Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Teruma 1

we are learning we learned in the last two Torah portions that the Jewish people received the Torah on harsinai Mount Sinai in parashatro and in parashat mishpatim we have some more details of the Revelation and some laws are described on page 445 of the article homage the the new Mitzvah is given to the Jewish people and they should make a sanctuary for me and Hashem explains to Moshe what materials are needed for the Tabernacle and uh how to construct it this is what this Torah portion is about the next Torah portion is about the garments of of Cohen gadol and go ahead and hit your the the chief Cohen and the regular Cohen so we have to ask ourselves two questions number one when was this uh mitzvah given to the Jewish people because it follows right after you throw and mishpatim and why does God need a sanctuary what is a mishkan what is beta mikdash and here we have to understand uh the first question first at what point in time did God ask the Jewish people to build a sanctuary and then we will try to understand the second question why does God need the sanctuary so we mentioned in parashat mishpatim that follows yutra that um there was a period of 120 days that Moshe was on Mount Sinai he was there the first 40 days and then he brought the stone tablets but at that moment the Jewish people built the golden calf and God wanted to destroy them because here he is giving them the Covenant the the Ten Commandments and they are not following it one of the Ten Commandments is do not serve idols and Moshe said if I bring these Commandments these uh tablets to the people they will become committed they will become responsible for them and therefore they will be punished for not keeping them so Moshe said I'm going to break the Commandments I'm not gonna give it to the Jewish people which means I'm not going to finalize I'm not going to seal the Covenant between them and God and therefore he broke them and after breaking them Hashem agreed not to destroy the Jews Moshe spent another 40 Days on the mountain and then Moshe prayed that Hashem should give the Torah to the Jewish people again and that Hashem should forgive them fully and seal the his Covenant with the Jewish people a second time so Moshe went to the mountain for the third set of 40 days and finally he received the second set of the lohort of the tablets and he brought them down and that day was Yom Kippur the day of atonement because Hashem forgave the Jewish people completely and sealed the Covenant with them again this day became the day of atonement forever so when Moshe came down on Yom Kippur and brought down the the Ten Commandments he needed a place to store them and Hashem told Moshe build build a an arc build an Arona kodesh build a box from wood covered with gold so that you you have a place to store The Ten Commandments both the second set the complete set and the broken pieces of the first lujot so we see that there is this um space of 120 days between parashatro and we mentioned a similar idea that Moshe was able to sit down and judge the Jewish people and teach them the laws only on the day after Yom Kippur so the first reason why did Hashem say to build the sanctuary is as a place to store the Commandments that the The Ten Commandments and later at the end of the 40 years before Moshe passed away he completed the sephir Torah he completed the the five books of Moses and they stored the copy of that original severator in that same aronakodesh that Moshe built so again one reason for the mishkan is a central place where all the Jewish people are going to look toward to find out the will of God why because in the beta mikdash inside the kodasha kadashim there is this Arona kodesh the holy Ark in which there are the Ten Commandments on the luchad and the original sever Torah of Moshe and the second reason why Hashem ask the Jewish people to to build a sanctuary is because he he God wants to be close to the Jewish people meaning Hashem wants that his shechina his divine presence should rest among the Jews now the question is why should it be a physical structure why does God need a house Tabernacle or Temple betham epidemic Dash to rest his sheikhina why can't he just rest his sheikhina like it was originally on the Jewish camp on the Jewish country on Jewish towns on Jewish homes and the answer is that yes originally that was the plan the Clouds Of Glory surrounded the Jewish Camp the Jewish people were protected with these clouds from below or all around and above and they could witness divine presence and the I would say just say that originally the Jewish people were supposed to all be kohanim that every family was supposed to have an alter a Miss bear in their home in their backyard and the Elder of the family whether the father or the firstborn son was supposed to be the kohen gadol in every family however when the Jewish people made the golden calf Hashem said I see that there is some weakness among the Jews and if I allow every family to serve God themselves there might be diversion and the one family might get the wrong idea and God forbid serve an idol instead of a god of of the real God and therefore Hashem said after the sin of the golden calf I can no longer my divine presence on every Jewish Home I cannot allow sacrifices and the service to be done privately there must be a central place under the the guidance of the building of the Sanhedrin Supreme Court and the service will be given only to people who did not sin in the golden calf and these this was the tribe of Levy the Levites and the kohanim and so the firstborn Jews lost their position of being the the spiritual leaders of their family or kohanim and this title of kohen the servant of God was given to um the tribe of Levy and therefore Hashem said now there's a change of plans now we have to build one central location where everyone will come to serve God and so Hashem said this mishkan is going to serve two functions number one is going to be the place where Jews will come to serve and see God and number two is going to be the place that the Jews come to learn from the kohanim and the Levites they were always the teachers of the Jewish people and in fact there's a Mitzvah that once in seven years at the end of shemitai year all the Jewish people the entire nation men women and children have to gather in betamic dash and they have to take out the original sefer Torah that Moshe wrote from the the holy of holies and the king of the Jewish people has to read it for the entire Jewish Nation which means symbolically this is the place where the knowledge of Torah comes from as we say kimizetora from Sion which is another name for yerushalayim and for betamic dash the Torah will come from comes out that is the depository of all information in the world now the midrash says that Hashem wrote the Torah before the world was created and he looked into the Torah to create the world and Hashem loves the Torah Hashem put his whole Essence into the Torah his wisdom and uh Torah is part of Hashem it's God's wisdom God's mind and so the midrash says that that the this is similar to a human King there was once a king who had one daughter the king's wife died and he only had one child this daughter and he loved this daughter very much and he raised her and when this daughter became 18 years old the king started thinking I love my daughter I want to always be close to her but at the same time she's mature already she needs to get married if she gets gets married she will become part of her husband's family of his household I'm not going to be close to her anymore what should I do should I allow her to get married or I should keep her next to me says both of these choices are not good I cannot part with her my dear daughter and at the same time I cannot let her leave I can't be without her so the king said my dear daughter I love you very much but I have to do what's best for you and you need to get married I have to let go however please do me a favor when you go to your husband's house can you please ask your husband to build a room for me to create a guest suit Suite and uh whenever I come I will have a place to stay and the daughter agreed and they found a nice uh groom for her and they got married and she fulfilled her promise and they together build a guest suite for the king and the king would visit them very often so the midrash says the same thing happened with the Jewish people and giving over the Torah Hashem said I love the Torah very much I wanted to be next to me in heaven however the Jewish people need the Torah the Torah is the Bride of the Jewish people the Jewish people when they received the Torah they stood Under the Mountain the mountain was like the Hupa like the marriage canopy so they got married to Torah so to say as it says Torah is inheritance of the Jewish people and the talmud says don't read that it's an inheritance but rather read me orasa which means betrothed the Torah is engaged to the Jewish people the Torah is the Bride of the Jewish people so Hashem said I need to give the Torah to the Jewish people but at the same time I love the Torah myself what should I do I will ask the Jewish people to create a house where the Torah will be so that I can come and rest my presence there let them make a sanctuary a holy place for me to come so that I can dwell among them where the Torah is so what brings God's presence Among Us the Torah both the physical presence of the sefer Torah sefertora is Holi and the knowledge of Torah any time a Jew thinks of a Torah thought he becomes his brain becomes Torah itself and God's presence rests on the person a man or a woman whether they say the words of Torah or they think the words of Torah they become the vessel for divine presence because Hashem said where there is Torah there is God where there is mention of God's name God is present so the Thomas says if you want to live a long life you should be in places where they mention God God's name you should be visiting synagogues often you should be visiting and you should think of Torah all the days of your life as it says in Shema you should speak of the words of Torah and when you are traveling on your way you should speak the words of Torah and when you're about to go to sleep your last thought before you close your eyes should be that of Torah of and when you arise the first thoughts that you should have in mind should be thoughts of Hashem thoughts of Torah I want to learn more the the the Sadiq righteous people as soon as they would wake up they would wash their hands and right away they would say the blessing on the Torah because we are not allowed to speak the words of Torah or think of Torah without saying the blessing first and therefore they wouldn't delay to go to the synagogue to put on their talitative to say the morning blessings no the the first thing they would say was the blessing on the Torah so that while they're getting dressed while they're walking around while they're traveling to the synagogue they can already say and think the words of Torah why because they know this fact that when a Jew thinks of Torah God is on him and together with God as we learned in last week's Parsha Kiani Hashem that when Jewish people follow hashem's ways and they connect to Hashem God heals them as in it says in Parsha mishpatim there will be no uh people who cannot have children there will be no sicknesses no diseases only blessing in paranasa and and with children how by keeping the Torah close to us because where there is Torah there is God and where there is God there is good there is blessing and Hashem says that is why I am asking you wherever you go Jewish people please build a tabernacle for me build the sanctuary and that's what the Jewish people did they built the portable Sanctuary the portable mishkan so that wherever they travel for the 40 years in the desert God's presence can be with them and then when the Jewish people came to the land of Israel until they conquered the land until they settled the land and until they appointed their kings and then they conquered yerushalayim and build abetamikdas until then for close to 400 years they still used the Tabernacle so the Tabernacle was in use for about 400 years then Shalom built a betamic dash the the permanent sanctuary Temple which lasted for 410 years then the temple was destroyed and the Jewish people were exiled for 70 years and then they came back and built the second temple that lasted for 420 years until it was destroyed and now we're waiting for the Third Temple to be built so we had a temple with us for three periods each one lasting about 400 years this is very interesting um that just like Moshe was with God three times on Mount Sinai 40 days each so two Jewish people had the the Tabernacle for about 400 years then they had the first temple for about 400 years and they had the third the the the second temple for 400 years okay now let us start the Parsha page 445 chapter 25 Hashem spoke to Moshe saying speak to the children of Israel and let them take for me a portion from every man whose heart motivates him you shall take my portion Hashem said in order to build the mishkan first you have to collect donations from the Jewish people it should be a communal effort not government sponsored Tempo government sponsored Temple is not good it has to be every Jew participates every Jew should feel part of it what should you take from them and 16 things are listed gold silver copper turquoise wool purple wool Scarlet wool linen gold hair red dyed Ram skins skins of an animal called tahash acacia wood oil olive oil for illumination spices for anointment oil and spices for Aramaic aromatic incense as well as precious stones for Soha that were on the shoulders of kohen gadol and finally the stones for the settings for the effort and for the breastplate the 12 Stones that kohen gadol had on his breastplate representing the tribes of the Jewish people they shall make a sanctuary for me so that I may dwell among them now turn to page 447 and we describe one by one each part of the Tabernacle first comes the ark the most important part of the mishkan is the arc it's mentioned the first but it was built afterwards they shall make an arc of acacia wood and the dimensions of it I'm gonna say it a in Torah language and then I'm gonna give you the dimensions in in modern day the dimensions of the arc are two and a half qubits in length one and a half cubits in width and one and a half cubits in height which means each qubit is about a foot and a half so it's about uh three feet wide by three feet tall and about five feet long that's how long the um The Arc was you shall cover it with pure gold from within and from without which means it was a wooden box but it was gold plated on the inside and gold plated on the outside and make a gold crown all around the rim had a gold crown cast for it four rings of gold and in verse 13 you shall make staves of acacia wood the sticks poles with which to carry and you shall cover them with gold as well insert the staves in the Rings and they should stay inside always whether when you carry the ark or when it's resting the staves the poles should always be in it this is unlike other utensils like the table the the misbeck the the golden Altar and the copper altar they also had staves but the staves were removable but they would only insert them when they needed to carry the ark and then when they would uh settle they removed the staves but the arc the golden Ark had the staves permanently attached and the verse 16 you shall place in the ark the testimonial tablets that I shall give you as we mentioned the ark contained the the the tablets of Ten Commandments and then later we also placed the safety rabenu wrote in it now turn to page 449 the ark cover is described you shall make a cover of pure gold and from it make two cherubim of gold hammered out you shall make them from both ends of the cover Moshe took a chunk of gold he hammered it out with the two ends bulging out and then from these two bulging ends he hammered out shapes of two uh Angel like creatures with baby faces and that represented the relationship between Hashem and the Jewish people these two uh baby-like uh golden images were facing each other with their wings towards each other covering the ark and that represented that God and the Jewish people are communicating face to face that they love each other and they pay attention to each other now on in verse 21 you shall place the cover on the ark from above verse 22 it is there that I will set my meetings with you and I shall speak with you from atop the cover from between the two cherubs God's presence was most concentrated on top of the Ark and from there the voice would emanate and go out to be heard by motion again why because the ark contained The Ten Commandments and the sefer Torah now in verse 23 we go to the next utensil and that is the table upon which we placed uh 12 loaves of bread you shall make a table of acacia wood its dimensions are two qubits in length which is uh three feet a qubit its width one and a half foot wide and a cubit and a half its height about two and a quarter feet High now this