These are the accountings of the Mishkan, the Mishkan of testimony…²

Rashi is troubled by the repetition of the word Mishkan. Why say it twice? And why, for that matter, is the structure referred to here—at the close of the long section that began in parshas Terumah—as Mishkan, rather than Mikdosh, the name used earlier?

Rashi, citing the Tanchuma, hears in the word Mishkan an echo of a very similar word: mashkon—collateral, security taken for a loan. Twice in history the batei mikdosh would be destroyed, taken by Hashem as collateral for the sins of the Jewish people. And that, our pasuk says, is the “testimony”: testimony that the Shechinah dwells among us.

At first glance, however, the connection seems puzzling. We certainly understand that the Temples—the permanent structures that fully realized the portable Tabernacle—could be destroyed if our sins became too great. The Torah makes that abundantly clear in the sections of rebuke. Hashem would take them, so to speak, to cover the debt created by our misdeeds.

But how does this collateral relationship testify to the presence of the Shechinah?

Consider how collateral normally works. Lenders typically demand security worth more than the loan itself. They want to protect themselves—and they want the borrower to feel enough pressure to repay the debt and recover the pledged asset.

Which raises an obvious question: in what sense could the Beis HaMikdosh function as collateral? After all, it was nothing more than “sticks and stones,” as the gemara terms the Temple.

The answer is that these particular sticks and stones accomplished something no others ever could. Rambam rules that the kedushah invested during the First Temple period applied differently to the Land and to the Beis HaMikdosh.³ Yehoshua’s conquest conferred sanctity upon the Land—expressed in the mitzvos that apply to what grows there—but that sanctity was conditional. Once our enemies seized the Land from us, that original kedushah lapsed. It had never been intended to endure forever; it was tied to Jewish control of the Land, which vanished with the Babylonian conquest.

The holiness of the Beis HaMikdosh and Yerushalayim, however, was of a completely different order. Their sanctity was bound up with the Shechinah—and the Shechinah never departed from those places, even during times of destruction.

Those “sticks and stones,” therefore, achieved something extraordinary: they provided a place for the Shechinah to dwell. That gives them infinite value. And something of infinite value can indeed serve as the ultimate collateral for our obligations.

In passing, we might note that Rambam’s position here reflects his distinctive understanding of the Shechinah, which differs from the one many of us are accustomed to. In the Moreh, he describes the Shechinah either as a “created light”—a visible manifestation of Him in a particular place—or as the special providential relationship Hashem establishes with something.⁴⁵ Seen this way, it makes perfect sense that the Shechinah-based sanctity invested in the Beis HaMikdosh would endure forever, even after its destruction. The site remains permanently a place singled out by Divine providence.

Raavad disagrees with Rambam, maintaining that the original kedushah of the Beis HaMikdosh did not survive its destruction. He understands the Shechinah as Ramban does: the palpable Divine Presence that rested upon Mt. Sinai when the Torah was given.⁶ That Presence later moved to the Aron, to the space between the cheruvim. Such an intensity of Presence, he argues, cannot exist while the Beis HaMikdosh lies in ruins.

1. Adapted from Divrei Shaul, by R. Yosef Shaul Nathanson, the Shoel U-Meishiv.

2. Shemos 38:21.

3. Hilchos Beis Habechirah 6:16.

4. Moreh Nevuchim I:25.

5. I.e., like the Jewish nation.

6. Shemos 25:1.