, "whatever
the people do not bring, we will guarantee in order to make the Mishkan a
success." Of course, the people brought far more than Moshe's construction
team could use, so the princes ended up not bringing anything. In the book
of Bamidbar, chapter seven, the princes jumped first. They brought before
anyone else had a chance, in order to make sure their gifts would be part of
the pool. But does this qualify them here for the "leaders" entry in our list
of who brought? Perhaps the qualification comes from the intention that these
princes held, that they would guarantee anything that was lacking.
Leibowitz disagrees though. She writes, "But it would be a distortion of the
Torah to imagine that good intentions alone are enough, and that the rabbinic
statement that: 'the All-Merciful requires the heart' is intended to belittle
the value of deeds. One of the most constantly-recurring phrases in our sidra
is 'and they did'." Since this seems to conflict with her statement that all
the classes "did the bringing", perhaps we can read it as "all classes were
united in their desire to bring", and that the actual donations were only
from some of the members of the classes. This might explain why so many
verses are involved here, where the Torah is explaining which of these classes
actually donated.
Malbim brings us back to the position of 'intention', and even leaves us a
way to reconcile this with Leibowitz's stance. He says, "All these gifts were
not the chief thing in the eyes of G-d, since it is the heart that the
Almighty demands." While this sounds like 'intention is enough', two factors
provide us additional clarity. First, Malbim's use of the wording "chief
thing" indicates to us that this is not the only item on G-d's checklist.
Second, he writes further, "If there were found needy people in Israel who
contributed nothing materially, but nevertheless gave their hearts", which
serves to limit the use of 'intention' to those who do not have the ability
to do more. When we combine these two commentators, we understand that all of
the people were supposed to donate, but there is a way for acceptance at any
level, even with no financial contribution at all, for those who cannot achieve
the higher levels.
Thus, instead of dividing Israel, we see that this parsha shows us that we are
to combine all of Israel into one. The verses tell us "men and women", this
includes everyone. The verses "every man with whom was found turquoise", and
those with "wise-hearted" show that not only those with good intentions were
involved, but those who happened to have material, whether their hearts were
motivated or not. It could have been thought that "all the people" includes
everyone, but sometimes the Torah uses that phrase to mean "all the men", or
"all the non-Levi tribes", or "all those who are not in leadership positions",
etc. The Torah here really means all of the people of the nation were united.
May we unite again to bring a new Mishkan, material or spiritual.