Editorial note: having received complaints about ever-less-decipherable transliterations, I have decided to indulge my Ashkenazic roots. Hope it helps.
Those who follow the weekly parsha may have noticed that this week and last contain more than trace echoes of parshios past, specifically the detailed descriptions of the mishkan and the various accouterments of service. Why the extensive repetition, rather than a simple statement that everything was carried out as earlier commanded? I believe that one answer helps to resolve a long-standing difficulty I have had with the treatment of idolatry in traditional Jewish sources. On the surface, there seems to be a tendency toward creating a straw-man, a simplistic caricature of idolaters as if they literally worship the works of their hands. This is far from the theory behind any system of veneration of images that I am familiar with. Rather, idols serve as tools for worship, taking some less accessible divine and making it more immediate. One response is that the idolatry that we encounter is not full-blown biblical idolatry; that after Anshei Knesses haGedola (the men of the Great Assembly) slaughtered the urge for idolatry, the pagans developed more philosophical rationalizations for the traditions they inherited, but that feels like a cop-out. Rather, let us return to our doubled mishkan, and the aureous bovine that splits the first instance from the latter.
There are two main opinions regarding the purpose of the mishkan. First, it is an extension of Sinai, a point of interface between the Jewish nation and HaKadosh Barukh Hu and an enduring symbol of the entirety of the covenant. Second, it atones for the sin of the golden calf. I see these two ideas as different sides of the same concept. What motivated the Jews, fresh from the most impressive series of miracles since the flood if not before, culminating with the direct encounter with the divine mere weeks before, to turn aside in such a dramatic fashion? In truth, I do not think it is so very strange, if we take them to be the more philosophical sort of idolaters described above. When they stood at har Sinai and heard the unmediated word of God, they were overwhelmed and requested that Moshe play the role of mediator; at that time, Hashem approved of their desire for a physical intermediary in their service. If Moshe could no longer serve as that intermediary, should he not be replaced? The calf was not meant to draw worship from the Lord, but to enable worship of the Lord. Indeed, that is what the mishkan will be, a physical space and physical objects that are sanctified to serve as the focus and medium of avodas Hashem. That parallel is half the reason that the mishkan makes atonement for the sin, but clearly there must be difference as well as similarity, else no atonement would be needed.
This is where the double description of the mishkan and every item associated with it becomes essential. First it is commanded, and then it is carried out scrupulously, meticulously, in every detail. Again and again in this week's reading, the refrain is repeated, "kaasher tziva Hashem es Moshe" (as Hashem commanded Moshe). Just as will be reiterated when Nadav and Avihu meet their fate, and again when Korach and his followers stage their challenge to Moshe and Aharon, there is a fundamental difference between service that is commanded and service that is not, however superficially similar. What is that difference? Is God simply an obsessive control freak? Not at all. The difference has to do with the very essence of mediation and relationship. These things must be two sided. If we decide to serve God without reference to revelation, we deny God any role in our service. No longer mediating a mutual relationship, the worship becomes a pious veneer on self-expression. Having cut God out of the picture, we substitute a false "image" of God as the object of veneration (and make it an object indeed, not a co-subject at all). In this way, even the most sophisticated philosopher is indeed worshiping nothing but his own creation as long as he fails to allow God as much stake in the intermediary as he claims for himself. So, ultimately, the caricature of the pagan that so bothered me is vindicated, far more subtle than it first appeared.
Of course, this has lessons for us also in our earthly relationships. In sefer Yechezkel (the book of Ezekiel), the careful and precise measurement of the Beis haMikdosh is juxtaposed with an exhortation to care and precision in our obligations towards our fellow people, scrupulosity and reciprocity the basis of connection in this case as well. Just as we cannot invent our own order of sacrifice and call ourselves pious, so we cannot invent our own schedule of payments for debts and call ourselves honest. Faithfulness, emuna, is as indispensable for the one as for the other.
Gut Shabbos!
