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PARASHAT TERUMA
By Rav Motti Novick
“And Hashem spoke to
Moshe, saying: 'Speak to the children of
These opening verses of Parashat Teruma elucidate the meaning of the name of the portion—“teruma” means offering or donation, and the context here is to collect from the nation for the purpose of building a Tabernacle. It is surprising, therefore, that the Torah uses twice the verb “to take” (ve-yikchu, tikchu) in reference to this collection rather than the seemingly more appropriate “to give” (ve-yitnu) which does not appear in these verses at all.
R. Shlomo Ganzfried (author of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch) explains this anomaly based on a line in the Tana Debei Eliyahu midrash: “Once the Jewish people said ‘we will do and we will listen’ (na’aseh ve-nishma) at Sinai, Hashem immediately said, ‘take for Me an offering…’” When the Jews declared their unswerving loyalty to God at Sinai, this included a recognition that anything God commanded them to do was ultimately for their own benefit. As a result, the offering for the Tabernacle was not as much a giving as a taking—an “investment” of sorts, because they knew that they themselves would ultimately be the benefactors of their own generosity.
An alternative and in some sense opposite explanation is advanced by Rachamim Melamed-Cohen, a prominent Israeli educator who has written much over the last decade despite his paralysis due to ALS. He suggests that since whatever wealth the Jews possessed was entirely a gift from God, the directing of this wealth toward building a Tabernacle was not really a “giving” at all but rather a “giving back” to God, i.e., God was “taking” back some of what was His all along.
These two explanations emphasize completely different aspects of the donation to the building of the Tabernacle and, by extension, of tzedaka in general. Why is charity an obligation incumbent upon every Jew? On the one hand, this obligation stems from the recognition that what we own is entirely a Divine gift, and that the ultimate Giver therefore has a say in how our assets are allocated. On the other hand, however, we recognize that by giving charity we are ultimately benefiting ourselves. Giving to a needy individual or organization exercises our ability to empathize with the needs of others and is therefore an act of character development. As a people who over history has suffered much due to the cruelty of a few and the indifference of the many, we know well that apathy to the plights of others is a potentially destructive trait. And as anyone who has seen the joy and gratitude of a needy person who has received a gift knows, an act of tzedaka can truly be its own reward.
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The nature
and purpose of the Tabernacle (which we will refer to as mikdash, a term
which also includes its larger and more established counterpart, the
The verses in Sefer Shemot seem to support Nachmanides’ view, both in the beginning of this week’s portion (verse 8: “And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell (ve-shakhanti) among them.”) as well as the closing verses of the sefer (40: 34-35) which Nachmanides also quotes as a prooftext: “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of meeting, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.” There is no doubt that the mikdash is also a center of Divine service, but this seems to be a consequence of the primary nature of the mikdash as God’s abode. Why then does Maimonides avoid any reference to this primary idea and instead focus completely on the consequence?
The answer seems to lie in Maimonides’ theology. The third of his thirteen Principles of Faith, which he lists in his introduction to Perek Chelek in his Commentary on the Mishna, is the doctrine of Divine incorporeality. Maimonides takes this doctrine so far as to claim that not only can one not speak of God as having physical essence or attributes, but one cannot even use physical constraints such as time or place in reference to Him (Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 1:11)—i.e., God does not exist within our physical world, and hence certainly cannot “dwell” in a confined place. This would clearly explain why Maimonides does not advance Nachmanides’ thesis, but how does he explain the verses that seem to speak explicitly of a dwelling for the Divine presence?
In fact, Maimonides has a much bigger challenge in defending his principle of incorporeality in light of explicit verses. The Torah speaks constantly of “God’s hand” (Shemot 14:31), “God’s eyes” (Bereishit 38:7), “God’s ears” (Bemidbar 11:1) and the like, and uses many seemingly physical descriptions of God. Maimonides explains all of these (Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 1:9) using the principle of “The Torah spoke in the language of humans”; it was necessary to describe God in terms that the reader of the Bible could comprehend, even if these terms are inaccurate.
As Marc Shapiro points out in his article “The Last Word in Jewish Theology? Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles” (Torah U’Mada Journal 4, 1993), this explanation is somewhat astonishing. Maimonides is claiming that the Torah is not only being inaccurate, but is implicitly sanctioning the heretical idea that God has physical attributes. It is no wonder, as Shapiro documents, that many on Maimonides’ contemporaries, especially in the world of the Tosafists in Ashkenaz, did not accept incorporeality as a principle of faith or even as truth. As the Ra’avad—who did agree that God is incorporeal—states in his typically sharp manner in his gloss on Hilkhot Teshuva 3:7 (where Maimonides classifies one who believe in Divine corporeality as a heretic), “Why does he call such a person a heretic? Many people greater than him have thought this way based on what they read in explicit verses…”
In fact, however, there may be explicit verses to support Maimonides’ view as well, as we will see tomorrow.
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We began yesterday a discussion of the debate between Maimonides and Nachmanides regarding the nature and purpose of the mikdash. Whereas Nachmanides takes the view that seems to emerge from the verses that the mikdash is a place for the Divine presence to dwell (as a continuation, he believes, of the revelation at Sinai), Maimonides limits the mikdash to be a locus of sacrificial service and prayer. The explanation for Maimonides’ rejection of the simple understanding of the verses seems to lie in his theological rejection of corporeality, including the use of the physical constraints of time and place in relation to G-d, in the third of his thirteen Principles of Faith.
Maimonides’
view may be supported by the text of King Solomon’s prayer at the consecration
of the
Solomon
opens with the very same difficulty that bothered Maimonides—how can God
conceivably be limited to a physical space? His explanation seems to be exactly
along Maimonides’ lines. The
mikdash is not actually a residence of God but rather the address of all
prayers directed to Him. Solomon
proceeds in verses 31-53 to list a series of appropriate occasions for prayer,
including drought, famine, and war.
In each occasion, prayers are to be directed toward the mikdash,
and they will be accepted. Solomon emphasizes prayer and Maimonides
emphasizes the more ritual aspects of Divine service including sacrifices, but
the words of both underscore the same point: The mikdash cannot be understood
literally as a Divine dwelling, for such a thing is impossible, but rather as a
place sanctified by God to be the center of all worship toward Him. As Solomon puts it, it is the home of
God’s “name”, the interface between the spiritual realm and the physical world,
but not the home of God Himself.
It should be noted that Nachmanides, while he
accepts the standard reading of the verses suggesting that the mikdash is
a Divine residence, should by no means be seen as a corporealist. Quite the contrary, he defends
Maimonides’ doctrine of incorporeality in a letter sent to the rabbis of
northern France who had attacked Maimonides for this and other ideas (see
Kitvei ha-Ramban, ed. Chavel, vol. 1, p. 345-6). While he accepts that God has no
physical essence, Nachmanides evidently does not go so far as to reject the
application of the physical notion of space to God. The theme of taking the middle ground
between an extreme rationalist view and a more traditionally spiritual view is a
common one in Nachmanides’ thought and writings, as he was influenced both by
the rationalist Maimonidean school as well as by the Kabbalistic ideas that were
circulating in
This debate between Maimonides and Nachmanides,
seemingly rooted in philosophy and theology, may have halakhic
ramifications. These two
authorities also debate the question of why the commandments to build each of
the utensils in the mikdash—the shulchan, menora, altar,
and the like—are not counted as individual commandments among the 613 (see
Sefer ha-Mitzvot, Positive Commandment 33, with the glosses of
Nachmanides). Maimonides explains
that these are all subsumed under the commandment to build the mikdash
itself. Nachmanides rejects this
and claims that building a utensil is part of the commandment to use that
utensil for whatever role it has in the
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Question: When will a boy born today celebrate his bar-mitzva?
Answer: The question itself requires explanation, as the answer seems apparent—wouldn’t he reach bar-mitzva on 30 Shevat 5779 (2019), exactly thirteen years from today? The potential difficulty lies in the fact that today is not only “the thirtieth of Shevat” but also “the first day of Rosh Chodesh Adar.” The year 5779 will be a shana me’uberet (or in the colloquial parlance that we shall use from here on, a Jewish “leap year”) and as such has two months of Adar. The thirtieth of Shevat in that year is clearly the first day of Rosh Chodesh Adar I. However, the “genuine” Adar in a leap year is generally assumed to be the second Adar (for instance, that is when Purim is celebrated, and that is when a boy born anytime in Adar of this year will celebrate his bar-mitzva in 5779). So there is room to believe that the boy in question may have to wait until 30 Adar I 5779, the first day of Rosh Chodesh Adar II of that year, to celebrate his bar-mitzva!
The question, then, revolves around two issues: first, the link between the thirtieth day of a 30-day month (the first day of a 2-day Rosh Chodesh) and the month that follows it, and second, the status of Adar I in a leap year.
The reason we celebrate the final day of a 30-day month as Rosh Chodesh goes back to the days when the length of each month was determined by testimony about the new moon rather than by a fixed calendar. At that time, when the 29th day of any month ended, no one yet knew whether the coming day—the thirtieth—would be the start of a new month or not. It all depended on testimony that would arrive over the course of the day. So it was treated as Rosh Chodesh, and in the event that no witnesses came or were accepted, the following day (the thirty-first) would be Rosh Chodesh “for real.” Now too, even though the lengths of the months are fixed in an alternating pattern between 29 and 30 days and we know precisely when Rosh Chodesh is, we continue the custom of treating the 30th of the month as Rosh Chodesh.
But since we know, in our current system of a fixed calendar, that Rosh Chodesh isn’t really until the first of the next month, should this 30th day really be treated as a part of the coming month? Shouldn’t we treat it completely as a day of Shevat and not really a part of Adar at all, in which case our boy would reach bar-mitzva on the 30th of Shevat?
In fact, it emerges from the Magen Avraham (55:10) that even in our era of a fixed calendar, the thirtieth of the month is considered a part of the coming month. He deals there with the case of someone born on 1 Kislev in a year in which the preceding month, Marcheshvan (which can vary between 29 and 30 days even in our fixed calendar) has only 29 days. If this person reaches adulthood in a year in which Marcheshvan has 30 days (and therefore Rosh Chodesh Kislev is two days), then (s)he is considered an adult on the 30th of Marcheshvan because this is the first day of Rosh Chodesh Kislev—even though the calendar date of 1 Kislev (the person’s birthday) is still a day away! This ruling indicates that the thirtieth of any month is “Rosh Chodesh” in essence and not just in memory of an ancient calendar system.
Thus, it may very well be that our boy will become bar-mitzva not on the “thirtieth of Shevat” per se but on the “first day of Rosh Chodesh Adar”, if indeed we consider only the second Adar of a leap year to be the genuine one. We will address this issue, and see an authoritative ruling on our question, tomorrow.
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We began yesterday to address the question of when a boy born on 30 Shevat of this year will reach his bar-mitzva in the year 5779 (2019), a leap year which contains two Adars. Assuming that the date 30 Shevat is really to be seen as “the first day of Rosh Chodesh Adar” (an assumption that we analyzed and supported yesterday), the question becomes, which Adar of that year “counts” for this purpose? Can the boy celebrate his bar-mitzva on 30 Shevat (the first day of Rosh Chodesh Adar I), or must he wait a month until 30 Adar I (the first day of Rosh Chodesh Adar II)?
This naturally brings us to the question of which of the two Adars of a leap year is considered the “genuine” Adar, parallel to the one Adar of a regular year like this year. On this point the halakha is unambiguous; the first Adar is considered an added month, and the second is considered parallel to the Adar of a regular year. Thus, Purim is celebrated in the second Adar (Megilla 6b), and the second Adar is 29 days long (like the usual Adar) while the first is 30 days long. A year which begins in the Adar of the previous (non-leap) year is not considered to be over until 13 months later, on the corresponding date in the second Adar (Yerushalmi Megilla 1:5). From this stems the conclusion (Responsa of Mahari Mintz section 15, codified in Rema O.C. 55: 10) that a boy born today—the first of Adar itself—will have to wait until the first of Adar II 5779 to become bar-mitzva.
An interesting exception to this tendency to view the first Adar as an “impostor” Adar and to treat only the second as genuine arises in the connection of a yahrzeit. The Terumat ha-Deshen (section 294) rules that someone who has a yahrzeit in Adar should commemorate it in the first Adar of a leap year (unless the death itself occurred in the second Adar of a leap year), based on the principle that we do not pass up an opportunity to perform a mitzva (ein ma’avirin al ha-mitzvot). This opinion is accepted by the Rema (O.C. 568: 7), in seeming contradiction to his aforementioned ruling regarding bar-mitzva! Rabbi Soloveitchik explained that the difference is that bar-mitzva requires the completion of thirteen full years, and the completion of a year (or block of years) commencing in Adar occurs only in the second Adar. In contrast, yahrzeit is merely the commemoration of a calendar date, and even a day of the first Adar can be called, in and of itself, “the fourth of Adar” and the like.
Thus, with
regard to bar-mitzva we are forced to go with the second Adar, and combined with
yesterday’s conclusion that 30 Shevat is really “the first day of Rosh Chodesh
Adar” more than it is a day of Shevat, we are led to the conclusion that a boy
born yesterday will become bar-mitzva only on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Adar
II in 5779. This is indeed the
conclusion of R. Jacob Ettlinger (the teacher of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch) in
his Responsa Binyan
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“And you shall put the staves
(badim) into the rings on the sides of the
These verses are the source of
the requirement that the poles used in transporting the
The Chinukh (ibid.)
gives two possible explanations for this prohibition. The first is similarly technical; in the
event that it becomes necessary to remove the Ark in great haste, precautions
must be taken to ensure that the poles not be inserted in a sloppy fashion,
putting the Ark in danger of falling while in transit. The best precaution is simply to leave
the poles in at all times! The
Chinukh’s second explanation is somewhat cryptic: “All the utensils of the mikdash
must have a form that hints to great and exalted matters… and God desired, for
our benefit, that this form not be lost even temporarily.” Whatever “great and exalted matters” the
The Meshekh Chokhma provides an intriguing explanation of this law. He compares it to Maimonides’ unique opinion that the menora was kindled not only at the end of the day to remain lit throughout the night (see in next week’s portion, 27:21) but also first thing in the morning, so as to be lit throughout the day. What is the purpose of having the menora lit in broad daylight? The reason may be precisely to indicate what the real purpose of our lighting is, or more accurately, what it isn’t. Someone who can’t see in the dark lights a candle, and extinguishes it when the sun rises; God has no need for our light, and we indicate this by kindling the menora as part of the Temple ritual without regard to when light is convenient or useful. As R. Sheshet comments in Masekhet Shabbat 22b, “Does He really need the light [of the menora]? He provided the light by which the Israelites traveled in the desert for forty years! Rather, the light is testimony to all inhabitants of the world that the shekhina rests among the Jews.”
Similarly,
claims the Meshekh Chokhma, with regard to the poles of the
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The question of ta’amei ha-mitzvot, finding creative explanations for commandments, is one that has occupied many of our foremost thinkers from Talmudic times to the present. Assuming the legitimacy of the entire enterprise (which is called into question by various midrashim and by the gemara in Berakhot 33b), a major question that arises in this undertaking is the significance of details. Even if a given commandment has a reason, does the same hold true of each of its minutiae?
Maimonides answers this question in the negative. There is clearly a purpose to the sacrificial order, he claims, but anyone who seeks the significance of the precise amounts and types of animals offered in any given sacrifice is engaging in idle speculation. The Torah had to lay down some specific guidelines for, say, the holiday mussaf-offering, and the fact that it chose two bulls, one ram, seven sheep, and one goat does not reveal any inherent significance or symbolism in that specific formula. Other commentators, among them Abarbanel and R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, disagree and believe that the details of a mitzva reveal important nuances about the meaning and symbolism of the mitzva.
As Nechama Leibovitz has pointed out, there is an inherent difficulty in Maimonides’ position. How does one determine where the general description of a commandment ends and where the inexplicable “details” begin? In the example of sacrifices, on one extreme lies the general concept of offering a sacrifice, which clearly has a reason, and on the other extreme lie the detailed formulae of each specific sacrifice, which according to Maimonides have no rational explanation. What about the interesting fact that the mussaf-offering for Shabbat consists of two sheep, exactly the total offered every weekday in the two tamid offerings (one sheep in the morning and one in the afternoon), recalling the concept of lechem mishneh associated with Shabbat from the time of the manna in the desert? Is this a legitimate point to make (as R. Yoel Bin-Nun, among others, has made) about the nature of this specific offering, or would Maimonides call it a mere coincidence?
However we settle this matter of the distinction between details and “the big picture,” this general debate finds expression in our parasha with regard to the symbolism of the menora. The Torah lists at some length the details of the structure of this utensil: it must be fashioned from one block of gold, with six arms (three on each side) protruding from a central pillar, and must be adorned throughout with shapes of cups (gevi’im), flowers (perachim) and knobs (kaftorim) according to specific formulae. Maimonides (Guide III: 45) is content with the explanation that that this grand sculpture is a vehicle to bring “splendor and honor to the Temple” (and even in that explanation, the focus is on the flames lit on the menora rather than on the menora itself). R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, in contrast, proposes a detailed theory of the symbolism of the menora based on the specifics of its construction. He notes that the form of the menora resembles that of a tree, both in its general shape (arms branching out from a central trunk) and in its adornments. A tree is a symbol of development and growth; however, the composition of the menora from pure gold (the only of the utensils of the mikdash made entirely of metal) suggests a theme of strength, constancy, and resistance to change. Thus the menora represents the idea of spiritual growth, in which a person remains tethered to a strong and unmoving basis while constantly aspiring to greater heights. Indeed, Chazal see the menora as representative of spirituality, in contrast to the shulchan (composed primarily of wood, representative of change) which represents a human being’s physical needs.
This is merely the beginning of R. Hirsch’s explanation of the details of the menora. The reader is referred to his commentary for a full elaboration, which extends over a number of pages. As we begin reading Torah portions that deal with details of mikdash-related matters, it is important to keep in mind the general approaches our thinkers and commentators have had regarding the search for significance in these details.