“And everyone with a wise heart among you, he shall come and do all the work which G-d has commanded: the Tabernacle, its tent, and its cover, its hooks, its beams, its bars, its pillars and its sockets.” [35:10-11]

Throughout this parsha, in the discussion of the building of the Tabernacle, the Torah indicates that only those with special qualifications were able to build this House of G-d. There was no detailed manual from Ikea; it was not as simple as inserting screw A into socket H. What, then, was the quality that set apart those who were able to build?

The construction was led by Betzalel, and Moshe tells the entire congregation that G-d both called Betzalel by name to do the job, and “filled him with the spirit of G-d, with wisdom, understanding and knowledge, and every labor.” [35:31] HaShem filled both Betzalel and his assistant, Oholiav, “with a wise heart.” [35:35]

And this, we see, was the criteria which distinguished those able to build from those who were not, as it says, “everyone with a wise heart among you, he shall come and do all the work” [36:2]. “And Betzelel, and Oholiav, and every man with a wise heart, whom HaShem has given wisdom and understanding in these things to know to do all the Holy work, all that HaShem has commanded, they shall do it.” [36:36] The Holy work was done by those gifted with a wise heart.

Concerning those who donated, however, the Torah uses a different description: “And everyone whose heart lifted him, and everyone whose generous spirit moved him, they brought the gifts of HaShem for the construction of the Tent of Meeting, and for all its work, and for the Holy garments. The man came with the women, everyone with a generous heart brought… ” [35:21-22] In these verses, we see multiple references to a generous spirit or a generous heart. But to say both “everyone whose heart lifted him” and also “whose generous spirit moved him” seems redundant. Is someone “whose heart lifted him” different from one “whose generous spirit moved him?”

The Ibn Ezra tells us that indeed they are different — “these are the ones with a wise heart,” the same ones who did the work itself, “and the explanation is that he had an elevated heart.” This is an additional step above generosity. According to the Torah, to have a wise heart, to have wisdom as compared to mere intelligence, is to have “an elevated heart.” And so we see later, regarding work that women were doing for the Tabernacle, “And all the women whose heart lifted them in wisdom, they spun the goat hair.” [35:26] It was not enough that they were able to give; those with an elevated heart were able to build.

To give requires generosity. We see that someone is doing something valuable, whether building Torah or helping the poor, and we want to participate. Or we see a poor person and want to help him or her. But to actually do the building, that required more — not simply generosity, nor only intelligence, but the wisdom to know what would build in a way pleasing to Hashem.

It isn’t enough to have intelligence — one must also have wisdom. And wisdom, says the Torah, is synonymous with an elevated heart. An elevated heart is a heart that seeks good, and seeks to do good — and possesses the wisdom to discern how to do this well.