Shabbat Parashat Vayakhel - 5784

Shabbat Parashat Vayakhel - 5784

Rabbi Hal Miller

  And Moshe assembled the entire assembly of the children of Israel and said to them,

  these are the things that God commanded to do them. [Shemot 35:1]

At the conclusion of the previous chapter, Moshe was speaking to the entire people. Why

would the Torah need to tell us in the very next verse that Moshe assembled the entire

assembly? Further, in 35:4 it tells us that Moshe spoke to the entire assembly, which is

what he was already doing. In 35:20, after Moshe completed his speech, we see that the

entire assembly left Moshe's presence, which indicates that before this they had remained.

Then in 35:30, Moshe again speaks to the people, but there is no indication that he called

them back in the mean time. Since the Torah does not waste words, there must be reasons

for each of these.

Rashi indicates that the Torah just did not tell us about a day here. Moshe came down the

mountain on Yom Kippur, dealt with the calf incident and the resultant deaths, then sent the

people back home until the next morning, where in our verse he begins fresh with mitzvot.

Rav Hirsch concurs about our verse occurring right after the calf, but without an additional day.

Instead, he sees it as an explanation that the people felt their action lost them the grace of

God, so Moshe here re-gathers them to God, meaning that in fact God still wishes for them

to have the Sanctuary. Rashbam says it was to collect the half shekel in order to build that.

Ramban understands this assembling as different from where things were. Only the men

were gathered to where Moshe came down, now the women and children were included. He

also follows Rashi about an additional day, explaining that Moshe took the time to make the

mask to cover the light shining from his face. He gives another alternative which is similar to

Rav Hirsch, that God was reconciled, gave them the second Tablets, and sealed a new

covenant so the people now reverted to their prior status and were being called back as before.

Malbim sees our verse as a demonstration of unity. Before the calf incident, the people were

all as one, but fell into discord and disunity over that calf. He cites the Yerushalmi that each

tribe even built its own calf. Now, Moshe brings them all back into one nation.

Rav Moshe Feinstein explains that the people were assembled for Moshe to give them the

commandment of Shabbat, teaching that the giving of mitzvot required the entire nation to

be present. He also notes that verse 20 about the people departing is to teach that any time

we come across a mitzvah we need to go accomplish it immediately. This approach also

explains verse 30, that Moshe is giving the commandments of construction to Betzalel.

Rav Yosef Soloveitchik has an entirely different approach, tied to the giving of the mitzvot

about Shabbat: "There are two types of transgressions, public and private. One who steals in

secret is punished more severely that one who robs openly because the latter is not

hypocritical about his ethics and does not fear human or God. The one who steals in secret

fears human more than God. The opposite applies to Shabbat, that one who is private about it

is not a heretic since that involves open denial of creation and God. The word community, adat,

also means witness. Moshe assembled everyone to charge them to act as witnesses about

keeping Shabbat."