If you’ve seen the YouTube video advertising the Purim shpiel, you know that my greatest accomplishment in the six months that I’ve been at Anshe Sholom is making sure that shul finishes on time…For a Yekke, that’s the sweetest compliment I could ever ask for. And for a Yekke there may be no more appealing torah portion that Pekudei. Hundreds of details, all fitting together in just the right way, at the just the right time.
Obscure materials and fabrics, obscure objects, and complicated manufacturing processes are described. However, if you pay attention to the details, a curious contradiction emerges.
We read this morning:
.כ וַיִּקַּח וַיִּתֵּן אֶת-הָעֵדֻת, אֶל-הָאָרֹן, וַיָּשֶׂם אֶת-הַבַּדִּים, עַל-הָאָרֹן; וַיִּתֵּן אֶת-הַכַּפֹּרֶת עַל-הָאָרֹן, מִלְמָעְלָה
“He took and placed the testimony (i.e. the tablets) into the Ark and placed the staves – the carrying poles – on the Ark, and he placed the lid on the Ark from above.”
This sounds simple enough. The testimony goes into the Ark, the staves go onto the side of the ark, then the lid goes on.
But – three chapters earlier, in Exodus 37, we already read:
.ד וַיַּעַשׂ בַּדֵּי, עֲצֵי שִׁטִּים; וַיְצַף אֹתָם, זָהָב. ה וַיָּבֵא אֶת-הַבַּדִּים בַּטַּבָּעֹת, עַל צַלְעֹת הָאָרֹן, לָשֵׂאת, אֶת-הָאָרֹן
“When Betzalel made the Ark … He inserted the staves in the rings on the side of the ark to carry the Ark.”
When were the poles placed on the ark? When the ark was made, which is the clear implication of Exodus 37 or after the luchot were placed in the Ark, the clear implication of Chapter 40? You might say, perhaps the staves were removed from the Ark and reinserted in order to carry the Ark to its final location -but that option is also precluded by an even earlier verse in the Torah. All the way back in Exodus 25:
.טו בְּטַבְּעֹת, הָאָרֹן, יִהְיוּ, הַבַּדִּים: לֹא יָסֻרוּ, מִמֶּנּוּ
The staves shall remain in the rings of the Ark; they shall not be removed from it!
Once the staves are placed in the ark – they can’t be removed.
To recap: In Exodus 25 we were commanded to place staves – carrying poles – onto the ark that can never be removed. In Chapter 37, we see that staves were placed onto the ark. Yet, in Chapter 40, there were still no staves and they had to be inserted into the ark?!
Tosafot provide a clever answer to this conundrum: There were actually two sets of staves. There were eight rings, and not four on the Ark and there were two sets of poles. One was permanently fixed on the ark, the other would be inserted and removed whenever the ark and to be moved.
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik found a different solution to the question – one that was actually based on an insight of his own father, Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik.
The Torah’s description of the aron – the Ark – is different from how the Torah describes the other keilim – the other vessels and objects of the mishkan, of the tabernacle. For example, the golden menorah was built, and it was lit only after it was built and placed in its proper location.
The ark, however, was built and then the tablets were placed inside, and then it was moved to its proper location.
The aron kodesh – the holy ark – didn’t acquire its identity as the aron until after the tablets, until after the “eidut” the testimony was placed inside it. When Chapter 37 describes the construction of the aron, and the rings, and the staves, that was just a carpentry project. Only when the tablets of testimony are placed inside the aron, does it become the aron and that’s when it’s special status begins. So there was no prohibition to remove the staves when the staves were initially made and placed on the aron. The prohibition only kicks in once the tablets are placed in the ark and the ark assumes its full sanctified status.
The status of the ark is a direct derivative of the tablets that are inside. The tablets, of course, are the essence of the Torah. The ark is special when it houses and contains the Torah. And when it is serving that function, it must have staves. Because the Torah has to be mobile. The Torah must be taken with us. Torah must be portable. Which is why the aron was first assembled and then moved into its proper location in the mishkan. Everything else, the menorah, the alter, were assembled already in place. The aron is meant to be portable and mobile. Its mobility is part and parcel of its function, not secondary to its function.
Indeed, the Torah itself must be portable. The Jewish people has been able to thrive under adverse circumstances because we have been able to take the Torah with us. Whenever we find ourselves in new circumstances, we are not lost. We know what to do. We know how to orient our communities. We know how to set goals for ourselves – even when our surroundings are unfamiliar.
But being in a new situation and being in a new context means that the Torah that is studied and lived is necessarily going to look different. As the Torah travels, it adapts to new circumstances. The Torah must be relevant for all times and all places which means that the Torah is going to be interpreted anew in each generation. The Torah grows and expands to incorporate the perspectives of each new generation, bringing that generation’s unique context to the study of Torah. A Torah that can’t move is a dead Torah.
A life of Torah and Mitzvot is a life that is pulled in two directions by the very same force. The Torah is portable and so we bring our old traditions and way of life with us wherever we go as a people. The Torah is portable, which means that, by definition and by design, it must be seen in a fresh light by fresh eyes every time we find ourselves someplace new.
Because of this, we have to establish and promote mutual respect for those who think and practice Judaism differently from the way that we do because each community, and each Jew, is living out a life of Torah in a way that is authentic within its own context.
Just in the past two weeks, three new babies in this community received their Jewish names. And there is, perhaps no better illustration of the portability of Torah, than the way that an infant, whose life is counted in days and not months, is welcomed into a community with prayers and blessings that date back centuries. And there is no greater illustration of the portability of Torah than the hope that, with God’s help, these infants will grow to inhabit a world that we cannot possibility imagine. Neither can we possibility imagine what the Torah will look like for them.
There are varieties of Judaism that espouse a very different model of Jewish life. Even within this shul, there is great religious variety and there is also occasional tension as our community is pulled in multiple directions. But we can disagree, and even argue – and I would say there’s an obligation to argue for the sake of the future of Judaism – but do so with respect and in a way that acknowledges the fundamental integrity of all sides. A portable Torah is both a touchstone – guide and a source of values, but a portable Torah must be interpreted. Differences of opinion are a necessary component of the indispensable task of bringing the Torah along with us wherever we go and wherever we find ourselves.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 