These divrei Torah were adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissocher Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Tapes on the weekly portion: #1370 They Want To Build A New Shul? N.I.M.B.Y. (Not In My Backyard) Good Shabbos!

The Place for Atzei Shitim’s Firmness in This World

The next five parshiyos deal with the building of the Mishkan. The walls of the Mishkan were built with boards that were made from atzei shitim (acacia wood), which, according to the Medresh, is a type of erez (cedar) tree. Whether erez and shitim are similar or different types of trees, they both represent very strong, hardy types of wood. There is an interesting Medrash Rabbah (Shemos 35) which states, “The world was unworthy to use the wood of the cedar tree, which was created only for the sake of the Mishkan and the Beis Hamikdash.

On a homiletic level, I saw an interesting interpretation of this Medrash in a two-volume sefer called Menachem Tzion, which was written by Rav Menachem ben Tzion Zachs. His interpretation is based on the Gemara (Taanis 20a), which states “a person should always be ‘soft’ like a reed and not be ‘hard’ like a cedar.” The intention of this Gemara is that people should be flexible. Reeds bend with the wind. They are flexible, not rigid. They compromise and go with the flow. On the other hand, the mighty cedar is erect. It is straight and inflexible. It doesn’t bend.

Chazal say that a person should not be firm like a cedar. In life, a person must learn to compromise and make concessions. People need to learn to bend a little. People who are set in their ways and inflexible don’t go very far. In most situations, a marriage or a friendship or business cannot work like that. A person simply cannot fit into society if it always has to be “my way or the highway!”

The Menachem Tzion suggests that the message of the aforementioned Medrash is that, in general, people should not be like cedar. As a rule, cedar’s firmness is unworthy for this world. But there is one situation where we are supposed to use cedar and we are supposed to be inflexible, standing by our principles, and refusing to compromise. That is in the building of the Mishkan and the Beis Hamikdash.

When it comes to matters of the faith, we need to stand up for what is right. People can argue about certain things – are they right or not? But there is no compromising regarding matters of faith that are unequivocal! Once you start compromising, you don’t have a religion left.

All that is necessary to confirm this concept is to look at other “forms of Yiddishkeit” that have compromised over and over until they don’t even look like Yiddishkeit anymore.

I recently saw something that shocked me. This month, the Catholics celebrated “Ash Wednesday,” marking forty days before Easter and the start of the season of Lent, a time of repentance and introspection, l’havdil. There is a church in Baltimore that had “Glitter Ash” for certain members of their community who engage in immoral behavior. They could commemorate the date, not with traditional ashes, but using ashes with glitter mixed in, to accommodate “people of that persuasion.”

Now this is a church! This church commemorates Ash Wednesday, which is supposed to be about repentance and introspection, with glitter! We know what is going to happen to such a religion. We know what happens to religions that keep on making compromises on their principles and their matters of faith.

This is what the Menachem Tzion sees as the meaning of the Medrash about the cedar’s inflexibility being useful only for the Mishkan and the Beis Hamikdash.

Rabbi Avrohom Buxbaum from Miami, Florida wants to extend this idea one step further.

Rashi, in our parsha (Shemos 25:5), asks where the Jews found atzei shitim (acacia wood) in the wilderness. Rashi quotes a Medrash Tanchuma that Yaakov Avinu foresaw prophetically that Bnei Yisrael would build a Mishkan in the wilderness and would need this kind of wood to build it. Therefore, Yaakov brought down trees with him from Eretz Yisrael when he descended to Mitzrayim and planted them there. He further instructed his children to cut them down and take them with them when they left Mitzrayim.

The truth of the matter is that this began even before Yaakov Avinu. The Medrash says on the pasuk “And he planted an eshel in Be’er Sheva” (Bereshis 21:33) that Avraham Avinu already was the one who originally planted the trees that would eventually be used for the Mishkan. Yaakov Avinu moved his grandfather’s trees and replanted them in Mitzrayim and told his children to take them out with them.

Rabbi Buxbaum suggested that the message is the same. When Avraham Avinu planted the trees, it was also symbolic. Avraham Avinu was the original iconoclast. Iconoclast in the original sense of the word, means a person who broke the icons. That was what Avraham did! He broke the idols. He is called Avraham the “Ivri” (Hebrew) because “the entire world was on ever echad (one side) and he was m’ever ha’sheni (on the other side). He took on the entire world. He debunked paganism. It was a revolution.

That takes a man with a steel level of courage. That takes a man who is going to be inflexible. Avraham Avinu planted those trees because it symbolized what he was about. Perhaps he knew that Yaakov Avinu would take these same arazim and plant them in Mitzrayim, not only for the Mishkan, but also because Yaakov Avinu knew that his descendants would be in Mitzrayim, a hostile spiritual environment of idolatry and immorality. The avos instructed their descendants: Remember the arazim (and/or atzei shitim). Remember the ability for a Jew to be on one side and withstand the pressures of the people of the entire world, who remain on the other side of the moral divide. That is what defines us.

Yaakov felt that he needed to remind his descendants that they would need to adopt this hallmark of inflexibility of Avraham Avinu in Mitzrayim – that same characteristic of being strong like a cedar (and/or acacia). Under normal circumstances, this is not an admirable quality, but regarding the Mishkan and matters of religion – that’s the time to emulate its firmness.

Why Is the Story of Building the Mishkan in Sefer Shemos?

I heard the following very interesting observation in a lecture from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the late Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, which someone passed on to me via CD:

In sefer Shemos, from this point on, the parshios of Teruma, Tezaveh, half of Ki Sisa, all of Vayakhel and all of Pekudei, are about the Mishkan. Off handedly, we would assume that the story of the construction of the Mishkan belongs in Sefer Vayikra. Sefer Vayikra, after all, is “Toras Kohanim” – all about avodas hakorbanos (the sacrificial service), which was done in the Mishkan. Why then is the story of the building of the Mishkan put in Sefer Shemos?

Rabbi Sacks makes the following suggestion: There is something constant throughout the opening parshiyos of Sefer Shemos: Shemos, Vaera, Bo, Beshalach, and Ki Sisa as well: Throughout, people are complaining. In Shemos, they complain – rightfully so – about the slavery. Moshe Rabbeinu goes to Pharaoh and tries to improve the situation. It gets worse. The people complain. When they reach the Yaf Suf in Parshas Beshalach, they complain “Why did you take us out of Egypt?” After Krias Yam Suf, they complain about what Jews always complain about: They don’t like the food. They complain about the water. The water is too bitter. The Ribono shel Olam gives them the Torah in Parshas Yisro. Forty days later, Moshe Rabbeinu is late in returning – at least according to their calculation. They complain: What happened to our leader? They make an eigel hazahav (golden calf). Complaining, complaining, complaining, complaining.

How can a nation be formed out of such people who are constantly arguing and complaining? Sefer Shemos is about “ish u’beiso ba-oo” (Shemos 1:1). This is about building Klal Yisrael. How can you build Klal Yisrael when everyone is always complaining?

Rabbi Sacks says that the Ribono shel Olam provided a plan: Build a Mishkan and then everyone works toward the common goal of building it. One person brings money, another person brings talent, another person brings time. They have a communal-wide project to build a Mishkan. The complaints stop because now they have a common purpose and a common goal. That is how a nation is formed.

Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky suggests a similar insight in Parshas Bamidbar. In Parshas Bamidbar, Klal Yisrael was given the mitzva of setting up degalim (flags) for each shevet (tribe) specifying their travel formation. He notes that this mitzva was only given in the second year following Yitziyas Mitzraim. What about the first year? How did they travel before the mitzva regarding the camps and the degalim?

Rav Yaakov explains that the concept of different degalim for each shevet could be a cause of rivalry and dissension. Had the unique degalim for each shevet been assigned the first year, it would have been counter-productive. The shevatim would again be at each other’s throats! But once the Mishkan that rests in the center of the camp was inaugurated and everyone was focused on that one Mishkan, that provided a binding force which unified the disparate elements of the nation, such that the various shevatim could now tolerate the concept of different groupings under different degalim, all rallying around the same Mishkan in the middle.

That is why the construction of the Mishkan belongs in Sefer Shemos. Sefer Shemos is about creating Klal Yisrael. The creation came to fruition only after there was something present in their midst to unite them. That something was the construction of the Mishkan.

I once heard an observation from Rav Nachum Lansky: With the exception of Sefer Bereshis, every one of the five Chumashim all end with exceedingly similar closing words. In Sefer Shemos it is “l’einei kol Beis Yisrael b’chol ma’aseihem” (in sight of the entire House of Israel throughout their travels). Sefer Vayikra ends with the pasuk: “Eleh hamitzvos asher tzeevah Hashem es Moshe el Bnei Yisrael B’har Sinai” (These are the commands that Hashem commanded Moshe to the Children of Israel on Mt. Sinai). Sefer Bamidbar ends with: “…asher tzeevah Hashem b’yad Moshe el Bnei Yisrael B’arvos Moav al Yarden Yericho” (…that Hashem commanded in the hand of Moshe to the Children of Israel in the wilderness of Moav by the Jordan – Jericho). Finally, Sefer Devorim ends with the words “…l’einei kol Yisrael” (to the eyes of all of Israel).

There is only one Sefer which ends specifically with the formula kol Beis Yisrael. That is Sefer Shemos. That is because the essence of Sefer Shemos is building the house of Israel, building Klal Yisrael as a nation. A nation is built with individual batim (houses), the conglomerate of which is kol Beis Yisrael (all the households of Israel). In order to accomplish that, in order to join them all together, they needed a common goal. They needed the building of a Mishkan. We are all in this together. This common project unifies us as a nation.

That is why the building of the Mishkan needed to appear in Sefer Shemos, rather than in Sefer Vayikra.

Transcribed by David Twersky; Jerusalem [email protected]

Edited by Dovid Hoffman; Baltimore, MD [email protected]

This week’s write-up is adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissochar Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Series on the weekly Torah portion. A listing of the halachic portions for Parshas T’rumah is provided below:

• # 044 – Changing Nusach: Ashkenaz vs. Sephard
• # 087 – The Microphone on Shabbos
• # 135 – Living Above a Shul
• # 182 – Davening Towards Mizrach
• # 228 – Selling a Shul
• # 272 – Chazakah B’Mitzvos: Is This Maftir Yonah Mine?
• # 318 – Taking Out Two Sifrei Torah
• # 362 – The Mechitza-How High?
• # 406 – Shul Elections
• # 450 – Bais Hakeneses & Bais Hamikdash–Differences & Similarities
• # 494 – Bima In The Center Of The Shul
• # 538 – Preventing the Building of a Shul
• # 582 – Silk in Halacha
• # 626 – The Po’roches
• # 714 – The Bais Hamedrash Is Not a Chat Room
• # 758 – An Atara for a Talis?
• # 802 – Birthday Cakes on Shabbos
• # 846 – A Pasul Sefer Torah – Where Should It Be Kept?
• # 890 – Shul Windows: An Open or Closed Case?
• # 934 – Kohanim Face the Nation
• # 977 – Remodeling A Shul: Is There A Problem?
• #1021 – Should a Yahrzeit Make His Own Minyan in Shul to Get the Amud?
• #1065 – The Breakaway Minyan – Permitted or Not?
• #1108 – Being From The First Ten At Davening
• #1151 – Shul Shortcuts – Does Saying A Pasuk Really Help?
• #1194 – Your Father’s Nussach Or Your Grandfather’s Nussach
• #1238 – Pushka and Tzedaka Shailos
• #1283 – I Want To Take Back The Keser Torah I Donated: Should the Shul Agree?
• #1370 – They Want To Build A New Shul? N.I.M.B.Y. (Not In My Backyard)
• #1414 – Shul Issues: Shortcuts, Davening Towards Mizrach and More
• #1458 – Can A Man Daven In the Ezras Nashim Rather Than In the Main Shul?
• #1502 – Mizrach is One Direction; The Aron Kodesh Is in Another; Which Way Should You Face?
• #1545 – How Kodesh Is the Aron Kodesh?
• #1588 – The Mechitza: How High? Out of Glass?
• #1626 – Two People Have Yahrtzeit on the Same Day – Can One of Them Make His Own Minyan in a Different Room?

A complete catalogue can be ordered from the Yad Yechiel Institute, PO Box 511, Owings Mills MD 21117-0511. Call (410) 358-0416 or e-mail [email protected] or visit http://www.yadyechiel.org/ for further information.