ספר שמות

All this is alluded to in the words: ‎אלה פקודי המשכן משכן העדות‎. The ‎word ‎עדות‎ is a reference to the Torah and its commandments; the ‎word ‎פקד‎ means that a connection was established, a union, much ‎as when a husband joins his wife in the marital bed in order to ‎jointly produce a child which is the visible symbol of their union. ‎‎[We read in Genesis 21,1 that Hashem ‎פקד את שרה ‏‎, ‎as a result of which she became pregnant. In other words, the ‎union of Avraham and Sarah was finally completed when Sarah ‎conceived Yitzchok. Ed.]‎If, G’d forbid, attributes such as love and awe, etc., instead of ‎being utilized in accordance with Torah principles are “wasted” ‎on unworthy objects or ideas, the Torah, or its representative the ‎Tabernacle, is perceived as not enjoying ‎מנוחה‎ a state of calm ‎satisfaction; similarly, if these attributes are abused by being ‎squandered on useless objects or alien concepts and their ‎representatives, G’d is in a state of restlessness, His mind not ‎being at ease.‎There is still another aspect to this subject of the attributes of ‎G’d and our duty to emulate them. When the attributes of G’d are ‎constantly being emulated by His creatures, in this case by the ‎Jewish people, this results in this “union” influencing the ‎dispensation of G’d’s largesse due to the connection to our Divine ‎source being a constant, never interrupted for even a brief period. ‎Putting the various vessels of the Tabernacle to use on a daily ‎basis, seeing that each represented part of a Divine attribute, the ‎unbroken connection was assured. Only in the desert, or ‎subsequently in Jerusalem, the site of the Temple, was it possible ‎to ensure that unbroken contact with the Divine origin of these ‎attributes, which served as a reminder to G’d that His people were ‎serving Him by trying to emulate His attributes. The distinction ‎possessed by the city of Jerusalem in this regard, was also ‎accorded to Shiloh and other locations where the Tabernacle ‎stood before Solomon built the Temple, though only on an ad hoc ‎basis.‎‎ The difference between the status of Shiloh and Jerusalem ‎was symbolised by the Tabernacle in Shiloh, which, though not ‎being a collapsible structure as the one in the desert, did not have ‎a permanent solid roof (although it functioned for more than 300 ‎years). (Compare Zevachim 112) The Torah had alluded to ‎this distinction when speaking of ‎מנוחה ‏‎ and ‎נחלה‎ as separate ‎concepts in Deuteronomy 12,9. The stage of ‎נחלה‎, ancestrally ‎owned territory, would not be reached until the erection of ‎Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. [The capital of Israel that ‎had been captured only during the latter part of David’s reign, ‎more than 450 years after Joshua crossed the Jordon with the ‎people. Ed.] The author sees an allusion to this already in ‎Exodus 25,15, where the Torah refers to the poles that were to be ‎used to carry the Holy Ark were to remain permanently in the ‎rings attached to the Ark for that purpose, and that they were ‎not to be removed even temporarily under any circumstances. ‎The reader will ask himself why the Torah added this restrictive ‎clause as applicable only to the poles used to carry the Ark, and ‎not to the poles used to carry the Table, for instance? Our author ‎suggests as an answer to this question that we remember that he ‎had described the very trek of the Israelites through the desert as ‎a spiritual ascent, i.e. return of the “sparks” that had fallen from ‎the Shechinah in disgrace on a previous occasion, and that it ‎had been the act of dismantling the Tabernacle that had enabled ‎these “sparks” to grasp an opportunity to rehabilitate ‎themselves. (compare pages 533-534). Clearly, the process of the ‎fallen sparks could not continue indefinitely, for how long would ‎G’d rebuke the same evildoers to return in penitence without ‎finally giving up and subjecting them to their deserved ‎punishment? On the other hand, it is perfectly plausible to hold ‎up a reminder to sinners, that there is a method through which ‎they could rehabilitate themselves.‎The Holy Ark’s function is to serve as a reminder to man that ‎at all times he must strive to repent and rehabilitate himself in ‎the eyes of the Lord. The regulation that the poles that serve to ‎carry the Holy Ark in the desert, [although once it had ‎been positioned in the Temple, the Ark was never to be removed ‎from there so that its poles became strictly symbolic in nature, ‎Ed.] served as this reminder. The “sparks” themselves, are ‎not only to be viewed as parts of the Shechinah which had ‎somehow gone astray, but they symbolize parts of the human ‎personality which had gone astray and were in need of ‎rehabilitation. Man (and in the first instance the Jewish man) is ‎supposed to be the “carrier” of the throne of G’d, in a sense ‎similar to the poles of the Holy Ark on top of which were the ‎cherubs between whose outstretched wings the Shechinah is ‎presumed to reside while the Ark is within the Temple. ‎‎[Some of these words are my own, but I am confident that ‎they supplement the exegesis of our author. Ed.] It did ‎not matter that the Ark, physically, once it had come to a place ‎of ‎מנוחה ונחלה‎ as stated in Deuteronomy 12,9 would no longer be ‎in motion. It is enough that we keep before our mind’s eye the ‎picture of the Holy Ark to remind us of the need to constantly ‎strive to rehabilitate any weakness in our personality that ‎manifested itself through our not emulating one of G’d’s ‎attributes by transgressing one of His commandments. ‎It is this thought that prompted our sages in Keritut 6 ‎to state that whenever we pray we must always include the ‎habitual sinners in our prayers, i.e. express the wish that they too ‎turn to G’d for forgiveness of their sins by changing their ‎lifestyles. This is our contribution to “repatriating” holy sparks ‎that had gone astray.‎