[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.
[00:00:09] Before we begin this week's episode on Parasha's Truma, I wanted to talk about something which is very close to my heart, and perhaps you can help me. Central in Judaism is a concept of Hakaras Hatov, having gratitude.
[00:00:28] And we see this idea manifesting itself many, many times in the Torah, uh, with, you know, our patriarchs and matriarchs. And even one of the reasons that we're referred to as Jews is because we're thankful. We're a thankful people. That's why we're called Yehudim.
[00:00:48] Jews comes from the word Yehudim, right? Which comes from the matriarch Leah, who thanked God from the fact that she was given another son, an extra son. So we see this concept of having gratitude is a very central tenant to Judaism and especially this week's parsha. This week's parsha talks about the Mishkan, and we're going to get into it. The Tabernacle, God's resting place.
[00:01:16] And now Hashem commands Moshe Rabbeinu that he should make the Mishkan and he should have an appeal to the Jewish nation, that they should come to support the building of the Mishkan, the building of the Tabernacle.
[00:01:31] And civically, the commentaries tell us that when. And they learn it from this week's Parasha. And I believe I've talked about in previous years, that when we give charity, the question is, who benefits? Is it the person you're giving it to? Or is it the giver? Is the giver the one who benefits?
[00:01:51] And ultimately, the answer to that question is that although we hand over our, uh, hard earned cash to help someone, it is us, the givers, who really get the better end of the deal. Because we're getting eternity, we're getting a mitzvah, we're getting. We're getting the zechus of supporting a good cause.
[00:02:13] So before we begin, I wanted to talk to you about something I am involved in. I'm an alumnus of Yeshiva Derechaim, which is a yeshiva, a institution of higher learning in Brooklyn, New York.
[00:02:27] And I studied there for approximately eight years.
[00:02:30] And who I am as a person today is due in large part to, to the yeshiva that I went to, which molded me to who I am and the rabbis in that yeshiva that guide me to this day.
[00:02:43] And currently the yeshiva is running a campaign to support what they do to continue their mission, their holy work. And I could say as, uh, someone who went to that yeshiva, you know, any boy who has a sincere desire to learn, who wants to learn, is not turned away. No matter if they're lacking finances, no matter if they need extra help.
[00:03:11] Any boy who wants to come and study Torah is welcome in the yeshiva. It's a very unique place. It's a very special place. And me, as an alumni, I feel I want to do my part to ensure that the yeshiva is on sound financial footing, to pay the rabbis, to pay their rabbeim, to provide for the students, that they can continue what they are doing for many, many years.
[00:03:35] So I ask of you if you could perhaps consider donating to this worthy cause.
[00:03:42] The link is in the show notes below.
[00:03:44] So if you enjoy this podcast, that is a direct result of my time spent in Yeshiva Derechaim in Brooklyn, New York. So if you could take a moment, it would mean so much to me. Take a moment, put this podcast on pause for one second. Don't worry, I'll wait till you come back. And to give, uh, a donation to this campaign.
[00:04:06] The link is in the show notes. It would mean so much to me.
[00:04:09] And you should be blessed to always be on the giving end.
[00:04:14] And as always, before we begin, if you have any questions, comments, or just would like to reach out to say hello, feel free to send me an email at. Rabbi Shlomo Kon K o h N I'd love to hear from you.
[00:04:28] This week's Parsha is Parshas Truma.
[00:04:33] And Parshas Truma talks about Hashem's commandment to Moshe Rabbeinu to tell the children of Israel to start building the Mishkan, to gather the resources to get the donations.
[00:04:48] And Hashem gives specific instructions to Moshe Rabbeinu on how the Mishkan should be built, the Tabernacle should be built, and the different utensils and altars that are going to be in them and that are going to be inside of the tabernacle. Now, just to give a little overview for a moment, um, the tabernacle was like a mini temple. It was this mobile temple which eventually, right when the Beis Hamikdash, when the holy temple was built in Jerusalem, that was the permanent structure. But when the Jews were in the desert, the Jews had the Mishkan, the tabernacle. And G D commands the Jewish people to build the Mishkan. And the instructions are really in this week's Parsha. And next week's Parsha is a continuation. But this week's parsha tells us about the commandment to build it, as well as the special cover that covered the sanctuary of the tabernacle, as well as the shulchan, um, the special table that had the showbreads on it, as well as the menorah and the altar and the different measurements of the walls and how the walls should be built and how they should be structured.
[00:06:00] And finally, the parsha finishes off with the paroches, the different partitions, the special partitions and how they were designed, as well as the courtyard of the Mishkan, and how it should be set up, as well as finishing off with the special Mizbeach, huh, Nechosha, the copper Mizbeach.
[00:06:19] Now, the first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the beginning of the Parsha.
[00:06:25] The parsha starts off with G D giving a commandment to Moshe Rabbeinu to build the tabernacle, to build the Mishkan as a resting place for the Shechina and as a resting place for the Divine Presence. And we've talked in other episodes about this concept of why it is necessary to have a Mishkan. Why do you need the central point where the presence of G D rests?
[00:06:50] And maybe today we'll talk about how this could apply to us. Nowadays, when we don't have a temple, we don't have a tabernacle. But the Parsha starts with this commandment. And then suddenly, after giving that commandment to have this building, the parsha segues into the ark, the holy ark that was in the Holy of Holies, in the tabernacle. That's the first thing that we're discussing, and it continues with the COVID and the special table, the menorah. And finally, only at the end of the parasha does it discuss the actual construction of the walls and the courtyard and how it should be set up and the actual building.
[00:07:32] So the question that's asked, and I saw this brought down by Rabbi Frand, is that why is it that the parsha that starts off with Hashem's, uh, commandment to build this Mishkan?
[00:07:46] It would make more sense if after giving the commandment to build the Mishkan, it would go into how the walls are built, how the, you know, the courtyard, how it's set up, and after we finish, finish the framing, you know, quote unquote, we can go into the interior design of what's supposed to be on the inside. Just like when you build a house, you don't try to figure out what type of, uh, you know, furniture, uh, you're gonna have in the house. Before you build the house, first you have to build the house, and only after you have the house complete or almost finished or the design for the house in place are you able to pick out the furniture you want and the designs you want for the interior. Why is it that the Torah is switching it around? Over here you have the commandment, build a Mishkan. And then we segue onto the Ark and the Menorah and to the other utensils that were used in the Mishkan, the tabernacle. Now, this question is even compounded even further, because in Parshas Vayaka later on, when the Mishkan, when the tabernacle was actually built, it was built with the walls first, the frame was put up first.
[00:08:52] So over here, when we're describing how it should be, you know, the description of how it should be built, instructions, it's not given in the same way. Rabbi Fran answers that the midrash brings down that the reason why the ark was described to us first before the actual description of the building is because it teaches us something very important about the foundation of the spiritual things that we do. The psukim, the verses tell us that inside of the holy Ark there were different things put inside the holy Ark.
[00:09:30] One of them was the tablets.
[00:09:33] The tablets, the Ten Commandments were placed inside of the ark.
[00:09:38] And the commentaries teach us that the ark represented Torah study.
[00:09:47] That's what the ark represented, the study of Torah, you know, and really, there's great significances to every aspect of the tabernacle, every part of the Mishkan, but specifically, the ark represented the study of Torah.
[00:10:03] And the lesson here is, is that for something to be successful, and especially when it comes to spirituality, a spiritual endeavor, right? In order for it to be, um, successful, it must be built on a foundation of Torah that before anything else, it has to be Torah.
[00:10:28] Now, you think about this for a second. I mean, this is something which really has rung true throughout our history. You know, look at the Jewish people.
[00:10:37] We are all over the world. We've been dispersed all over the place.
[00:10:41] We look different, we talk different languages.
[00:10:44] But what makes us a, uh, people?
[00:10:48] What brings us together?
[00:10:50] So you might answer, you know, there's the land of Israel, the state of Israel.
[00:10:57] That can't be because, you know, sure, it's a blessing that we have, you know, the state of Israel. Nowadays, there's a place for Jews to go, but for the majority of our history, we've been outside of the land of Israel in the diaspora. And we've still maintained our distinct identity of who we are.
[00:11:17] If you're going to say it's gefilte fish, it's the foods we eat, it's the cultural things we do, it's the, uh, the raisin challah, that can't be either, because there are Jews in some places that don't eat gefilte fish, and in fact, they don't even like gefilte fish.
[00:11:33] And, you know, we eat different foods, we have different customs, but we're all Jewish.
[00:11:38] So what binds us together?
[00:11:41] The answer to that is the Torah.
[00:11:44] There is nothing else besides the Torah that makes us into a people.
[00:11:48] And if we don't have that foundation, it's not going to be sustainable.
[00:11:53] If you think about modern history in the United States, when Jews started coming to the United States in the early 1800s and 1900s, there was, you know, there was no infrastructure of Torah study.
[00:12:12] And probably in our history, we've never seen such a, uh, mass assimilation of people. People who have left their religion more than coming to the United States because they didn't have that, um, framework, that foundation of, you know, Torah institutions, of yeshivas.
[00:12:30] There were synagogues, there were, you know, there were hotels, Jewish hotels, there were Jewish clubs.
[00:12:38] But yet we see today that those institutions have not kept people from leaving their religion.
[00:12:48] It's only the Torah that keeps us together. And perhaps, if not for brave individuals who probably in the early 1900s, pushed against the tide to start a, uh, yeshiva movement in the United States, that, God forbid, might have not been any Jews in the United States left.
[00:13:08] And this is something you could see firsthand today, that all these big shoals that were 100 years ago packed to the rafters, right? These big, beautiful buildings, unfortunately, today they're empty and struggling because it wasn't necessarily based on Torah study. That's what we need. It's yeshivas, you know, it's Torah study. It's yeshiva learning. It's not just something we do when we get up our mitzvah. And, you know, it sort of ties me back to the original appeal that I made in the beginning of this podcast, that who I am as a person is because of the yeshiva education that I received.
[00:13:46] So I think what we could take out of this is that it's the realization again, that what makes us a, uh, people, what gives us the foundation, if we want something to be everlasting, it needs to be a Torah foundation. It needs to have Torah study. We need to have yeshiva institutions. You have to have day schools and yeshivas.
[00:14:08] That's what sustains us in the long run. That's what keeps us going. That's what has and what is.
[00:14:15] And we see by Yosef, when Joseph was in the land of Egypt, when the whole family was coming down, after he told the brothers that he was Yosef, he was Joseph, the brothers sent down, they went ahead to open a yeshiva, to set the infrastructure up. This is historically how we've operated.
[00:14:33] We always had centers of Jewish learning that has sustained us, and that's what it takes to keep us going. The Torah is what sustains us on a personal level.
[00:14:43] It's what keeps us attached to our religion. And on a national level, that institutions of learning, that those institutions of learning, of continuous Torah study is what keeps us as a people. And this is something we see firsthand this generation. So just tying this back into the Parsha, when the Parsha gives the commandment of the Mishkan. So although there's the commandment, but the first part of the foundation, what we need first is the ark, which represents the Torah study. And that's why the Torah goes right away after the commandment to build, the ark segues into the holy ark, the Aron, because that represents Torah study.
[00:15:25] So in order for something to be everlasting, it needs that Torah foundation. That is what we see from this week's Parsha. The next idea I want to share with you today takes us to the verses in this week's Parasha that talk about the Mishkan as a dwelling place for the Shechina. It says in the verse as, um, they shall make a sanctuary for me so that I may dwell among them. And the parsha continues a few verses later, when it comes to the commandment to build the arkheti, arkoi va amavacheti rachboy va amavacheti koimasoi. They shall make an ark of acacia, uh, wood, two and a half cubits, its length, a cubit and a half, its width, and a cubit and a half its height.
[00:16:14] So it's very interesting over here. I want to focus on. On the same word that's used in two different places. It says when it talks about, you know, they shall make a sanctuary for me so that I may dwell among them. And when it comes to the commandment of the ark, it says they shall make an ark, right? The holy Ark. They.
[00:16:35] Now, if you look later on in the Parsha, when it comes to the other parts of the Mishkan, it says Ah, it says, and you shall make a cover. When it comes to the table, the holy table, the shulchan, Vasisa, Shulchan. And you shall make a shulchan. When it comes to the menorah, it says, you shall make a menorah. Um, why over here, in the beginning of the Parsha, those two places, when it comes to the general commandment of the Mishkan of the tabernacle, and when it comes to building the ark, it says they instead of you. It would make more sense to. It's referring to Moshe Rabbeinu Hashem is telling Moshe to build the tabernacle, you shall build it. What's this? They. And especially the question becomes even stronger because in the other places, the other utensils of the tabernacle, it says you. So what's going on over here? So I saw a beautiful understanding here from the Chavez Chaim, and I want to take it one step Further and Answer 2.
[00:17:38] Both places, based on this understanding of the Chavez Chayim and the Shloah Hakadosh, the Chavez Chayim answers as if it would have said, vaasisa, and you shall build the ark. Right. Specifically, when it comes to the commandment of the Holy Ark, you know, people would say to themselves, especially because the ark, as we mentioned before, represents Torah study, they'll say, ah, uh, you know, I'm the one who, uh, donated the ark.
[00:18:08] God didn't want a place for one person to say, I donated more to this ark than you. Meaning to say, if the commandment was singular, a person maybe would say, is like, uh, ah, it was my portion that went to the ark. My donation was the one who went to the ark. It was more singular.
[00:18:26] People might come to say that Dubini, because an opening for people to claim that they were the ones who built it, and it was their donation specifically. And they would maybe stake claim in the ark more than the rest of the nation.
[00:18:43] But over here, since the ark represents the Torah, the commandment was for the entire Jewish nation, not just for one person, that everyone should have a portion of in the building of the ark, that they, that everyone's portion should be combined to be brought together to create the ark. That's the commandment for everybody.
[00:19:08] And the lesson here is that many times people say to themselves, uh, I'm not a Torah scholar, I'm not a big rabbi. I didn't grow up with this. You know, it's not for me. I don't have a part of it. I'm never going to get A part of it. They, that is the incorrect attitude.
[00:19:25] You have to realize that every Jew has a chylek in the Torah, every Jew has a portion in the Torah. And it's for you that it's your heritage and it's your portion and it's for you to get. And you shouldn't say to yourselves, uh, it's just for the smart people, it's just for the religious people, it's just for the people who went to yeshiva. It's for each and every Jew. And that's the message of Vaasuli, uh, aron atay shiitem, that when it says and they should make that, it's showing us that every Jew has a portion in it. And that's something we have to realize. We shouldn't think it's just for one group. Sometimes I speak to people and it's like, you know, this is for you. Like, uh, other Jewish people say, oh, this is your, uh, mitzvah. No, it's not your, it's for all of us. This is your Torah. No, it's all of our Torahs. And it's all, it's for all of us. It's shared by each and every one of us.
[00:20:18] And I want to take this one step further because you could apply this logic of the chavatz chayim to the other part of the verse of Vaasuli mikdash v' shekhanti pe' socham. And you shall make a sanctuary for me. I'm sorry, they shall make a sanctuary for me so I may dwell among them.
[00:20:39] And the shlo explains that another way of reading the verse is that it doesn't mean necessarily as that I may dwell among them, that it's going to be a dwelling place. That's one way of understanding. But another way of understanding is that so that I will dwell within them. That I will dwell within each and every one of you.
[00:21:03] That, uh, he's going to dwell inside of the Jewish people, inside each and every individual in the Jewish nation. And I think the connection here is if that they shall make a sanctuary and then I will dwell in them is a lesson that each person has the ability to become a godly person. You know, each person has the ability to make a dwelling place for God within them.
[00:21:35] And again, same idea. We shouldn't just think it's for the super righteous or for the people who are super observant. No matter what your background and who you are, you have a place for God to dwell inside of you. It's all up to you if you permit him to enter.
[00:21:52] That's a famous story. There's a famous story that one of the great Hasidic masters, Rabsim Chabunim Shisha, asked his student, Rav Mendel of Cutsk. He said, where is God? He said, everywhere. He said, no, no, where is God? He says, you know, he's all encompassing. And he asked them again and again and again. He says, and finally, after answering the question and Rav Simcha Bunu of Pshizch.
[00:22:13] Not being happy with the answer, Rav Mendel turns to his master and he says, where is God? Uh, you know, where is he? And Rav Simcha Bonim answers, he is anywhere that we allow him to come in.
[00:22:28] Meaning it's all up to us.
[00:22:31] If we're all. We all have ability to attain godliness and to become that sanctuary, that to let God reside within us, to become elevated, to become godly, to become spiritual. It's all whether we are going to allow g D to reside in that space or not. It's something that up to us. And that's a lesson from this week's Parasha. We see va' uh asuli mikdash v' shehanti pesachem. And I think specifically that it uses the word vasu and they shall make a sanctuary, not vasisa uh, and that you shall make a sanctuary. It's teaching us the they, the plural, is teaching us that this is something for each and every one of us, for every Jew that we can all tap into, no matter our background, no matter who we are, no matter our IQ level, no matter our financial level, it's for each and every one of us that we can do as long as we decide to let him in. So with that, I'm going to finish 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 kon
[email protected]. have a great day.
