Betzalel…did everything that Hashem commanded Moshe.
Isn’t the point really that Betzalel did everything that Hashem commanded? How does Hashem’s command to Moshe figure in this?
Rashi, citing the gemara,[2] solves the problem – but at the cost of assuming a huge communications failure. It seems that Hashem told one thing to Moshe at Sinai, Moshe told Betzalel something different, and Betzalel nonetheless figured things out in a way consistent with what Hashem had originally told Moshe! Moshe had instructed Betzalel to first produce the various kelim. Betzalel demurred. “Don’t people first build a house, and only afterwards move the household goods in?” He therefore began work on the construction of the mishkan before dealing with the kelim. Moshe then conceded that Betzalel’s position was actually what Moshe had heard directly from G-d.
How could it be that Betzalel comprehended the Divine instruction better than Moshe did? Moreover, the gemara sounds like Moshe knowingly distorted Hashem’s instruction when he relayed it to Betzalel.
Before we come down too hard on Moshe, we should stop and think. Moshe’s instructions to Betzalel were in fact more correct than Betzalel’s intuition! The work on the entire project wrapped up on the 25th of Kislev. The kelim had been completed. The mishkan, however, remained folded up and waiting until the 1st of the following Nisan! Thus, the kelim were without a home, so to speak, for months on end! The chronology essentially supports the sequence outlined in Parshas Terumah: kelim first, mishkan later.
An observation of the Shalah Hakadosh points the way to an explanation. He explains that there is a fundamental difference in perspective between HKBH and ourselves. From where He is, things start out in the most profound and hidden precincts. From there, they ramify and are transformed, until they finally are take on a form that reveals them to the human observer. To the human being, the journey is reversed. First, he deals with revealed truths. Only after mastering them can he move on to comprehending matters that are loftier and hidden.
This difference is reflected in our use of language. To us, the sequence of letters of the alphabet begins with alef, and continues with beis, gimmel, etc. The heavenly alphabet, however, is reversed. Its first letter is tav, then shin, reish, kuf.
So it was with Moshe’s comprehension of the structure to welcome the Shechinah. Having spoken directly to Hashem, Moshe went straight to the profound core of the matter. There, at the root, each keli reflected a different aspect of Divine truth. Each keli stood for something else, and conveyed a different lesson. After grasping all those individual points, Moshe went on to the general principle that united them, i.e. the mishkan which “housed” all of them.
Betzalel, on the other hand, travelled the typical human route. He first needed to enter the general principle – the mishkan – before accessing the subtleties and profundity that lay beyond. Thus, Moshe told Betzalel that he was true to his name: b’tzel kel. He dwelt in the shadow of Hashem. In other words, he was close by – but not quite at the profound and hidden source of Hashem’s instruction.