Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Practical Parasha Podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen, and I hope you are well. I'm a little bit hoarse this week, but I'm doing okay.
[00:00:11] And before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, would like to say hello.
[00:00:19] My email address is rabbi shlomokon k o h nmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:00:26] This week's parsha is Parsha's Vayakel Pekudei. It's a double parsha, meaning some years we read just Vayakel, and then the next Shabbos, we would read Pekudei, but in most years we read it together. So it's a double portion. And aside from being a double portion, it's also Shabbos Chazak, which means that this Shabbos we are going to be finishing.
[00:00:52] When we finish Pekudei, the book of Shemos, the second of the five books of the Torah, and when the Chazin, and when the Balkore, the Torah reader, finishes the last verses of Parshas Pekudei, the congregation is going to say, chazak, chazak v' nis Chazayk. Be strong, be strong, and may we be strengthened. And then the Balkore repeats that as well. So we're a little bit. We're not halfway through yet, but we're the second of five. So Chazak, chazak v' nis Chazayk. If you've been listening for a while, be strong, be strong, and may we be strengthened. And if you've just joined up, welcome, and you should continue to have strength to keep it going. And I'll, uh, make a plug. Why not that if you enjoy this podcast, maybe send it to a friend, share it.
[00:01:41] Someone else might enjoy it as well. Chazak, Chazak, be strong, be strong and maybe be strengthened. You'll strengthen someone else as well.
[00:01:49] So let's jump right into it. There's so much to talk about in this week's Parsha. Just to do a quick overview of the Parsha, Vayakhel focuses on this, you know, and Pekude, really it's now Moshe is giving the instructions that Hashem has given him to the Jewish people to create the Mishkan, to create the tabernacle. Right. In the previous Parshios, in the earlier, you know, earlier weeks, the Torah portions have, you know, delineated for us from Hashem to Moshe Rabbeinu, um, the commandment for the tabernacle for the Mishkan the vessels inside of the Mishkan, the garments of the Kohanim, who do the service in the Mishkan.
[00:02:34] And now finally, after Moshe has all the instructions from Hashem, he is going to, you know, empower the Jewish nation to create this Mishkan and Parshas. Vayakel is the beginning of that process that Moshe Rabbeinu is telling the Jewish people that these are the instructions to build the Mishkan and all the vessels is how you're going to do it. And in this week's Parasha, Moshe, um, assigns Bezalel and Aliyah as the two foremen to see this project to completion.
[00:03:11] And the Parasha goes through how the Jewish people built the actual Mishkan and its vessels. Parsha's pekude also has to do with actually creating the Mishkan. More of a focus on. It was more of an audit that after the Mishkan had been created from the Jewish people. So now there is a complete accounting of all the material that was used to create the Mishkan.
[00:03:39] And the Parasha also details for us how the Jewish people created the garments of the Kohanim. Finally finishes up with actually with telling us how the Mishkan was put up and how the presence of Hashem, the Shechina, rested on this building, you know, this physical building that the Jewish people created.
[00:04:00] So now. And they built it according to the word of Hashem.
[00:04:04] So now the Shechina came to rest on it.
[00:04:07] Now, the first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the beginning of the Parsha. It's interesting because in the beginning of the Parasha I mentioned this whole Parasha really talks about the Mishkan, the tabernacle, and how it was constructed. But before the Parasha even begins, the Torah gives us talks about Shabbos. It says in the verse, it says, sheishas yam tasse malacha vyemeshvish, ye lohem kaidesh Shabbos, Shabbosan la Hashem koloisa boy malacha Yumas and the next posse. And I'll translate in a moment.
[00:04:44] On six days work may be done, but the seventh day shall be holy for you, a day of complete rest for Hashem. Whoever does work on it shall be put to death. And then the next verse says, you shall not kindle fire in any of your dwellings on the Shabbos day. Now, I've talked about previous years, the significance of the Mitzvah of Shabbos being given before the Mishkan, which teaches us that Even if, you know, this idea that even when it comes to building the Mishkansh, the Shabbos, they have to stop on Shabbos.
[00:05:15] And, you know, we can't supersede God's, you know, knowledge. What he meant to say is we. We can't make calculations. Oh, uh, it's for the sake of God. I should build a Mishkan. God wants us to build the tabernacle. I should do it on Shabbos. So Torah says, no, you do Shabbos, keep Shabbos. And even if it's for the Mishkan, even if it's for God's commandment. But I want to focus on is a very powerful concept that I think it's worthwhile for us to discuss quickly.
[00:05:41] It says in the second verse that I read, You shall not kindle fire in any of your dwellings on the Shabbos day.
[00:05:52] Now, if you read the verse literally, it's not so clear.
[00:05:57] You shall not kindle a fire in any of your dwellings on Shabbos.
[00:06:02] Now, there's a very important point I think we should bring out from this.
[00:06:07] Now, most people we know we have the Torah. Torah is the five books of Moses.
[00:06:13] But what many people, you know, don't realize is that there's something called the written Torah and the Oral Torah. The written Torah is the five books of Moses, right? That we have. That's the written Torah. It's written down. But there's also the Oral Torah, which today manifests itself in the Mishnah and the Talmud, the Gemara.
[00:06:35] But the.
[00:06:36] The idea here is that the Gemara, the Talmud, you know, I've heard people say, oh, it's the rabbis. No, no, no. The Gemara, the Talmud, the Mishnah is part of the oral tradition that was given to Moshe Rabbeinu with the Torah. The Torah has two aspects. You have the written Torah and the Oral Torah, and they were given together by Hashem to the Jewish people.
[00:07:00] And, you know, there's different arguments that can be made to prove why you need both and why it has to be in a system like this. Like, you know, why couldn't God just put everything into the books, into one book and list it? There's a reason I don't want to go there right now, maybe a different episode. But what I want to focus on is one aspect of this is that, uh, there are many. You know, one of the reasons why we have an oral Torah and it's necessary to have the oral toe is because the Torah by itself, to the. If you just read it. There's a lot of passages that we wouldn't be able to understand. And they really, you could say that don't make any sense. And this is one example. Not that it doesn't make sense, but would not be understood properly.
[00:07:45] Persians shall not kindle a fire, uh, in any of your, uh, dwelling places.
[00:07:50] And the Shabbos day, right? So you could understand this, that you should sit in a room with no lights. There should be no kindling done. You should. You should not have any benefit of any kindling. But we know from the oral tradition from, you know, from the. Now it's written in the Talmud, it was given over to Moshe Rabbeinu. That. That's not what it means. The verse. The verse means that you can't light a fire on Shabbos, but you could have benefit from a fire. You could have benefit from something that was turned on before Shabbos, right? And actually, the Tzedukim, the Sadducees, who were a deviant sect in the Jewish earlier times, in the Jewish people, they only believed in the written Torah. And in order to fulfill what they thought they were doing, which was wrong, they would read the Torah literally and try to fulfill it. And they, on Shabbos would sit in the dark and have cold food. And the sages instituted, in order to fight back against that logic, to show that they are incorrect. And we have to have the Oral Torah, we have chellant, right? Have you ever had chalant on Shabbos? That warm, delicious food that's been sitting on the fire from before Shabbos?
[00:08:54] It's actually a mitzvah. Uh, it's a good thing to do to have hot food on Shabbos, meaning to say, is you put the food up, you cook it before Shabbos, and it sits on the flame during the whole Shabbos, right? If you make it before Shabbos, you put in a crock pot. That's the easiest way to do this, right? You put it up before Shabbos in the crock pot, and you let it sit throughout the whole Shabbos on the crock pot. And then when it comes to Shabbos day, when you want to eat it, you take it off the crock pot, take it off the fire of the crock pot, and you eat it and you have hot food. But this is just one example where we see that both have to go together, the Oral Torah and the written Torah. And they're both from Hashem, they're both divine.
[00:09:32] The second idea I want to share with you today to the actual building of the Mishkan, the building of the tabernacle. And the verses tell us the different motivations that people had when it came to building the Mishkan.
[00:09:44] And if you look at the Pesukim, there's an interesting point to be made.
[00:09:48] It says, It says every man whose heart inspired him came and everyone whose spirit motivated him brought the portion of hashem for the work of the tent of Meeting, for all its labor, and for all the sacred vestments.
[00:10:12] Now the, the commentaries explain, and I think I also talked about this in other years, but I wanted to zoom in on one specific point here, is that when the Jewish people were tasked with building the Mishkan and designing these garments, they weren't trained artisans, they were slaves in mitzrayim. They didn't necessarily. No one taught them these skills.
[00:10:34] Um, it's because they tried. They had some natural skill and they put their effort in. They had siyat d', shema, they had heavenly help to achieve these amazing things, to create these beautiful vessels and garments.
[00:10:49] But no one had trained them. They just decided to go for it. Maybe they had something there. There were certain people who are better at, ah, craftsmanship than others, but their heart desired it for them to do this, and they just did it. And actually the Orochaima Kadesh, he actually, he points out with the wording of the Pasuk, it Sundays there were two types of people when it came to the people who had motivation to get involved and to be part of the building of the Mishkan, and not just the actual building, but even to donate, to give money. There is one type of person who's a, um, you know, there was one type of individual who, who did it. He wanted to do it, and he did what he can and he gave what he can. And that's what it means, that there was a person. That's the first type of person that we're referring to, a person whose spirit motivated him. And there was another type of individual who gave even more than what he was able to do. And that was referring to the Na' Asoh Leibay. That was the person who, whose heart motivated him. It's interesting. It's two different points. Everything is exact in the Torah. So the Rachaim Hakodesh points out on these two terms refer to two different types of individuals. One was a person who, you know, he got inspired and he gave what he could. The second is individual. He was so moved that he did something even more than what he normally could do.
[00:12:25] He went beyond his limitations. And actually he points out in the pasuk that when it refers to this higher level, uh, that Naas Salibai, that his heart, you know, pushed him to do it right, he went beyond his limitations. It refers to him as ish. Ish is only going on that first part when it says that he gave with his heart. But when it comes to the second, the other level, which is not as high as this nasailibay, it's nadvaruchay that is his spirit movement motivated him. That's not as, you know, it's very noble, but it's not as high as the other level. It doesn't say the word ish. But either way, I think there's a very powerful lesson that we learned from this, is that we shouldn't feel confined to our limitations. We should always try to strive for things a little bit out of our comfort zone. And that's how we grow. That's how we become. We fulfill our potential. And really we could become more than our potential because if we only do things that we're comfortable with, we're not going to grow as much as we could. I'm m not going to say we're not going to grow, but we're going to be, you know, held back.
[00:13:26] We're not going to be reaching our true potential. It's a very healthy thing to do good things that are a little bit out of our comfort zone to push ourselves.
[00:13:38] Um, I'm not saying go crazy and to do things that are, you know, irresponsible or irrational. But it's good for us to try to push a little bit more than what we think we could do. You ask any bodybuilder. That's how they build their muscles up. They always do a little bit more than they did the last time. And I think that's supposed to be our attitude as well when it comes to life.
[00:14:01] We should feel good with our accomplishments and we should take pride in what we do. But we should also have a slight, slight level of dissatisfaction that we want to do better, that it's a motivator for us to keep going, to keep going out of that zone. Because when we do that, we're going to fulfill our potential and then get to the next level to do even more. That's a powerful lesson we see from this week's Parasha. The next idea I want to share with you today takes us towards the end of Parshas Vayakel.
[00:14:31] Now towards the end of Parsha Vayakel, the Torah describes to us the making of the vessels of the Mishkan. Right. Not just the actual structure of the tabernacle, but also the vessels that really, you know, they were sort of the center. The centerpieces of what the Mishkan was all about.
[00:14:55] Right. You have the ark, the Aron Hakodesh, you have the peroiches, the COVID You have the table, the shulchan, the golden table.
[00:15:05] Yeah, the menorah.
[00:15:07] Right. And the incense altar. And I saw it brought down. I think this is just a beautiful idea, like the fact that the Torah brings out the vessels. Again, not just the, uh, actual building of the structure, and more specifically, actually how the Torah ends the building of the Mishkan with the actual building of the vessels. Right. That was the focus of why the Mishkan was built for that the service of the Mishkan, the service of the temple, that they should be performed with these vessels and these altars and the menorah and the table. It signifies, really, it's brought down from the Ramban. The Ramban, I'm sorry, Nachmanides.
[00:15:52] That the Mishkan, and we've talked about this as well, was really a, uh, dichotomy. It was a miniature of really how the patriarchs and the matriarchs live, of their homes and who they were. Right. Because you have the ark, which had inside of it the tablets. The tablets, the Ten Commandments were inside of the Aron, the ark, which represented the Torah and all the ideals that are in the Torah.
[00:16:21] You have the. The shulchan, the table, which had the special loaves of bread on it, represented the struggle that man has with physicality and spirituality, that in order to have spirituality, we need to have the physicality as well. We need to support ourselves. That's the significance of the table.
[00:16:40] And you have the menorah. The menorah also represents the light of the Torah, and not just for ourselves, but also to shine it out to others, to teach, to live by example. That is some of the ideas of the menorah. This is all sort of a microcosm of how we're supposed to be living our lives, of who the matriarchs and the patriarchs were, how they lived in their homes and how we're supposed to make our are our homes and the places we live, like the Mishkan, like the tabernacle, like the Beis Hamigdash, like the temple.
[00:17:23] And obviously, we don't have the tabernacle today. We don't have the Mishkan. We don't have the temple, God willing, it will be rebuilt.
[00:17:32] But the idea, and, uh, I think this was the whole point when a Jew would come to the Mishkan, when they come to the tabernacle, they come to the temple.
[00:17:40] They would get this inspiration of how they were supposed to be living their lives the rest of the time that they were not there.
[00:17:48] And even when we don't have a Beis Hamikdash, we don't have a Mishkan. The lesson still stands because it's our job to take these concepts and to make ourselves, make our homes and our hearts into a, uh, Mishkan, into a dwelling place for Hashem.
[00:18:07] And the way you do that is by following the model. You have the vessels, you have the altar, right Torah, the principles of the Torah, you have the shulchan. It's this aspect of Gashmius, of the physical. We have to do. We have to do physical. We're in the physical world, but we need to do it in the right way with the spiritual mixed in for the spiritual purpose. We need the menorah, right? Uh, to teach. To teach our children to. To be an example for others, to spread the light of Torah to all our fellow Jews. These are the ideas of how, you know, the Mishkan was this place where Hashem rested his shechina, he rested his presence.
[00:18:47] How do we get that? How do we become a receptacle, a building that Hashem should be able to rest his presence within us. And I think this is the idea, what the symbolisms of what the Mishkan was is the lesson for us on how we're supposed to live our lives, to become into a, ah, Mishkan. And that's why the vessels of the Mishkan are listed last. Teach us like, this is the way to make this place into a dwelling place is through the symbolisms and the services that Hashem has set out for us. And incorporating that into our lives could create, um, can make us into a miniature Mishkan.
[00:19:33] Now, just to share two ideas regarding parshas pekude, I don't want to leave, you know, the second part, the second parsha out, right?
[00:19:41] You know, I want to say some ideas on both. So there's two ideas which really were talking to me this week. The first idea is that in the beginning of the parsha says, eil Bakudi hamishkan, Mishkan aidus asher pukad al pimosha, Avedas alaviyim biyat nizamor ben aroim hakoy.
[00:20:00] It says in the Parasha. These are the reckonings of the tabernacle, the tabernacle of testimony, which were reckoned at Moshe's bidding. The labor of the Levites was under the authority of Ysomar, the son of Aaron the Cohen. Now, the commentaries are very busy here to tell us that Moshe Rabbeinu initiated this audit. He didn't want anyone to question him because everyone was giving him gold, silver, all these valuable materials. He didn't want to be questioned by anybody that any of the materials went to the wrong place. So therefore, he gave a detailed accounting of where all the gold and silver and all the material went. Right? Now, it's discussed here. Think about it. Moshe Rabbeinu was the leader of the Jewish people.
[00:20:42] And his deputies, his foremen that were running this project under his direct supervision were also, you know, who they were was known to everybody. They were great, righteous people. People are going to have questions about it, about their honesty. You know, there's what to be talked about, right? Of course. You always have to be transparent. And even Moshe Rabbeinu, he wanted to show everybody he had nothing to hide. But the Sforno brings down a very beautiful idea from the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu, what he did here, right? Moshe Rabbeinu did this audit. You know, he was someone with the highest level of, you know, uh, of honesty and doing everything correct. And he brings out this point that we see from this, that from the way that Moshe built this Mishkan, he built the tabernacle, it was different than any other Mishkan that was ever built and temple that was ever built. We know that the Mishkan of Moshe Rabbeinu, this Mishkan, it was hidden away. It never was destroyed, right? At a certain point in time, uh, you know, I think in the prophets, the Neviim, they talk about how it was put away. It was hidden. Now, there was other Mishkans, Mishkan, Shiloh that was built later on, that was destroyed. The temple which was built by Shlomo Hamelech, King Solomon, it was before, even before it was even destroyed, though the pieces of it, different things had to be repaired. Uh, although the Shechina resided in, uh, Shlomo Hamelech's Beis Hamikdash, it still had wear and tear, and it was destroyed eventually as well.
[00:22:21] And the second Beis Hamikdash as well, it wasn't the same as the Beis Hamikdash of Shlomo. It was on a lesser level, and it was also destroyed.
[00:22:30] But we see by the Svarna brings down Moshe Rabbeinu's Mishkan never was destroyed, never was worn down, even.
[00:22:38] Because why? Because it was made with this honesty, this pure intent, with such sanctity that it could never wear down. It could never have been destroyed. And actually, I heard we know Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe was never let to go into the land of Israel because he sinned. He hit the rock. But God orchestrated in that way. I've heard this because if Moshe Rabbeinu would have entered the land, they would have had to build the Beis Hamikdash to build the temple. And a temple that Moshe Rabbeinu would have built could have never been destroyed. And that couldn't happen. Right? Because God didn't want to let that happen. And we can get into that. Why not?
[00:23:16] And the point is that God had to destroy the Beis Hamigdash, um, so he didn't destroy the Jewish people. But the point is that we see how much sanctity the actions of Moshe Rabbeinu had. And his physical action that he did of creating the Mishkan, it went into it. You know, we think of the physical world and the spiritual world as separates, but it's not separate. You know, we just don't think of it as such.
[00:23:39] The truth is that the spiritual actions we do can affect the physical world that we live in.
[00:23:45] And this idea is brought down by. By great. By different sources, how the things we do, the mitzvahs we do, affect the physical world we live in. The example over here of the Mishkan is even a more powerful example because it's directly connected to Moshe that he did it in such a way with such sanctity that it didn't wear down. It never got destroyed. And I think this is a very powerful idea for us.
[00:24:11] I don't know. We're not Moshe Rabbeinu. And I don't think if we build something that it's gonna last forever. But the point is that the actions we do, we should have intent, whether it be the mitzvahs that we do try to have intent, how to, you know, make that connection, to be mindful of things. And even when it's a more, you know, physical thing. Because if we do the physical acts with that intent of spirituality, it becomes a mitzvah, right? We eat. Why are we eating? We're eating because we just want it. We're hungry. We're eating because we want to serve Hashem better, right? Uh, why are we going on vacation? Is it because we just want to go on vacation and we're thinking about the next vacation? No, we're taking a vacation because we want to be rested so we can come back and serve Hashem better. We could be a better parent. And all the things we do, the physical things we do, we could connect. We could be more mindful of the things we do to make an impact on the physical person, who we are and in the physical world we live in.
[00:25:06] I think that's a powerful idea we see from Parshas Pekude, which can help us get a better ROI on the daily things we do in life.
[00:25:17] It's not just mundane doing the grind. We could make spiritual all the things that we do in our lives. That's the beauty of Yiddishkeit, the beauty of Judaism. So with that, I'm going to finish it for today's podcast. I hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments or would like to reach out, feel free to send me an email at Rabbi Shlomo Kohn kohnmail.com have a great day.
