EXODUS XXV:1-XXVII:19

THE MENORAH AND THE INTANGIBILITY OF GOD

Our chapters contain, in minute detail and precise instructions, the elements necessary for the construction of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle: the Sanctuary of God that will accompany the Hebrew people during their long journey through the desert. Centuries later, King Shlomo built the Beit HaMikdash, based on the instructions received for the rising of the Mishkan.

Exegetes identify with the amazement expressed in the Midrashthat questions the logic of the divine instruction. They suppose that Moshe (Moses) reflected, “God, You command us to make a Sanctuary and at the same time we know that the heavens cannot contain You.” This statement presents the fundamental dilemma of the Hebrew perception of a God who cannot be represented in any physical or material way and the need to erect a Temple, a dwelling place for that God.  Therefore, the Ḥakhamim concluded that these instructions cannot be questioned, because they are not subject to a logical process: the Mishkan’s command  was problematic.

Although the Torah, for example, offers a precise explanation with reference to the elaboration of the Menorah, according to the view of the exegetes, Moshe had difficulty with its manufacture. God had to show him a heavenly model that he could copy. The site of the Menorah was in front of the Parokhet, the curtain that separated the Ark that contained the Tablets of the Law, as if God needed a light to illuminate the way to the holiest place in the enclosure.

On the contrary, the biblical text affirms that there were luminous clouds that God had created to guide the people during their long journey through the desert. Does God need light, when He is the source of all light that He created as the first act in Beresheet and exclaimed: “Yehi or,” “who believes himself to be the light”? 

The Mishkan had been a divine concession to the human need to “represent” an idea: to give concrete content to a purely spiritual ideal. The Mishkan had not been erected to accommodate God on earth: its purpose was to satisfy the human need to “locate” God in a specific place, even though at the same time man will have to recognize that the universe is “too small” to contain God. In pantheistic thought, God is synonymous with nature, but according to Judaism, God is beyond nature, because nature and the universe are God’s creations.

Professor Moshe Sokolow quotes the Chief Rabbi of Israel Harav Kook, who in a Sabbath address suggested that the Menorah demonstrated the encounter between God and man: it was a point of intersection between the divine aspect and the human factor. While the Ten Commandments had been promulgated by God, who delivered the Tablets of the

Law to Moshe, the Menorah required human intervention.

The model was divine, but the ignition was human. Since the fundamental effect of the Menorah is  the light that radiates, tradition establishes an equation: light equals judgment and knowledge. Moreover, each of the arms represents a level or paradigm of wisdom, while the light in the middle symbolizes God’s infinite wisdom.

According to Rambam, only the Kohen can prepare and clean the Menorah, while anyone can light it. If light is equated with wisdom, it is possible that Rambam’s dictum  implies that knowledge may come from different sources. The Greeks, for example, left a very important legacy to humanity, which Rambam absorbed through Arab philosophers such as Avicena. This fact is represented by the recommendations and advice that Moses had received from his father-in-law Yitro, a Gentile priest.

Notwithstanding the mystery represented by the Mishkan and its components, the chachamim found ideas and spiritual symbolism in its elements and never “personified” God, nor were they seduced by illusory interpretations that could compromise their faith in a God unrepresentable by any element of the universe, a product of His own creation.

MITZVAH: ORDINANCE OF THE TORAH IN THIS PARSHA

CONTAINS 2  POSITIVE MITZVOT AND 1 PROHIBITION

95. Exodus 25:8 Building the Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple)

96. Exodus 25:15 Do not remove the poles from the Ark

97.     Exodus 25:30 Fixing the Shewbread (leḥem hapanim) and the Incense