The Connection
between Shabbos and the Mishkan and How It Manifests in Our Lives
“וַיַּקְהֵל מֹשֶׁה
אֶת־כָּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם אֵלֶּה הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁרצִוָּה
ה' לַעֲשֹׂת אֹתָֽם/Moshe assembled the entire community of
the children of Israel and said to them, ‘These are the things that God
commanded to do them.” (Shmos 35:1)
This first pasuk of our parsha is referring to the building of the Mishkan. However, immediately following this pasuk, before
beginning to recount the building of the Mishkan, there are two p’sukim commanding
us to keep Shabbos. Why is this? The answer to this question lies in the
common theme that we find in the Mishkan and Shabbos. The goal of both the Mishkan and Shabbos is
to bring an awareness of God into our lives.
When the nation of Israel
stood at Mount Sinai to accept the Torah,
Chazal[1] tell us that we stood
united. We were united and one with
God. The sin of the golden calf
separated us from God and divided the nation.
Paganism divides. Monotheism
unites.
In order to rectify the sin of the golden calf and the consequences
of the sin, the Midrash tells us that God gave us the Mishkan. How did the Mishkan rectify the sin? Building the Mishkan entailed many different
activities. In fact, building the Mishkan
entailed every major category of human activity. These are the thirty-nine categories of work
which are prohibited on Shabbos and are derived from the Mishkan. Every activity in the Mishkan was dedicated
towards the same goal – the manifestation of the Divine Presence. Building the Mishkan, then, united us and our
actions in the service of God. Once the Mishkan
was built the barrier between us and God caused by the sin of the golden calf
was removed.
But before the Mishkan was built we were divided. In effect, we needed the unifying influence
of the Mishkan in order to build it. How
were we able to overcome this problem?
The answer is through the mitzvah of Shabbos. God unified the nation by giving us the
mitzvah of Shabbos first. Shabbos, the
day on which creation was completed and God, the ultimate Unity was revealed
was the day on which we could unite in serving God, the source of unity.
This is also the reason the parsha starts with the word “וַיַּקְהֵל/He assembled.” No other mitzvah in the Torah begins with
this word. Why does the mitzvah of
building the Mishkan begin this way? The
reason is that “וַיַּקְהֵל/He
assembled” connotes a unified group. The
noun associated with this verb is “קְהִילָה/community”
– a group of people having common interests.
Once we were united in serving God through the mitzvah of Shabbos we
were ready to build the Mishkan to complete the rectification for the sin of
the golden calf.
Shabbos unites the Creation under God, the source of
unity. The Mishkan unites individual
actions towards the goal of serving God.
From the Mishkan we learn that all of our seemingly mundane activities
during the course of the week can be consecrated in the service of God.
We find this relationship of general unity (i.e. Shabbos) and
unity in the details (i.e. Mishkan) in the two Parshiyos VaYakhel and Pekudei
which in many years are read together.
Parshas VaYakhel starts with Shabbos, the revelation of the Divine
Presence, and proceeds to describe the building of the Mishkan. This is a top down approach. Parshas Pekudei lists every detail of the Mishkan.
The end result is unity through revelation of the Divine Presence. This is a bottom up approach. As we’ve seen, the first approach leads
directly to the second. First God
reveals Himself through Shabbos showering blessing upon us from above and
influencing our actions (i.e. top down).
Then we build the Mishkan and God is revealed through our actions in
this world (i.e. bottom up).
When contemplating the intricate detail in which the Torah
describes the Mishkan and its vessels the following question comes to
mind. Chazal[2] tell us that blessing is
found only in things which are not counted.
Here we find a detailed list of every part of the Mishkan! How, then, is blessing found in the Mishkan? To answer this question, the Midrash quotess
a pasuk in Mishlei (28:20) which states, “אִישׁ אֱמוּנֽוֹת רַב־בְּרָכוֹת וְאָץ לְהַֽעֲשִׁיר
לֹא יִנָּקֶֽה/A man of faith will abound in blessings but one who impatiently
pursues wealth will not be exonerated.”
The Midrash[3]
tells us that “אִישׁ אֱמוּנֽוֹת/A
man of faith” refers to Moshe Rabbeinu. The Midrash explains that because Moshe Rabbeinu
was a man of faith he abounded in blessings when he built the Mishkan. As a man of faith, Moshe Rabbeinu dedicated
his every disparate action towards one common goal thus turning the many into
one. This is why there was blessing in
the Mishkan even though the details were listed.
This same idea applies to our daily activities. The Mishkan itself and the work we did in it
can be viewed as a microcosm of our daily lives. The Mishkan experience enabled us to apply
this focus on serving God to our daily activities. If I go about my daily activities with faith
in God, I dedicate all my actions to the common goal of serving God. As a result, God showers blessing upon me and
all my daily activities.
