Parshas Vayakhel & Pekudei (Rebroadcast)

This week we have a double parasha, parasha's viakal and parasha's pakude.

Viakal has 122 verses and 1 mitzvah, pakude has 92 verses and 0 mitzvahs for a total of 214 verses and 1 mitzvah.

A few weeks ago we had parasha's taruma and that gave us the instructions to construct the mistran and its vessels.

The following week was the instruction to construct the various vestaments garments of the high priest.

That was the instruction phase and this week's parasha there's going to be the implementation and the actualization of that instruction where Moshe is actually going to do a lot of fundraising and do all the construction that was delineated a few weeks ago.

Of course one of the themes of the parasha that we'll talk about is the need for the Torah to repeat it in detail.

Almost some sentences were for word from what the instruction that was given a few weeks ago, whereas normally the Torah tries to mince words and try to say things as such singt and pithy away as possible.

These parasha, almost the whole parasha, could have been shortly summarized in a sentence like Moshe actually did what he was told to do and instead the Torah founded the need to actually grow through and delineate,

think by thing what Moshe did together with his lieutenants, Bitsala, and Aliyah and the rest of the Jews.

So the parasha begins where Moshe assembles the entire assembly of the children of Israel and sets them, these are the themes that Hashem commanded to do.

So Rashi, right away, rehashes his position that these most recent parashios are not written chronologically.

The Golden Cave episode that we read last week happened before the instructions of parasha's Tumatatsava, before the instructions to build the Mishron, the Tabernacle and its vessels and the vestiments of the high priests,

but the Torah altered the chronology as it often does in order to separate the instructions and the implementations of those instructions for the Tabernacle to separate that with the story in the middle of the Golden Cave.

So when did this happen according to Rashi? This happened the day after Moses came down from heaven for the third time like we saw last week.

He comes down with a second set of tablets that is Yom Kippur, the following day there's the instruction and the implementation of the instruction to start fundraising assembling the materials needed for the Mishron for the Tabernacle.

The Ramban, he argues like he did running the past and he says no, the Torah is actually organized at least this part of it in chronological order, the instructions were given before the Golden Cave.

And now that they were forgiven for the Golden Cave, the Torah reiterates the implementation to kind of tell you that even though they were found defective via the sin of the Golden Cave,

still they had repented and they had restored themselves the situation where they were prior and therefore they were worthy now as prior to fulfill the mitzvah of the Tabernacle.

So according to the Ramban, there's a certain natural answer to that question of why the Torah found the need to repeat it.

Well, because now we're being told that they didn't lose anything so to speak with the sin of the Golden Cave, there was no lasting impact even though the instructions, the initial instructions were different before the sin of the Golden Cave.

And then they sinned and they descended and they were almost destroyed, still the repentance brought them back to a state as they were prior and therefore they didn't lose anything along the way.

Now, interesting like we saw in the past, judge supposed to the instruction to build the Tabernacle is another warning against the desecration of Shabbos.

On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall be holy, a whole day for God, a day of complete rest, whoever does work on this day shall be put to death.

And then we're told specifically you shall not kindle fire in any of your dwellings on the Shabbos day.

So again, like we saw in chapter 31, last week, even though there's a mitzvah to build, the Tabernacle, this mitzvah is not supersede Shabbos, you cannot do this work on Shabbos.

And here are say just tell us, we're actually pointing this out again the second time that this is another source that the prohibitions of Shabbos mirror what is needed to be done for the construction of the Tabernacle.

So say just tell us in the Talmud that there's 39 different categories of worth and need to be done for the construction of the Tabernacle.

And therefore there are those same 39 categories of work that are prohibited to be done on Shabbos.

Interestingly, the Talmud tells us that this is also the source that prohibits punishment and execution on Shabbos.

When there was a Jewish system of courts in place, part of their responsibilities is to meet out judgment, to meet out punishment, both corporal and capital.

And on Shabbos, those things are suspended.

The court does not dispense, does not meet out capital punishment or corporal punishment on Shabbos.

Now, Rashi points out that we have 39 categories of work on Shabbos and only one of them is mentioned specifically, not the Kindle of Fire in all your dwellings on Shabbos.

And the obvious question is, wait a minute, why are we not told any of the other 38 categories of work that are prohibited?

Why specifically, we're told that the Kindle of Fire on Shabbos, why is that singled out?

Rashi quotes the Talmud, the Talmud tells us that there are two reasons why this particular category of work was singled out.

According to one is that the reason why we singled out is to tell you that this has less stringency, the category of work of Kindling of Fire on Shabbos has less stringency than the rest of the other 38 categories.

Alternatively, the reason why Kindling of Fire was mentioned specifically was to tell you that you don't need to transgress all 39 categories of work at once or in one Shabbos in order to be liable.

Any one of them alone, even if you did just one, even if you just Kindle the Fire on Shabbos, that would be enough to make you liable.

Now it's interesting, we know there were several sects amongst our people's history that decided that they want to obey only the Rin Torah, not the oral Torah.

The most recent one of these factions is the Carites who were really popular, 7th, 8th and 9th century, and then of course they beat it out and today there's not really much left of the Carite movement.

But their philosophy was that we obey only the Rin Torah and we disregard the oral Torah, the Talmud, the Mishnah, the tradition that does not hold water in our eyes.

And therefore, what does the verse say? You shall not Kindle a fire in any of your dwellings on the Shabbos day. You should not have a fire in your house on Shabbos, meaning that there should be no fire or fire source in your home on Shabbos.

So they would sit Shabbos in pitch black darkness because even if you light the handle before Shabbos by their standards, it would be insufficient.

And in fact, there is a tradition today to have hot food for Shabbos lunch, meaning it's already more than halfway into Shabbos and you still have hot food.

Well, how do you have hot food? Shabbos lunch time. The only way you could do that is if you have a fire that you kindled before Shabbos and that fire upon that fire you placed the stew or whatever it may be.

And therefore, the fire continues on Shabbos, as long as you don't Kindle, as long as you don't initiate the fire before Shabbos, you're good to go.

And we've accustomed to show that we're not like the car rides. We believe that you can indeed have a fire on Shabbos provided that you didn't Kindle.

You didn't ignite it on Shabbos. That would be okay. And that's why we go out of our way to have hot food on Shabbos lunch.

Now, the Bet Yosef, Rabbi Yosef Karo, who was, of course, the giant of the 16th century, the author of the Shulkhana'ach, he wrote several books. One of them, the one that's maybe the least well-known, is the Majid Mesharem, which is essentially a book or diary of the conversations he had with Angel who came to visit him every night.

And the angel told him that this verse not only doesn't support the claim of the car rides, but it actually proves to the contrary.

How so? Well, on verse two, we're talking about Shabbos. Six days you work, and the seventh day, well, that's Shabbos, that's a holy day, that's a day of rest, that's a day for God.

So what happens in verse three, you shall not Kindle fire in any of your dwellings on the Shabbos day.

Why does it need to add, those last words, Biyomha Shabbos, on the Shabbos day after all, are we just talking about Shabbos?

Why is there a need to reiterate in verse three that you cannot Kindle a fire on the Shabbos day? It must mean, says the Majid, says the angel to Rabbi Yosef Karo, it must mean that only on Shabbos is there a prohibition to ignite the flame, to ignite the fire.

However, if the fire was extant from before Shabbos, you would be allowed to keep it on Shabbos, which is why we have lights on Shabbos, and we could even leave a stove on so long as you don't ignite it on Shabbos, it is okay.

Okay, so we have this preamble that Moshe is gathering the Jewish people, and now he tells them before anything, don't do any work on Shabbos, and then he says, okay, time to fundraise.

Moshe is set to the entire assembly of the Children of Israel, saying, this is the word of Hashem that he's commanded us, take for yourself a portion, fundraise, and of course it's the same list of materials that we've spoken about the past couple of weeks.

Gold, silver copper, different kinds of wool, linen, gold here, various skins, the wood, the oil for illumination, the spices needed for the incense, and the various stones needed for the aphode for the apron-like garment, and for the breastplate.

Now, there's an amazing rambun here, in verse 5, he points out that throughout the entire portion, it talks about the heart, people who committed their heart, people who have righteous heart, people who have wisdom of the heart, and he says something very fastening, he says, the end result of the mission of the Tabernacle is that God's presence, God's Shrina dwells there.

Says the rambun, this does not happen on its own, rather each individual who's contributing in some way to the project is investing their heart, the seat of the Shrina within them, the spiritual part that we each have within us in our soul, in our heart, each one of them is contributing that towards the project, and the collective sum of the hearts of all of Israel.

Well, that's the Shrina that indeed dwells in the Tabernacle in the mission, a very powerful idea.

So Moses conveys the message, he makes the fan raising call for the Tabernacle, and he also reaches out and tells people that we need manpower, people who are skilled to do all the work, and he delineates the various vessels needed for the service.

So we spoke about them, the inner altar, the outer altar, the key or the basin, the ark, the shulchan, the menorah, all the various things that we've spoken about the last couple of weeks.

So Emotion has conveyed the message, again he wants people, manpower, personnel, talent, he wants also materials needed to do that.

So every man whose heart inspired him came, and everyone whose spirit motivated him, brought the portion of Hashem for the work of the ten to the meaning, indeed after Moses' speech, the people, they rallied to the cause for the labor and for all the sacred garments.

There's a very powerful rombaniere in verse 21, again he's talking about the fact that their heart inspired them, and everyone whose spirit motivated them.

So what does this mean? What does this power, this ability, these talents that are uncovered?

So the rombaniere, and this is similar to what we said last week about Pizzalo, he said that people have their heart, so to speak, motivate them, inspire them to the work.

Again, like he said last time, these are people that until very recently were essentially slaves.

They don't have a background in metallurgy, all this precise craftsmanship, these aren't journeymen, contractors, carpenters who have all this experience.

So where did they learn? There wasn't a teacher that didn't go to some school to learn how to do this.

They had known to guide them, says the rombaniere, each one of them found internally, they had this discovery of uncovering unknown talents that they didn't even know that they had.

Because they had ambition, because they, their heart inspired them, they had ambition, they had determination, they discovered that they actually do already have it within them.

They took initiative, they were opportunistic, they were bold, they put themselves out there, and they discovered that, you know what, they could figure it out. Why how did they figure it out?

Because naturally they had the ability, they just didn't know that they had the ability, they took initiative, they were bold, and eventually they were able to figure it out and discover indeed that they could do it, they do have those latent talents.

And this is another idea that, of course, we could speak about more broadly, that the people who are the ones who make it big in whatever field, it could be, of course, in business, and it could be spiritually.

The people that actually made the impact are the ones that don't wait for someone to guide them, to mentor them, to coach them, to hold their hand and take them step by step.

They're the ones who take action, who jump in, who dive in, who say, I'll figure it out along the way, and you know what, along the way, they'll actually discover that the talents that they needed were already within them, they just didn't know it.

And by taking initiative, by being inspired in their heart, they are able to uncover tremendous latent ability that they didn't even know that they had.

So the people are ready, and then they come with the donations, the man came with the women, everyone came, everyone's heart was motivated them, they brought bracelets and nose rings and other rings and bodily ornaments, all sorts of gold ornaments.

Every man raised up an offering of gold to Hashem, people who had within their possessions, various kinds of wool, the turquoise wool, the purple wool, the linen, the gold here, everyone brought what they had, the copper, the wood, everyone who had,

was able to bring what they had.

Every wise, hearted woman in verse 25, we read Spun with her hands, they brought the spun yarn of turquoise purple and startle wool and linen.

And there's a very interesting rush here, point from the Talmud, Rashi tells us that the reason why they needed wise, hearted women to do the spinning, spinning, it seems like it's a commodity job, everyone could do it, once the big deal.

Of course the Talmud, Talmud says it's very interesting that when they would spin this material, this fabric out of goat ears, they would do it when the hair was still attached to the goat and then make fabric in yarn with a live goat and spinning gets here, and that of course is a talent that you need some wise, hearted people because it's a very special talent that is needed.

And why would they do this? One of the commentaries tells us that there's a certain special luster that is present when something is connected to its roots, it's almost like the by local movement.

If you take something, some produce from Mexico, you bring it to the United States or from New Zealand, it's not in the right environment.

The thing that's closest to its source, that's when it actually has its greatest potential to be perfect, to be beautiful.

And therefore the luster of this particular fabric was best when it was spun on top of the goat itself.

So the people really responded to Moshe's call, and everything that was needed was indeed brought.

And in verse 27, we read how the leaders, the Naseem, the heads of the tribe, they brought the shoham stones and the stones for the settings of the afoot and the breastplate.

Like we spoke about a few weeks ago, there were 14 very precious stones, 12 that were inlaid in the gold settings of the breastplate of the chauchin, and two on each one of the shoulders by the shoulder pads of the afoot of that.

Of the afoot of that apron like garment that connected via a gold chain towards the chest of the hybris towards the chauchin.

So we have these 14 very precious and very expensive stones, and they are provided by the Naseem by the heads of the tribe.

There was an amazing, and very maybe somewhat puzzling, Rashi here, about these Naseem, about these gifts that we received, that the Jewish people, that the Mishtan effort, the coffers of the Mishtan, the coffers of the Tabernacle received from the Naseem from the heads of the tribe.

So Rashi tells us that in the book of Leviticus, there was another fundraiser, and in that fundraiser,

it wasn't the Naseem coming at the end, they weren't coming at the end, the last ones to give a donation.

Rather, they came at the beginning. Why did they come at the beginning here? After everyone donated, only then do we read about the Naseem, the leaders, giving the various stones needed for the hoshin and for the afoot.

Why over here did they come at the end and there they went at the beginning?

Because here they had a plan, they made a calculation, what they say, says what they said, you know what, we'll let the community, we'll let the people donate whatever they give, and whatever's left over, whatever they don't give, we will cover.

What happened? The people gave everything, they were so generous, they gave all the gold and silver and all the copper and all the various swoles and fabrics, everything was donated, and there was nothing really left besides for these 14 stones.

And therefore, the Naseem, they were worried, we have nothing to give. So the only ones left, they quickly jumped and they gave those 14 stones, and Rashi says this was a mistake, they made a mistake.

They should have given ahead of time, and the Torah, how the Torah spells their name, it spells it in a way that indicates that they made a mistake.

How so? Because in Hebrew, this may sound a little strange, someone who's not familiar with Hebrew, but in Hebrew, there are sometimes different ways to spell the same word.

And the reason for that is, just like in English, we have consonants and we have vowels. In Hebrew, the vowels sometimes are written in the form of letters, but sometimes they are not written in the form of letters, rather they are in the invisible nick who don't.

So if you learn Hebrew, you learn that on top and on bottom of letters, there's various dots and dashes that represent the vowels that tell you how to pronounce a certain word.

Now the word Naseem, which means the leaders or the princes or the presidents of the tribes, it usually is spelled with all the vowels written in the form of letters.

But here, when it's talking about the Naseem and their donation of the 14 stones needed for the a-fold, and the quotient, it deducts one of the letters from their name.

And as Rashi, why does the Torah remove one of the letters from their name? Because they should have jumped ahead, it shouldn't have waved to the end, it shouldn't have tarried.

They should have been lazy, and therefore, as a way for the Torah to criticize them, a letter is deducted from their name.

Very interesting, Rashi, here, quoting from the Sages in the Midrash.

So with all the material assembled, Moses says to the children of Israel, see, behold, Hashem is proclaiming my name, the son of Uri, the son of Hura from the tribe of Judah.

This pitala is so talented, he's filled with godly spirit, with wisdom, with insight, with knowledge, with every craft, he's a true renaissance man who's able to be an expert in all the areas and all the craftsmanship.

He weaves designed, work with gold, silver copper, stone cutting for sending wood carvings, everything to perform every craft of design, he has the complete package.

And he also has the ability to teach.

This, really, there's no better candidate to lead this hevert him, together with Ahaliyah, the son of Ahisamah from the tribe of Dan.

He filled them with the wise heart to do ever craft, of the carver weaver of designs, embroiderer, the all the wool, the linen, the weaver, the artisans of every craft,

and makers of design.

So there's a few interesting things here that we see.

First of all, one of the commentaries points out that not only did pitala have the ability to do all the work, but he was also able to mentor.

And this is interesting, sometimes the people who have all the talent, they're just so talented, and to them it comes so naturally, they don't have the ability to convey that to someone who is uninitiated.

pitala was that rare combination, like we said, a renaissance man, who had all the steals and all the knowledge and all the abilities in all these various disparate fields, but also had the ability to teach that to others, he was also able to mentor to others.

It's also interesting here.

pitala, we had him, we also get his father, the son of Uri, the son of Hoor.

Hoor, of course, we saw him a few times already in the Torah, he is the son of Miriam, so he's a nephew of Moses.

That's an effect, this is Moses's great, great nephew or great, great, great nephew.

That's a pitala.

And pitala's pedigree is given all the way back to Hoor, so that we don't hear only about his father, we hear also about his grandfather.

Whereas Ahaliyah, who is the other person who's leading the effort, we're only told Ahaliyah the son of Ahisama, we don't get his grandfather.

So outcome with pitala, his pedigree goes all the way back to the grandfather, whereas by Ahaliyah it goes only to his father.

So I saw two answers here.

Number one, we know that Hoor, he had recently died.

Why? Because when the Jewish people were doing the synagogue on calf, he was one of the leaders appointed by Mosheah to keep things in order.

And he started to review, to criticize the people, what are you doing? What's going to be?

When you're making a golden calf, you're making an idol, we do crazy. So he started to critique them. And they killed him.

Thus, there is no greater representation of the flaws of the sin of the golden calf than Hoor.

And therefore what happens? What do we have? We have the golden calf? What's coming to fix that? That's the tabernacle.

It's so fitting that the grandson of Hoor, he's the one who is going to provide the atonement, so to speak, for the murder of Hoor for the sin of the golden calf, which is represented by the murder of his grandfather.

Alternatively, the Meshachachma, he quotes on the name of the Chasid Yaiwets. Chasid Yaiwets was one of the Spanish Jews who was banished during the expulsion of Jews from Spain in the end of the 15th century.

And he says something very deep and powerful.

We know the Jews of Spain were offered a very terrible set of options.

Either you convert to Christianity and you can stay in Spain and maintain all your wealth and everything, or you leave with nothing, you leave panellists.

And we know the Jews, half of them, around half of them, picked up and left. And about half of them stayed and converted.

And most of those who said it converted, they said, you know what, we'll try to maintain our Judaism in hiding, clandestinely.

They became known as the Moranos or the Conversos. And of course, the Inquisition was dedicated to try to root out those fake Christians, those people who were secretly behaving as Jews.

Which one of those groups made the right decision?

So the Chasid Yaiwets, again, he's someone who personally had to flee, he said, says, well, the simple Jews, they said, well, wait, these people are offering us to convert to Christianity or to stay as Jews, we're leaving.

We're not asking questions, don't overthink the matter, we're out. And the more sophisticated Jews as well, we have a lot of money here. And well, we think that we're smart enough, we're clever enough to be able to do both.

The people who were more sophisticated, so to speak, those are the people that had a more difficult time in many of those people, they actually stayed.

Similarly, what do we have? We have Hoor. Hoor is someone who is almost like he's simple in the story. The Jewish people say, we're going to go to the Gaul and Caff.

And they have all kinds of reasons why I made sense, while he is not an idol, it's a representation of Moses, they have all kinds of justifications for it. And of course, says, wait a minute, simply, what are we doing with the Gaul and Caff?

Don't do me any of your cock-a-me-me-me convoluted arguments. I'm not interested, this is a bad idea, I'm out.

That sounds like a very simple-minded argument, and you know what, he was killed for it. They're like, no, no, they came with a more sophisticated argument.

This is not idolatry, of course, it eventually became my idolatry, but they had all kinds of sophisticated reasons why they wanted it.

That's what it tells us. Bitsala, Benuri, Ben Hoor, that Salah is the grandson of Hoor. And you say Hoor was unsophisticated, look at his grandson.

His grandson was, there was no one more clever, no one more capable, no one more gifted, no one more talented than Bitsala, he was need-filled with all kinds of wisdom.

Now Rashi points out that we know Bitsala came from the tribe of Judah, which was the tribe of the monarchy, but Ahaleev, the son of Ahisama, he comes from the tribe of Dan.

Dan, out of the 12 tribes, it's one of the four tribes that were from the other, the secondary wives of Jacob.

And Rashi points out that there's a certain equality here between Bitsala and Ahaleev, even though one of them comes from the most prestigious of the tribes, and the other one comes from maybe the least prestigious of the tribes, but they are equal.

The Torah is a meritocracy, and therefore even though one of them has a more prestigious pedigree, it doesn't matter, they're both equal.

And this is, I think, an important idea that we see again and again in Jewish history, and in fact the Rambham points out in his introduction to Mishnah that in our history of had leaders who were the undisputed Torah giants of their era,

who were either converts or descendants of converts like Schmein of Talion, Rabbi Kiva, Rabbi mayor, uncleist, etc.

And he stresses this point because this reveals something about the essence of what we stand for.

It's a meritocracy, you don't get in for free, you have to earn what you get, and no matter where you come from, you should reach the greatest heights.

Okay, so we have a plan in action, the fundraiser has been done, we've assigned Bitsala and Ahaleev together with all their helpers as the people who are going to do the job, and then we have chapter 36.

That's the plan, Bitsala shall carry out with Ahaleev and every wise-hearted man within whom God has endowed with wisdom and insight, and Moses summoned Bitsala and Ahaleev and all the wise-hearted men,

and everyone who was inspired to do the work, and they take all the golden people start bringing tons of gold and silver materials, and there's a problem.

These wise people who are overseeing and organizing all the material needed, they tell Moshe, we have a problem, the people bring more than enough for the labor.

So, quickly, they make an announcement, Moses summoned it, they proclaim throughout the camp, men and women shall not bring any more gifts towards the sanctuary, and the people were restrained for giving, and what they had brought, that was enough to do, and even a little bit extra.

This is a fundraiser's dream, you have a certain amount of money you need to raise, and you start raising it, and the first day, people start sharing you with so much gold and silver, they actually have to stop them.

It's too much, you got to quickly, quickly, so they ran to Moses, they're overseeing the coffers, people just come in pouring, pouring in, oh, we have to stop it quickly, and they make an announcement throughout the camp.

So, this commentary is point out, this shows their character, you know, this seems like a golden opportunity for a little bit of grift, you know, I'm working on the project, I take a pocket, a little bit, you know, there's so much extra, and still, what do the people do when there's too much, they run to Moses, there's too much, and what does Moses do, he quickly stops everyone from giving.

People are so excited to give, but they have to stop giving, because there's enough, and we don't want to have any extra, we don't want to pocket anything from ourselves.

Now, this amazing insight pointed out by Rabbi Yakov Kaminesti, who incidentally happens to be my namesake, he points out, he says, you know, at this point in history, the Jewish people are under the impression that they're about to go into London, Israel.

It's only sometime later, about a year later, where the sin of the spies happens in the book of numbers, that mandates that they stay in the wilderness for 40 years.

So what's the plan in their eyes right now, in their eyes, the plan is to build a tabernacle, and quickly go into Israel, capture the land with Moses, build a permanent temple, and then put away the temporary temple, the mist on the tabernacle, put it away to put that in, to archive that, in their eyes, this was only temporary.

Yet, despite the fact that it was temporary, they still had a tremendous gusto, a tremendous drive to donate, they're going to show us the generosity and the character of these people.

Now, it is interesting that in verse 7, we read somewhat of a contradiction, that they stopped doing the fundraising, but the fundraising was enough for all the work, and there was extra, so was it enough, or was there extra?

It seems like those two cannot be congruent if there is enough, then there's enough, and if there's extra, then it means there's extra.

So, there's many answers, given one of the answers, the archaim tells us that there was a miracle, that the amount of gold and silver and other material that was needed was indeed more, there was extra, but it was enough, because it was subsumed in the needed material.

Like we said, there's miracles happening everywhere, and one of the miracles is that the gold, so to speak, absorbs some of the extra gold, and therefore there was nothing, there was no extra, even though there was initially extra, it was swallowed up by the other gold and the same was true by the rest of the other material.

Okay, so we have everything that we need in the work begins, so they begin with the various curtains of the tabernacle, and these we already described in great detail.

In Pasha's truma, you have the lowest curtain, made of 10 curtains, and then you have one on top of that, made of gold here, made of 11 curtains, and then you had one or two more on top of that, pull the covers of the tent, of red dyed ramp hides, and tachash hides, and then we have the planks at the side of the tabernacle made of wood.

And again, these instructions work, given in great detail, you have you have 20 on one side, one on the other side of the six, and these are all one and a half, almost one and a half qubits wide, on the bottom, there's two silver sockets on top, there's a ring connecting one to the next one, I don't want to go through it, because we've spoken about it in great detail.

So after the walls of the tabernacle are done, and the covers are done, the petitions are made, the various screens are made, and then chapter 37, we read about the various vessels of the tabernacle, and it begins with the arc.

So 37 begins, but tell me the arc of a casio wood, two and a half qubits it's length, a qubit and a half it's with, and a qubit and a half it's height, these are again the same dimensions we read about a few weeks ago.

Now the commentaries point out that it does mention that Pizzalo made them, whereas we know Pizzalo made all of this, so why specifically as I mentioned Pizzalo here with respect to the arc.

So Rashi says, and this is maybe somewhat dovetailing nicely with what we just said a little bit earlier, the reason why it says that Pizzalo made it because Pizzalo he committed his soul for the work.

Therefore, even though everyone else made it together with them, but who does a Torah label? Who does a Torah give eternal credit to?

It gives it to Pizzalo because he more than anyone else was totally committed towards the project, then a nice lesson can emerge from that is the themes that we truly own spiritually are the things that we really put our heart into.

The Ramban, he says something interesting, he says no, unlike Rashi who says that yes everyone made it, but Pizzalo committed himself to it more than anyone else.

The Ramban says that no, actually Pizzalo himself made it, and then says the Ramban something very important.

He says actually, if you were to compare the various vessels as to the degree of difficulty of construction, you would say that maybe the easiest one to do is the arc.

It's essentially a box, how hard is that to make? Doesn't seem like a very difficult, it seems quite to the contrary, it seems kind of easy.

And yet Pizzalo is the one that does it.

Says the Ramban, why did Pizzalo himself do it?

Not because it was difficult to construct physically, but because it was difficult to construct spiritually.

What was really needed was not expertise, or not only expertise in craftsmanship, or was needed expertise in so to speak, spiritual craftsmanship.

And this is the idea that we saw in the past that when someone is constructing something for the tabernacle, there's a certain idea that they're trying to infuse within it that is the spiritual baseline of that particular vessel.

And that's what Pizzalo himself, because this arc is the most spiritually difficult one to make there for his one, who made it.

We read about the arc, the cover of the arc with the magical magnificent swiveling cherubs, the table with its gold crown around it, the menorah with all its intricacies, the incense altar, that's the inner altar,

the altar called golden altar, it's somewhat confusing, there's the outer altar, which is really made out of wood and plated with copper.

And then you have the inner altar, which is made out of wood, but plated in gold is much smaller, and that was used for incense every day, twice, and only a newm kipper was anything else done to it.

38 begins with the mating of the outer altar, which is called over here the elevation offering the altar.

Again, it's made out of wood, it's much bigger, there's horns, which are like these little bumps, like the top of a castle you would imagine.

It's square, and then of course it has a ramp leading up to it, not steps like we read a few weeks ago.

It has all its paraphernalia pots, shovels, basins, forts, fire pans, all that are made out of copper, there's a meshwork, which is a design going alongside the body of the outer altar,

and there are reams, in the reams there are staves, there are poles, and then we read about the tiara, which is the water basin that used to wash your hands and your feet.

Now, what was the tiara made out of? So the Torah says, for the mirrors of the legions who massed at the entrance of the tent of meaning.

It's made out of mirrors, and Rashi points out this is actual mirrors, and what's the backstory of this mirrors?

So Rashi tells us something very fascinating and interesting to highlight that happened over here.

The daughters of Israel, they would look in these mirrors when they would put in their makeup,

and when the call came to donate all these materials, they came with their gold and silver and everything, but also with these mirrors.

And most of course knew what this was used for, these are used by women to make themselves beautiful, and what's the reason for that? Well, that's to inspire the aides of Harah.

So Moses says, no, no, this is not kept used in the tabernacle, this is something that Moses was disgusted by, this is not fitting for the mishron because this is what it's used for.

And God responds to them, no, no, you take it, because you know why these mirrors are the most beloved to me.

Why? Because through these mirrors, the women were able to spawn legions of the Jewish people, because the men after all, when they were slaves in Egypt, they were exhausted.

They were almost in the brink of dying every day, you can't procreate under those conditions, but the women, they would make themselves beautiful, and they would entice and arouse their husbands using these mirrors.

And therefore, these mirrors says that Moses, these mirrors are the ones that are most precious to me, and there is no better candidate for being used in the temple than these mirrors.

Now, it's interesting. The commentary's question, you know, Moses is willing to accept all kinds of personal items from women, various reams, and reams the one in the nose, and bracelets, and even in verse 22 of chapter 35, even various ornaments that were worn by women in their, like, near their private area, near their genitalia.

And here, Moses is not taking the mirrors, it seems a little bit inconsistent. So, there are ban answers. He says, well, the various gold ornaments, those things were all melted together, and therefore, it became one big pot.

So, it doesn't matter what the origin of the gold was, whereas the mirrors are going to be used as is, and therefore Moses felt that it's not appropriate mirrors that were used for women to beautify themselves, that's not appropriate to be used in the tabernacle.

And I think it's something that's worthwhile to ponder a little bit over here. You know, we see polar opposite responses to these mirrors. On one hand, Moses, he's disgusted by it. He says, this is not a good candidate, this is used for the Aitsahara.

And God responds with the absolute extreme argument, not only is he not disgusted by it, he says, there's nothing better than this. This is the best.

And I think it's kind of puzzling, how is it possible that Moses and God have such diametrically opposed positions on this matter? How is it possible that Moses is like, this is disgusting, this is terrible, this is used for the Aitsahara, this is used for the evil inclination, this is not something that should be used in the mistrun in the tabernacle. And God says, no, no, this is the best thing, this is the most desirable thing in my eyes.

What's, in fact, a disagreement? So I want to suggest maybe an answer based on the Talmud in the book of South on page 17a. The Talmud says that a husband and a wife, a man and a woman, if they are meritorious, if Zahul, Shrina Benei, then the Shrina is a monstam. If they are meritorious, the Shrina is a monstam.

However, if they are not meritorious, a fire will consume them. Says Rashi, what does this mean? The word ish means man, and the word ishah means woman. And both of them have the same letters alif-shin, which is ish, which means fire.

But the man has alif-yud-shin, and the word woman has alif-shin-hei, and the letters yud-in-hei, they are the name of God.

Therefore, when a man and a woman are in their idealized situation, God has a monstam, if the name of God. Whereas if you withdraw the name of God, you take the yud away from the man and the hei away from the woman.

So what does this mean? So our sage has explained to us that what this means is that a man and a woman in their most intimate relationship, if they are meritorious, then God is a monstam.

That union can be the most spiritual acumen, pinnacle of human experience, God's a monstam, the shrinas a monstam. That's if they are meritorious. Whereas if they are not meritorious, that's setting union, all you have is fire, which means a very powerful idea.

The yaitsahara, the evil chanesh, that's there to spur us towards sin, really, that really depends on the context, if they are meritorious, then that union, that thing that could have been a sin, well actually it was a representation of the shrinas, the shrinas a monstam.

That very same union, if it's devoid, if it's been denuded of God's presence, all you have is the fire of the evil inclination of the yaitsahara.

Both God and Moses, so to speak, when they saw these mirrors, they saw the yaitsahara, they saw the inclination, they saw the passion, the arousal, the lust, the licentiousness of marital intimacy.

Moses is like, this is not, has no place in the tabernacle. This is the yaitsahara. What is this doing over here? It doesn't belong. And God says quite the contrary.

There is nothing more desirable for me because in the way that they did it, in the efforts that they took to bring the Jewish people to where they are today, a mighty nation, a nation worthy of accepting the Torah,

that was actually a variety of marital union, that is meritorious. And therefore God is a monstam, the shrinas are a monstam. And indeed, in the mistrown, in the tabernacle, you're trying to bring God, you're trying to bring the presence of God the shrinah, there is no better candidate to do that than those mirrors that symbolized a union of husband and wife when they are indeed meritorious and God and God's shrinah is amongst them.

The partial concludes with the construction of the courtyard, which is the surrounding area of the courtyard in which the mistrown was held, and then there is the strain at the entrance of the mistrown, and thus concludes parcis fiyakil.

Parcis patrude begins with a counting of the materials used or some of the materials used for the tabernacle. And the word patrude means counting or translates sometimes as reckoning.

These are the reckoning of the tabernacle, the tabernacle of testimony, which were reckoned by Moshe, the labor of the Levites, under the authority of Isomar, the son of Aaron, the Cohen.

In a way, Rashi tells us one of the major themes of the mistrown, the reason why the tabernacles hold the tabernacle of testimony, because it serves as testimony to the fact that the Almighty forgave the Jewish people for the sin of the golden calf.

So we read Jewish people wanted to do an idol, and that, of course, it was a terrible sin. And nonetheless, despite the fact that Jewish people seem to have repudiated God, still he agreed in the tabernacle to dwell amongst us to have his presence.

Hischina dwell amongst us, and therefore this mistrown serves as a testimony to that.

And one of the other commentaries points out that if you look at the format of this verse, it begins, these are the recordings Aile patrude a mistrown.

And he points out that in the episode of the golden calf in chapter 32 verse 4 of Exodus, it says, Aile, the same word, these are your gods, O Israel, who took you out of the land of Egypt.

And the commentaries suggest that there is a certain connection between the sin, so to speak, the sin of the golden calf, that expelled God, so to speak, or repelled God away from us, and the expiation of that, the fixing of that,

that we have over here with the mistrown, that it too has the word Aile, these, because it is the fixing, it is the amending of the sin of the golden calf.

Now the parasha is going to begin, like we mentioned earlier, with counting the gold, how much gold was there, what was the total weight of gold, what was the total weight of the assembled silver and copper.

And there is a very lengthy midress here about the reason why we have to begin, again, to talk about the supplies that were donated, and also to list them, to make like this list of how much, how many pounds, so to speak, how much weight do we get of gold, silver, and of copper.

And the midress tells us that there were stoppers amongst the Jewish people, and they were snickering behind Moses' back, and they were saying, oh, Moses is raising all this money, all this gold, all this silver, to build the tabernacle, and it stored in this big storage house, I bet Moses is taking a cut of the money.

And therefore, but when Moses found out about that, he said, oh, okay, you suspecting me, of taking a cut of illegally imbezzling some of the money that was designated for the tabernacle, when we're done here, I promise that we're going to make an accounting, we're going to make a reckoning, we're going to see exactly what you come in, and I'll prove beyond any doubt that I didn't take anything I was completely honest, I acted with a complete integrity in overseeing,

the materials for the mistrun. And the midress was not to say, quote, in the Talmud, that with regards to appointing someone to oversee matters of the public, if that job is a job that involves public funds, if you have someone who's in charge of, let's say, of the school treasury, or the school treasury, whatever it is, if there's public funds that need to be overseen, it should not be one person, one person alone,

that has the keys to the coffers, there should be a minimum of two, and that way they'll have to collaborate in order to steal.

Same thing over here, Moses, even though if anyone is unimpeachable, if anyone is a beyond reproach, of course it's Moses, but nevertheless, he insisted to always have Isomar, the son of Aaron, the co-ain, always have him with him, never to be suspected of any sort of,

this sort of graft or embezzlement, or stealing from the public funds. And the tower goes on to say, how much gold do we have, how much silver do we have, and how much copper, and the number is a pretty astronomical, there is 29 talents of gold, a talent of gold is about 100 pounds of gold, incredible amount of gold, and even more silver.

One of the commentaries that Sephora tells us something very interesting, he says, if you compare the amount of gold and precious materials used in the mistrun, yes, it's a lot, but compared to what was used in the first and second temple when the mistrun is, of course, a portable temple, and you could disassemble it, move it, and when you got to your new location, put it together again.

But once you have a permanent temple, it's a much larger edifice, and there's much more gold, both in the first temple built by Solomon, the second temple, and that was, of course, a refurbished by Herod to be made the most beautiful building in the world, with incredible amounts of gold that dwarfed what we have over here.

Since the Sephora, there's an incredible lesson here, the reason why God dwells amongst the Jewish people, and in the mistrun has nothing to do with the amount of gold, rather has to do with their character, because these people fear God, their actions made them worthy of God dwelling amongst them, therefore the peat of divine presence amongst the Jewish people was in the mistrun, it was still present in the first temple, but once the second temple came around, it was much more diminished.

And despite the fact that all the gold, the gold is not what brings God, it is the character of the nation that has built and that has living with the temple or the tabernacle.

Now, we're told that there's a hundred talents of silver, and there's also a hundred silver sockets, and each one of those silver sockets is one talent of silver.

Now, it's interesting that the majority of the items that were fundraised for the mistrun were done based upon the largest and magnanimity of the donors.

There was only one thing that was obligatory for everyone, and that is the half-shackle that everyone gave, and that was used to make these silver sockets that go underneath at the base of the walls of the mistrun, the walls of the tabernacle,

that were used to hold up the wooden beams.

And I think maybe there's a deep lesson here that the Jewish people, they can have a relationship with God that it is embodied by the tabernacle.

And the great relationship, of course, is, there's all these things that the two partners in the relationship do for each other, that they do have the goodness of the heart.

They inspire, they're generous, they want to act good towards their partner.

However, every great relationship, it's not enough to have the things that you do have the goodness of your heart, there has to be a basis of obligation.

The foundation has to be obligation.

Similarly, a few weeks ago, we had, of course, the episode of the Giving of the Torah at Sinai, and we read quite interestingly that the Jewish people, they committed themselves, they were in.

They said, not seven, we will do, we will listen, whatever God tells us, we're unborn.

Yet, the Talmud tells us that despite the fact that the Jewish people voluntarily agreed to be all in, God took the mountain and wielded it on top of them and said, you better accept the Torah, or else I crush you to death over here.

I don't get it.

If the Jewish people already pledged that they are in, why did God need to wield the mountain over them?

Why did He need to force them to accept it based upon this obligation?

The answer is that despite the fact that the Jewish people, they agreed to adopt the Torah, the foundation of everything is the obligation.

I think, you know, similarly with marriage, any sort of relationship, but certainly marriage, the couple loves each other, and that's amazing.

And if they don't have that, it's pretty bad.

But there's still a certain concretization, there's still a certain commitment that the marriage begins with.

Not enough to have the love, you also have to have the commitment, and that's the way to ensure a harmonious and lasting relationship.

And one of the commentaries tells us something very fascinating, the Bahaturim here says, that the hundred silver sockets that held up the beams, they correspond, the Talmud, the Talmud tells us that every day we're supposed to make a hundred blessings.

Of course, when we pray, there's all kinds of blessings that we say when we pray, when you eat, when you go to the bathroom, but that some total every day should be a minimum of 100 blessings.

Now, if you just say the three daily prayers, you have about 90 or so.

So all you need is to eat a few things, and if you make a, before blessings and after blessings, go to the bathroom a couple of times, you should have it covered every day.

But the Talmud says that you have to have a hundred blessings a day.

And it's an interesting correlation here, it's interesting comparison that these silver sockets that lie at the basis of the mission of the Tabernacle, they correspond to the hundred blessings that we say every day, every time we say Baruch at Hashem,

where again, reinforcing this relationship that we have with God, reminding ourselves of the obligation to thank him before we partake in the pleasures of this world.

And that creates the basis of our internal mission, our internal tabernacle, our internal relation that we have with God, that is manifested with our daily blessings.

Okay, so we have counted the amount of gold and silver, the Torah tells us again how much copper there was 70 talents of copper.

And then we're going to talk about the creation of the vestments of the garments of Aaron, the high priest.

Chapter 39 begins from the turquoise, purple and starlet wool, they made knit vestiments to serve in the sanctuary and made the holy vestiments for Aaron as Hashem commanded Moses.

Now, it's interesting, this is the first of more than a dozen times that this formulation appears in the parsha, as Hashem commanded Moses.

Everything that Moses did and he directed but Salah on a holy of the people that were in charge of this whole operation, everything was done precisely exactly as God commanded Moses.

Now, the fact that it's repeated again, again, should of course raise some eyebrows.

Wouldn't it be sufficient to just say once at the end, wouldn't that tell us that same message? Why is there a need to repeatedly tell us that everything that was done was done as God commanded Moses?

So maybe there's several answers here. One of the answers is that Moses is creating or is overseeing the garments that are going to be given to Aaron.

And as we mentioned a few weeks ago, Aaron himself was really not supposed to be the high priest who was supposed to be Moses.

So Moses has to come and craft or oversee the crafting of the garments that are beginning to his brother who is supplanting him, who maybe in his eyes could have been usurping him as the high priest.

Nevertheless, he didn't deviate at all from his commandment of his instruction. Everything he did, he did exactly the way God commanded him, he wasn't at all adding any enmity or any biases, vis-a-vis these garments, he just did everything exactly the way God commanded him.

Alternatively, there's another deep lesson here that we find by some of the commentaries and they suggest, like we said earlier, that really the tabernacle is a reflection of the atonement for the golden calf.

The golden calf, there was a lot of reasons why the Jewish people decided that this was the proper thing to do.

And of course, in our eyes, they made a serious blunder and they did, but they had their justification. They said, well, we need some of to replace Moses and this made sense.

And they had all kinds of justifications, but ultimately, they did it on their own. And they forgot that really what they should have done is say, what does God want us to do?

And therefore, how do you fix the problem of the golden calf, the problem of the people acting independently, irrespective of the will of God, you again and again and again repeat this I'm doing because God commanded us, God instructed us exactly the way God instructed Moses.

By closing out your own mind, by stopping to invest your own perspective on the matter, what you think about it doesn't matter. It's only what God says.

That is the way to fix the sin of taking your own good intentions and creating something akin to idolatry.

So we begin with the a photo, the a photo is that apron like garment, it's made of gold turquoise purple, scarlet wool and twisted linen.

And we've already described what it looks like. It has the two shoulder straps that go on top on the two shoulder straps. You have those show home stones, which connect to the quotient, the breastplate that goes on the chest of Aaron.

Again, it lists the 12 stones of the quotient upon which the names of the children of Israel, the tribes of the Jewish people were etched.

Now, it is interesting that these 12 stones, the Torah gives us the names of these 12 stones, but collectively they're called the Avne Milouim.

So there's really 14 stones, two of them that go on the shoulder pads of the a photo, and 12 of them go on the Khoshen, go on the breastplate.

And they are called collectively the Avne Showhum, the showhum stones that go on the shoulders, and the Avne Milouim.

Now, what does that mean? This group of 12 precious stones each engraved with the name of one of the tribes, they're inlaid in 12 gold settings in the breastplate.

And each one of them are quite expensive and very valuable. Yet the Torah collectively calls them the Avne Milouim, which means literally the filler stones,

referring to the fact that they fill the gold settings in the Khoshen in the breastplate. It's kind of odd.

Why would the Torah refer to these incredibly valuable precious, very expensive stones simply by the fact that they fill the void in the Khoshen in the gold settings in the breastplate?

And maybe the answer is that the most important job that anyone could do is to do the job that needs to get done.

And therefore, yes, these stones on their own are very valuable, but even more valuable, even more precious than the stones themselves is the fact that they have a role.

And the role is there's a void of the Khoshen and they have to fill that job.

And sometimes I think the lesson for us is that sometimes the jobs that we need to do are not so glamorous, and they're not so exciting.

But even when they are glamorous, we have to realize that what we really need to do is we're put into this world, we're giving our mission,

and our mission is to do whatever it is and it needs to get done, and that's our job, that's our responsibility.

Now, the Talmatel is something very fascinating that the names of the 12 tribes were etched onto these 12 stones.

How exactly were they, actually, you would think maybe with a chisel, maybe with, maybe they were written down, in paint, or with ink, does the Talmat know?

There's a special animal, it's very small, it's the size of a barley, it's called the Shamir, and this animal, in fact, the Talmatel's us,

is one of the 10 things that were created during the first week of creation, between Friday and Shabbos, at that twilight period,

where Friday is almost over, and Shabbos is almost beginning, it's kind of that overlapping time between Friday and Shabbos,

that's the time that there were 10 things that were created, and the commonality that these 10 items share is the fact that they are hybrids.

Shabbos, of course, is a data soul spiritual, and then the six days that are physical, that are material.

The themes that were created between Friday and Shabbos during that twilight zone, those are the things that are the hybrids.

This Shamir, this special animal, it's a worm of sorts, that was created during that twilight zone, and the way that engravings were done,

is that they would write the letters of the names of the tribes, and then they would have this animal trace those letters, and as it traced that it had some sort of power,

that it would etch into the stones of those names.

A pretty interesting thing, the Talmatel goes on to say, well, how do you actually transport it, everything you put it in, it would continually etch it, the Talmatel even says,

that if you put it on top of a mountain, this small little animal, put it on top of a mountain, if it goes over the mountain, whatever it covers, it's totally splitting.

So if it's not on a mountain, it's splitting the whole mountain.

And again, this is something that it's very hard for modern ears to absorb, that there's such an animal that has such powers,

but think of it as some sort of nuclear bomb, it's really not a lot of material, but it has incredible force.

I don't know, it's a laser, it's some sort of power that is condensed in this very special animal, and I was able to split the stone and etch in it in the names of the Jewish people.

And the Talmatel was not to tell us that when King Solomon constructed the first temple, he had to cut stone.

And the problem is, you can't cut stone, again, to make the walls of the temple, you can't cut stone with metal.

That's a prohibition, you can't use metal to cut any of the stones using the temple.

So what did he do? He found this Shamir, and this Shamir, the special animal, cut the stones for him, pretty cool.

After we read about the Afo, we read about the rest of the garments of the high priest, we read about the Milleil, which is the robe, and the various tunics, and the headplates, and the crown.

And finally, everything has been concluded.

Verse 32, we read all the work of the tabernacle, the attentive meaning was completed, and the children of Israel done everything that Hashem commanded Moses, so did they do.

They're finished with the work, and they bring it to Moses.

They brought the tabernacle to Moses, the tent, and all the utensils, its hoots, its planes, its bars, its pillars, its sockets, the cover, the art, various other vessels, everything they've bring it to Moses, everything they did precisely the way God commanded Moses.

Moses saw the entire work and behold, they had done it as Hashem commanded, so had they done, and Moses blessed them.

So I want to kind of circle back to the central question that the commentaries discuss on this parasha.

Again, if you look at a retrospective of the book of Exodus, you have the five final parcios almost exclusively dedicated to building the tabernacle, and we have what seems like tremendous repetition with the instruction, and then the assembly, and then at every stage of the way kind of taking an accounting,

I want to suggest another way to maybe understand this whole idea.

Again, we have the instructions to build the tabernacle, all its vessels, and all the garments of the high priest.

In the middle, you have the store of the gold calf, and then you have the instruction being implemented afterwards.

I want to suggest that maybe there's another deep lesson here, and that is to build something great, you first need to flounder.

Earlier, failure is almost inevitable if the accomplishment is really great, and there's a midrush that says, quoting a verse in scripture, that if I didn't have darkness, if I didn't have the earlier struggle, I wouldn't have the light that I have today.

The Talmud, in fact, tells us that for us to do a mitzvah perfectly, which is really the goal of why we're here, we first have to do a mitzvah imperfectly.

And even though doing a mitzvah imperfectly is problematic, after all, how can we do a mitzvah that's not perfect, but really that's the only path forward, the blunder is really the first step of growth.

The lower runs of the ladder are low, for a reason, because they're really rife with mistakes, and you really can't skip it. There's no way to leapfrog the problems, the errors, the blunders, in whatever project it is, and just have success out of the gate.

And the Talmud, in the book of Git, in page 43A, tells us, even with regards to Torah, a person cannot understand the words of Torah, well, unless they first have failure.

Failure is not incidental to the future of growth. The scripture tells us that, that said it, the righteous one falls seven times and keeps on getting drops.

And we think, maybe, well, despite the fact that the Sadat, the righteous one, falls seven times, he still gets up. But really, the answer is no. That because the Sadat, falls seven times, that's the reason why he became the great person that he became.

And this is something that we see throughout history, the major efforts to do anything great, they kind of trip up at the beginning until eventually they arrive at the ultimate accomplishment that they need, that they eventually become.

So think about the Mistran, you know, you have this planning, this coordination, this effort into a major project to have the Almighty dwell amongst us.

And you're sure that everything's going to grow swimmingly, everything to be under budget, and it had a schedule. And what do we read about? We read about the worst sin of Jewish history.

Do you want to bring the Almighty into the world? Or do you want to bring an idol?

And what happens right after the Jewish people, a tone for their sin, you get back to work. And maybe the lesson for us is, is that every project that we undertake will have its phase where there's going to be despair, will we accomplish what we want to accomplish? Will there be success or not?

Every project is going to have its golden calf. And maybe it's kind of reassuring to read that even after the huge mistake, the huge blunder, it's still possible to build that magnificent edifice.

And the Torah details every step of the building process and it seems to be exactly like how it was conceived earlier to tell us that really there was nothing lost along the way.

And the misstep of the golden calf did not have any lasting effects.

I once heard from one of my teachers something very scary, and he said that every couple that gets married, they're sure, at least at some point in the early stages of their marriage, they're sure that they married the wrong one.

Sure, they made a mistake, can't be, can't be this is the right one, which to me there was an astonishing statement. But I think in this light, you know, two people want to get married and they want to build something incredible together, it's almost inevitable that there's going to be some failure in the interim.

The grand plans are going to be disrupted, but they're not going to be abandoned, it's still possible to implement those plans. And therefore reading about how nothing was lost, I think could provide us a nice degree of consolation.

The parasha and indeed the book concludes that God instructed Moses on the day of the first new moon, on the first of the month, which is the first day of Nissan, you erect the tabernacle, the tabernacle of meeting.

Again, we go through all the details of assembling and setting up the mist on the tabernacle, the tabernacle is erected, motion puts all the vessels in the correct place, he doesn't have a very specific order, everything is completed.

And the book ends the cloud covered the tenth of meaning, the glory of a Shem filled the tabernacle, Moses was not able to enter, there was such intensity in God's presence, he was only able to enter once the intense cloud subsided a little bit.

And this cloud would also indicate when it was time for the Jews to embark on their journeys and the parasha and the book of Exodus ends for the cloud of a Shem would be in the tabernacle by day.

And fire would be on it by night for the eyes of all of the house of Israel throughout all their journeys, Chazak, Chazak, Chazak, Chazak, Chazak, Chazak.

Be strong, be strong, may we be strengthened, we have included the book of Exodus, the mist on the tabernacle has been completed.

And I think of this somewhat like a lunar mission, you know, we're going to the moon, he spent all that time detailing every aspect of the spacecraft, every aspect of the suits,

of the astronauts, everything is planned down to perfection, and finally we have liftoff and everything works out exactly as promised, the presence of God indeed is dwelling in the tabernacle.