Mar 5/05 — Shabbat Vayakhel

Commentary by Rabbi Alan Green

The last two portions of the Book of Exodus apply and repeat information found in previous passages of the Torah. In Parshat Vayakhel, the Tabernacle is constructed in detail, following the prescriptions found in the portion of Terumah. In the portion of Pikudei, the priestly garments are made again, following the details laid out earlier in the portion of Tetzaveh.

Why is it that the Torah needs to repeat every detail when describing the manufacture of the Tabernacle and the priestly garments? Wouldn't it have been enough for the Torah to simply say that the Temple was constructed and the garments made, as God had commanded?

Perhaps the Torah wants to make the very point that its commandments are to be carried out in great detail. This certainly would be in keeping with the tremendous expansion and elaboration of the laws of the Torah that we find in the Mishna, Talmud, and the whole of the Oral Torah tradition.

Another possibility is that repeating all this information points to a passionate involvement in the details of this process. Each step in manufacturing the Tabernacle and the priestly garments was an expression of the powerful love connection between God, Moses, and the people of Israel.

But the real answer to our question may lie in considering the sequence of events in the last part of the book of Exodus. The portion of Terumah deals with the command to make the Tabernacle. Tetzaveh follows with the command of the priestly garments. Immediately following these portions, Shabbat is mentioned in the portion of Ki Tisa.

Not coincidentally, the portion of Vayakhel, which follows Ki Tisa, mentions Shabbat at its very beginning. The building of the Tabernacle, found in Vayakhel, and the manufacture of the garments, found in Pikudei, then follow. While the command of Tabernacle and priestly garments in Terumah and Tetzaveh was followed by Shabbat, in the actual implementation of these commandments, in Vayakhel and Pikudei, Shabbat comes first.

In Judaism, there are two supreme sanctities: the sanctity of space, and the sanctity of time. However, as important a sanctity as space may be, time is of even greater importance. Therefore, the reason the Torah repeats these commandments in detail, with Shabbat at their head, is to point out that Shabbat—the epitome of the sanctity of time—is even more important than the sanctity of space, represented by the Tabernacle and the priestly garments.

It’s no accident that the sin of the Golden Calf falls in between the list of commandments, and the description of their implementation. The keruvim, the angelic forms atop the Ark, were the embodiment of holy space. The Golden Calf, which the ancient Israelites may have seen as their replacement, defiled that space.

Precisely because of this attack on the sanctity of space, the Torah may have deemed it necessary not only to repeat this whole sequence, but to place Shabbat first—so that its spirit might infuse every detail of the construction of the Tabernacle, and the manufacture of the priestly garments. Ultimately, we Jews are a people who carve out our empires in time; and only secondarily, in space.