Vayakheil: Darker Than a Tent

ohel (אֹהֶל) = tent; an easily dismantled dwelling for nomads and/or shepherds.

ohel mo-eid (אֺהֶל מוֹעֵד) = Tent of Meeting, Tent of Appointment. Most often, the temporary structure that God inhabits in the center of the Israelite camp from Mount Sinai to Shiloh in Canaan.¹

tent = “a collapsible shelter of fabric (such as nylon or canvas) stretched and sustained by poles and used for camping outdoors or as a temporary building” (Merriam Webster 2026)

For years I assumed that the ohel mo-eid was a ancient version of the tent we erect today for a special event outdoors—a framework of metal poles covered with white plasticized cloth, sometimes with clear plastic windows, and an opening at one end. We bring folding chairs into these tents, and maybe folding tables or a portable stage with a sound system, the cords snaking out under the bottom of the tent fabric. For a nighttime event we add electric lights, but by day plenty of light comes through the white roof and walls.

The framework of the ohel mo-eid was made with well-spaced timber studs, I used to think, and fabric was draped over this framework inside and out. Then two layers of leather were added to the roof for waterproofing. So no light would come through the ceiling, but light would filter through the goat-hair fabric outside walls and the tapestry inside walls.

I almost had it right. But this year I looked at the measurements, and discovered my mistake.

The box

This week’s Torah reading combines the last two portions in the book of Exodus, Vayakheil (Exodus/Shemot 35:1-38:20) and Pekudei (Exodus 38:21-40:38), in which the Israelites craft and assemble the ohel mo-eid as a dwelling-place for God. The description of the process is almost identical with the instructions God gave to Moshe (“Moses” in English) earlier in Exodus, in the portion Terumah, and no easier to follow. The Torah describes the measurements and the materials of the constituent parts, but only vaguely indicates how they are put together. So first let me describe the ohel mo-eid when it is already assembled.

Imagine a box 10 cubits wide,10 cubits high, and 30 cubits long. (10 cubits is roughly 15 feet or 3.3 meters.) The long walls face north and south; the short walls face east and west. This structure, about as big as a one-bedroom apartment with very high ceilings, is made out of boards of acacia wood. A giant cloth is draped over the outside of the box, covering the top and hanging down over the walls on three sides. The front end consist of five wood pillars and a curtain.

To make the giant cloth covering, Israelite women weave eleven lengths of fabric out of undyed goat hair, each one 30 cubits long by 4 cubits wide. (Four cubits was the standard width of an Egyptian loom.) They fasten these together into a single rectangle that measures 30 by 44 cubits.

After the goat-hair cloth has been draped over the wood structure, two layers of leather are laid across the roof.²

Inside, the structure is divided into two rooms by a colorful curtain hanging from the ceiling. The back room, the Holy of Holies, is 10 cubits square, and contains only the gold-plated ark—and God’s manifestation above the ark, in the space between the two gold sculptures that rise at either end of the lid.³ The front room is 20 cubits by 10 cubits, and contains the lampstand (menorah), the bread table, and the incense altar.⁴

The inside is what counts

The description of making the ohel mo-eid in the portion Vayakheil this week begins, like God’s instructions in the earlier portion Terumah, with the inside tapestry, not with the supporting wooden structure.

Then everyone wise of mind among the makers of the work made the mishkan. Of ten cloths of twisted fine linen and blue and red-violet and scarlet [wool], in a design of keruvim they made them.⁵ (Exodus 36:8)

mishkan (מִשְׁכָּן) = dwelling-place (usually God’s dwelling place, “tabernacle” in English).

keruvim (כְּרֻבִים) = hybrid beasts with wings and human faces.

Each of the ten tapestries is 28 cubits long by 4 cubits wide (about 42 feet by 6 feet, or 12.8 by 2 meters). Five cloths are sewn together into one large hanging measuring 28 cubits by 20 cubits, and the other five cloths are sewn into a similar hanging. Loops of blue yarn were sewn down one edge of each large hanging.

Then they made fifty clasps of gold, and they joined the hangings to one another with the clasps. And the mishkan became one piece. (Exodus 36:13)

Apparently what counts as God’s mishkan is the space defined by the interior tapestries hanging over a packed-earth floor. A wooden structure is required to hold up the tapestries, and the completed “tent” will have other material draped over the exterior. But the beautiful tapestries define God’s dwelling-place. Appearances matter.

Wooden walls

The middle 10 cubits of the combined tapestry makes the cloth ceiling of the mishkan. That leaves 9 cubits of tapestry hanging down on each side, in front of the long north and south wooden walls. At the back end, the leftover tapestry hangs down in front of the west wall. (The folds of fabric that would naturally form at the right-angle corners in back are not mentioned in the Torah.)

Between the bottom of the tapestry and the packed-earth floor, there is a gap of one cubit—about 18 inches. So a priest would see about 18 inches of the wooden framework at the bottom of the wall. (On the outside, the large goat-hair covering would come down to the ground.)

What does the wooden part of the ohel mo-eid look like?

And they made the planks for the mishkan of acacia wood, standing upright: ten cubits the length of the plank, and one and a half cubits the width of each plank. Two pegs for each plank, parallel one to one; thus they did for all the planks of the mishkan. (Exodus 36:20-22)

Each plank is a cubit and a half wide—about 27 inches. Two pegs (or tenons) come out of the bottom end of each plank.

And they made the planks for the mishkan: 20 planks for the Negev side, to the south. (Exodus 36:23)

Imagine 20 boards standing upright, each board a cubit and a half wide. If each plank touches its neighbors, it would make a continuous wall 30 cubits long—the exact length of the mishkan’s interior. Therefore (I realized this year) there are no gaps between the planks.

And they made 40 silver adanim underneath the 20 planks, two adanim under each plank for its two pegs, and two adanim under each [other] plank for its two pegs. (Exodus 36:24)

adanim (אֲדָנִים) = sockets; pedestals.

The two pegs (tenons) at the bottom of each plank fit into two sockets (mortises) in the base under the wall. Probably the base consists of a row of pedestals with sockets carved into them.

The long northern wall is the same as the southern wall. The short western wall in the back, behind the ark, is also continuous wood planking: six regular planks and two corner-posts.

Next the Torah describes how the planks are secured at the top.

And they made running-bars of acacia wood, five running-bars for the planks on one side of the mishkan, and five running-bars for the planks on the second side of the mishkan, and five running-bars for the planks of the mishkan at the rear, toward the sea. And they made a middle running-bar, to run amidst the planks from end to end. (Exodus 36:31-33)

We never learn where all these running-bars are positioned. Perhaps running-bars along the tops of the wooden walls hold up the ceiling section of the tapestry.

Only after this obscure description do we find out that the bars are attached to the planks with gold rings.

And they overlaid the planks with gold, and they made rings of gold as receptacles for the running-bars, and thy overlaid the running-bars with gold. (Exodus 36:34)

Maybe all the running-bars are visible, pinning the tapestry close to the wooden wall. That would explain why they are overlaid with gold. But it seems wasteful to apply gold leaf to the entire surface of each plank, instead of just the bottom end visible under the tapestry.

Next the Torah portion describes the colorful curtain that will separate the mishkan into two rooms, with the Holy of Holies in back. This curtain is framed by four pillars of gold-covered acacia wood, each on its own silver pedestal.

Last comes the description of the front of the structure, facing east.

Then they made a screen for the entrance of the ohel, of blue, red-violet, scarlet, and white linen: the making of an embroiderer. And they overlaid their five pillars and their clasps and their binding-rings with gold, and their five adanim with copper. (Exodus 36:37-38)

Low lighting

No natural light can filter through the roof of the ohel mo-eid, since it is covered with leather. And no natural light can penetrate the solid wood walls on three sides of the building; at best, there might be thin cracks of light at the bottom, between pedestals. Daylight would only filter through the embroidered screen covering the front entrance.

Unlike a portable party tent today, the ohel mo-eid would be dim, even dark, inside during the day.

There are no electric lights, of course, but the priests must light the seven oil lamps of the menorah every sunset, and let them burn until sunrise.⁶ Since the front room is 20 cubits or 30 feet long, the back corners of the room would remain in shadow.

Furthermore, the smoke from the incense the high priest burns inside the mishkan would rise toward the ceiling, which has no hole or chimney. When the Israelites camp in the same place for days, the mishkan would fill up with smoke. All of its gold furnishings and colorful tapestry could only be glimpsed through the dim and smoky light.

The interior of the ohel mo-eid is designed to please God, so that God will be content to dwell there. The only human beings who see the inside of the mishkan are the priests: Aharon (“Aaron” in English) and his sons, and eventually his grandsons. They need to be reminded that their duties inside the sacred space are holy, and must be taken very seriously.⁷ Seeing the golden furnishings and the elaborate tapestries and the curtain hiding the ark in dim light, through the smoke of incense, would add to the feeling of mystery.⁸

But all the Israelites can see the exterior of the ohel mo-eid. On three sides they see only goat-hair cloth, unornamented. In front, behind the outdoor altar, they see the entrance: a fabric screen, elaborately embroidered in vivid blue, red-violet, and scarlet. This is enough to indicate that something royal and amazing is inside, enough so that they can believe God dwells there.

I think that if the entire tent, including the entrance, were covered with nothing but undyed goat-hair, it would be harder to summon the feeling of God’s presence. Personally, I feel uplifted in a forest, or in a gothic cathedral (as long as I igore the statues representing a religion that is not my own). If I attend a Jewish service in a room with no more glamor than a high school cafeteria, I try to avoid looking up from my prayerbook. A view of a large, colorful embroidery would help a lot, with or without keruvim.

Appearance matters.

For exceptions see last week’s post, Ki Tisa: Meeting Outside the Camp.
See my post Terumah: Under Cover.
See my post Terumah: Cherubs Are Not for Valentine’s Day.
See my posts Terumah: Bread of Faces, Terumah: Tree of Light, and Terumah: Wood Inside.
In Exodus 36:8-36:37 the text literally says “he made” (asah, אָשָׂה) when it means “they made”, and says “and he made” (vaya-as, וַיַּאַשׂ) when it means “and they made”—perhaps because Moshe is ultimately responsible for everyone’s work, or perhaps due to scribal carelessness.
Exodus 27:20-21, Leviticus 21:3-4.
See my post Shemini: Follow the Rules.
When it is time to break camp, dismantle the ohel mo-eid, and journey on, the priests must cover the ark, menorah, bread table, and incense altar first, in the dim light. See my post Bemidbar: Don’t Look.

Terumah: Contributing

Before giving Moshe (“Moses” in English) the first pair of stone tablets at the summit of Mount Sinai, God gives him instructions for founding a new religion, featuring priests and a portable tent-sanctuary. The instructions begin with this week’s Torah portion, Terumah (Exodus/Shemot 25:1-2:19), which opens:

And God spoke to Moshe, saying: “Speak to the Israelites, and they must take for me a terumah; from every man whose heart urges him on, you will take my terumah.” (Exodus 25:1-2)

terumah (תְּרוּמָה) = voluntary contribution lifted up and offered to God. (From the root verb rum, רוּם = to be high, to be exalted.)

In other words, God is inviting people to make gifts because they want to. A list of materials to contribute follows, but no contributions are mandated. Furthermore, according to Chayim ibn Attar: “… a person should not make a contribution until he was in the proper frame of mind. … The Torah also may wish to teach that the term ‘my gift,’ cannot be used except when the donor has donated it willingly, generously, with all his heart.”¹

Proposed gifts

All the materials that God requests (or proposes) will be used to fashion a portable sanctuary and its implements, and to make vestments for the priests of the new religion. Gold, silver, and four kinds of yarn (blue, red-violet, and scarlet wool, and bleached linen) are needed for both the sanctuary and the vestments. Acacia wood is needed for the framework of the sanctuary and its courtyard, and for the walls of the sanctuary (which will be covered with fabric inside and out). Goat’s hair yarn and two kinds of leather are needed for the three roof coverings to be draped over a wood framework. Copper (or brass or bronze) is needed for the altar and the wash-basin outside the sanctuary, and for clasps and sockets in the areas that do not require silver. Precious stones will be sewn onto the high priest’s vestments, incense spices are needed for one of the high priest’s duties, and olive oil is needed for inaugurating priests.

Why do the Israelites have all these materials? Harold Kushner pointed out: “The gold, silver, and jewels that the Israelites would give were taken from the Egyptians when they left Egypt. They were not to be used for personal benefit but for something holy and transcendant.”²

The Israelites also “borrowed” clothing from their Egyptian neighbors, which might have contained the woolen yarn colored with expensive dyes, and the linen threads. The Israelite women already had copper mirrors, and presumably copper pans, spices, and olive oil that they packed them for the journey.

Yet no matter where the materials came from, they are all made from things that God (as the creator of nature) originally provided. Considering this, many Israelites might feel moved to give something back to God. And the act of giving is in itself beneficial. Jonathan Sacks wrote: “To be in a situation where you can only receive, not give, is to lack human dignity.”³

A small space

After listing the materials to be donated, God tells Moshe:

“Then let them make me a holy-place, and veshakhanti among them. Like all that I myself show you, the pattern of the mishkan and the pattern of all its furnishings, thus you should make it.” (Exodus 25:8-9)

veshakhanti (וְשָׁכַנְתִּי) = and I will dwell, and I will settle. (From the verb shakhan, שָׁכַן = dwell, settle, stay, inhabit.)

The Tabernacle in the Camp, Collectie Nederland

mishkan (מִשְׁכָּן) = dwelling place, home. (From the root verb shakhan. Out of 137 occurrences of the word mishkan in the Hebrew Bible, only 12 refer to human rather than divine dwelling places.⁴ The mishkan of God is often called a “tabernacle” in English.)

If they build it, God will come. But how could God live in a structure that will be, according to God’s subsequent instructions, only 10 x 20 cubits (about 15 x 30 feet or 4½ x 9 meters)?

Many classic commentators pointed out that God is too vast to fit inside. They cited biblical passages such as: “Behold, the heavens and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You” (I Kings 8:27); “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” (Jeremiah 23:24); and “The heavens are My throne, and the earth is My footstool” (Isaiah 66:1).

In the 14^th century Bachya ben Asher explained that only God’s kavod (כָּבוֹד = glory, magnificence, impressiveness) would dwell inside the mishkan. God’s kavod previously appeared as a pillar of cloud and fire, then as the cloud and fire on Mount Sinai. Now it would manifest above the ark in the back chamber of the sanctuary, called the Holy of Holies.

Other commentators have noted that God says: “make me a holy-place, and I will dwell among them”—not “inside it”.

For example, in the 19^th century Malbim wrote: “He commanded that each individual should build him a sanctuary in the recesses of his heart, that he should prepare himself to be a dwelling place for the Lord … as well as an altar on which to offer up every portion of his soul to the Lord …”⁵

This has become a popular interpretation in modern times. But it begs the question of why God asks the Israelites to build a structure made out of wood, metal, fabric, and leather.

Insecurity

When God dictated a long list of laws to Moshe right after the revelation to all the Israelites at Mount Sinai, one of the first things God said was:

An altar of earth you may make for me, and you should slaughter upon it your complete-burned offerings and your wholeness offerings, your sheep and your cattle. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you and I will bless you. (Exodus 20:21)

Since God is everywhere, and can come to people anywhere, why do the Israelites now need to build an elaborate temporary structure for God to dwell in?

One proposed reason why God calls for a mishkan is that it will help to convince the Israelites that God is with them. Just before Moshe comes back down the mountain with the instructions for making the mishkan, the Israelites in the camp are ordering Aharon (“Aaron” in English) to make them “a god that will go before us” (Exodus 32:1). As I wrote in my post Beha-alotkha & Ki Tisa: Calf Replacement, once the people believe they will never see Moshe again, they cannot bear to go on without at least an idol. So Aharon makes the golden calf.

Does God know ahead of time that the Israelites will want a concrete symbol of the divine? Or, as much classic commentary claims, are the passages in the book of Exodus out of order regarding the timing of events? Either way, the people are insecure, prone to feeling abandoned, and God orders the building of the mishkan.

Cassuto wrote: “… the children of Israel, after they had been privileged to witness the Revelation of God on Mount Sinai, were about to journey from there and thus draw away from the site of the theophany. … it seemed to them as though the link had been broken, unless there were in their midst a tangible symbol of God’s presence among them.”⁶

We learn in the book of Numbers that when the Israelites do finally march north from Mount Sinai, God’s manifestation as cloud by day and fire by night returns to guide them and signal when they should break camp.⁷ But the people do not know ahead of time that this will happen. And they need something concrete to reassure them right away.

Making something

Commentators through the centuries have proposed additional reasons why God wants the Israelites to build a mishkan. One of my favorites appears in Bamidbar Rabbah:

“You find that all the days that they were engaged in the labor of the Tabernacle, they were not complaining. When they completed the labor of the Tabernacle, the Holy One blessed be He was shouting: Woe, let them not return to complaining like they used to complain.”⁸

Personally, I find that there is nothing like doing creative, self-directed work to take my mind off my worries. And the Israelites get something close to that.

In the Torah portion Ki Tisa, before God gives Moshe the first pair of stone tablets, God appoints a master craftsman and his assistant (Betzaleil and Ohaliav) from among the Israelites, and hints that other skilled people will work under their supervision.⁹ When Moshe passes on God’s instructions to the people in the portion Vayakheil, he says outright:

And everyone wise of mind among you should come and make everything that God has commanded. (Exodus 35:10)

Then both men and women donate materials, and both men and women use their skills to make the pieces of the mishkan and the priests’ vestments. And during that whole year, nobody rebels, grumbles, or complains.

Changing

Could the experience of working together to create all these things for God permanently change the Israelites’ attitude? Jonathan Sacks thought so when he wrote: “The Tabernacle did not last forever, but the lesson it taught did. It is not what God does for us that transforms us, but what we do for God. … It is what we do, not what is done to us, that makes us free. That is a lesson as true today as it was then.”¹⁰

Sacks explained: “When a central power—even when this is God Himself—does everything on behalf of the people, they remain in a state of arrested development. They complain instead of acting. They give way easily to despair. When the leader, in this case Moses, is missing, they do foolish things, none more so than making a Golden Calf. There is only one solution: to make the people co-architects of their own destiny, to get them to build something together, to shape them into a team and show them that they are not helpless, that they are responsible and capable of collaborative action.”¹¹

Yet making the mishkan and the priests’ vestments does not lead to a permanent change in the Israelites’ self-confidence or attitude toward God. Perhaps the problem is that they do all the craftsmanship in their camp at the foot of Mount Sinai, where they have water, daily manna, grazing for their livestock, and no enemies. Once the Israelites leave Mount Sinai, the complaints and rebellions start up again—mostly because the men (former slaves who have fought in only one clash)¹² have no confidence in their ability to conquer Canaan by force of arms. Nobody is training them for war, and they cannot believe that God will provide enough magical help to make them win. Only after the Israelites have spent 40 years in the wilderness does the next generation march in and begin the conquest.

What if you had never had a chance to take initiative, to make decisions about your life, or to use your own talents—and then suddenly, like the Israelites, you were invited to contribute to a major creative project?

I lived under my mother’s thumb until I was 17 and I escaped to college. Like the Israelites eating manna and camping below Mount Sinai, I was not completely independent; my parents still paid for my expenses. But I lived in a dorm, I chose my own friends and my own classes, I did my own work, and I earned appreciation and respect. When my mother tried to take over my life again, I rebelled. I made mistakes, but I managed to become an adult.

The Israelites in the book of Exodus have one glorious year as volunteers making the mishkan. But once they finish, they have to go back to being dependent and following orders. No more contributions of their own are accepted. And they do not view God or Moshe as benign parents in the book of Numbers, because they are marching toward what they assume is pointless death at the hands of the Canaanites. Naturally they lapse back into complaining. Yet somehow, they raise their own children to be more confident in God and more confident in themselves. That is the way they achieve a permanent change.

Rabbi Chayim ibn Attar, Or HaChayim, 18^th century, translated in www.sefaria.org.
Rabbi Harold Kushner, editor of d’rash commentary, Etz Hayim, The Rabbinical Assembly of The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, 2001, p. 486. See Exodus 3:21-22, 11:2-3, and 12:35-36.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Essays on Ethics, A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible: “The Labor of Gratitude: Terumah”, reprinted in www.sefaria.org.
Numbers 24:5; Isaiah 22:16, 54:2; Jeremiah 19:18; Ezekiel 25:4; Habakuk 1:6; Psalms 49:12, 87:2; Job 18:21, 21:28, and 39:6; and Songs 1:8.
Malbim (acronym of 19^th-century rabbi Meir Leibush Weisser), quoted by Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in Shemot, translated by Aryeh Newman, The Joint Authority for Jewish and Zionist Education, Jerusalem, 1996, p. 483.
20^th century rabbi Umberto Cassuto (a.k.a. Moshe David Cassuto) quoted by Leibowitz, ibid., p. 484.
Numbers 9:15-23.
Bamidbar Rabbah, 11^th or 12^th century, translation in Rabbi Chayim ibn Attar, Or HaChayim, 18^th century, translation in www.sefaria.org.
Exodus 31:1-13.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, 21^st century, Covenant & Conversation, “Building Builders: Terumah”.
Sacks, Covenant & Conversation, “The Home We Build Together: Terumah 5781” (2021).
With the men of Amaleik in Exodus 17:8-13.

Haftarat Terumah—1 Kings: From Volunteers to Conscripts

And God spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the Israelites, and they will take voluntary contributions for me. From everyone whose heart makes him willing, you may take my voluntary contributions.” (Exodus 25:1-2)

Hebrew Women Offering their Jewels,
by Bernardino Luini, 16th century

After that opening, this week’s Torah portion, Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19), lists the contributions that people can give: gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, and scarlet thread made of wool, linen, and goat’s hair; two kinds of tanned leather; acacia wood; olive oil; incense spices; and precious stones.

Then the text says what the materials are for:

“Let them make a holy place for me, and I will dwell among them.” (Exodus 25:8)

Later in Exodus, Moses invites anyone whose heart is moved to bring materials and donate labor to build a portable tent sanctuary for God.

And everyone whose mind was uplifted and everyone whose spirit made him willing brought voluntary gifts for God, for the work of the Tent of Meeting … (Exodus 35:21)

Then all the skilled artisans in the community volunteer to weave and embroider cloth, tan leather, shape wood, forge tools, and assist the master craftsmen Betzaleil and Oholiav in making the holiest objects. When the sanctuary is complete, God moves in.¹

The haftarah (accompanying reading from the Prophets) for this week’s Torah portion is 1 Kings 5:26-6:13, which tells how King Solomon acquires wood and stone to build the first permanent temple for God in Jerusalem. This time the labor is done by conscripts instead of volunteers, but God promises to move in anyway.

The king imposes compulsory labor

And God had given Solomon chokhmah, as [God] had spoken. And there was peace between Chiram and Solomon, and the two of them cut a covenant. (1 Kings 5:26)

chokhmah (חָכְמָה) = technical skill; good sense; wisdom from accumulated knowledge.

The best translation of chokhmah here is probably “good sense”. Solomon exhibits good sense when he maintains the alliance of his father, King David, with one of his richest neighbors, King Chiram. Chiram was a 10^th-century ruler of the city-state of Tyre, on the coast of a forested region called Lebanon (now a nation by the same name). During his long reign, Chiram turned Tyre into the premier Phoenician city by building a vast trade network.

The first trade agreement between Chiram and Solomon calls for Chiram to provide Solomon with all the cedar and cypress logs he can use, and Solomon to provide Chiram with annual shipments of wheat and olive oil. An exchange of labor is also involved.

And King Solomon raised a mas from all Israel. And the mas was 30,000 men. And he sent them to Lebanon, 10,000 per month; by turns [each man was] a month in Lebanon and two months at his own house. (1 Kings 5:27-28)

mas (מַס) = compulsory labor, forced labor.

Kings in the Ancient Near East often conscripted their citizens to serve in the military, like governments today. But it was also common for kings to conscript people for mas, a less prestigious form of service.

Solomon exhibits chokhmah,good sense, again in this haftarah by limiting his mas of Israelite laborers in Lebanon to every third month. This arrangement leaves the men free to return home and work on their own families’ farms and businesses the other two months, making the mas a tolerable burden.

The Israelite conscripts working in Lebanon every third month are felling cedar and cypress trees and hauling the trunks to the coastline under the supervision of King Chiram’s men. The men of Tyre then lash the logs into rafts and sail them to a place where King Solomon’s men will pick them up and transport them to Jerusalem.² In Jerusalem, the wood is used in the construction of God’s temple, and later in King Solomon’s palace and associated buildings.

Solomon’s building projects also require a lot of stone, but he can get good stone from the hills of Israel.

Solomon also had 70,000 porters and 80,000 quarriers in the hills … And the king gave the order, and they moved great stones, expensive stones, for the foundation of [God’s] house: hewn stones. (1 Kings 5:29)

The haftarah does not say whether the quarriers and porters working in the hills are paid employees, or conscripted for mas. A king in that civilization was more likely to use conscripts, who would be fed, but would not be free to quit their mas until their terms of service were completed.

After the basic structure of the temple has been erected, but before there are any interior walls or furnishings, God speaks to King Solomon.

Then the word of God happened to Solomon, saying: “This house that you are building—if you follow my decrees and you act [according to] my laws, and you guard all my commands, following them—then I will fulfill with you my word that I spoke to David, your father. And I will dwell among the Israelites, and I will never forsake my people Israel.” (1 Kings 6:11-13)

Israelites as volunteers versus subjects

In this week’s portion from Exodus, God tells Moses: “Let them make a holy place for me, and I will dwell among them.” The people deserve God’s protective presence because they willingly donate their time, skills, and valuables to make a place for God. The relationship is between God and all the Israelites. But in this week’s haftarah from 1 Kings, God tells Solomon: “If you follow my decrees and you act [according to] my laws, and you guard all my commands …” God uses the singular form of “you” throughout the clause beginning with “if”; the contractual relationship is between God and the king. In return, God promises to support Solomon as king, and also to “dwell among the Israelites”. In other words, God promises to be present among the Israelites for the sake of their king’s obedience to God. Perhaps the assumption is that if the king of Israel obeys God’s rules, he will also enforce them among his people.

Who is conscripted?

Later during King Solomon’s reign, well after this week’s haftarah, he adopts the more traditional policy of favoring his own ethnic group over the people the Israelites conquered:

All the people who were not from the Israelites—those who were left from the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizites, and Chivites, and the Jebusites, their children … whom the Israelites were not able to dedicate to destruction, Solomon laid on them a mas of slavery until this day. But Solomon made no Israelite a slave. Instead they became men of war, and his servants, and his commanders, and his captains, and the officers of his chariots and his horsemen. (1 Kings 9:20-22)

Mas hauling stones,
Palace of Sennerachib, Nineveh

According to earlier books in the bible, the Canaanite peoples that were not wiped out were subject to a permanent mas starting with the conquest of Joshua.³ Kings in the Ancient Near East normally imposed mas on defeated enemies, relocating them to wherever brute labor was needed; for example, the Neo-Assyrian King Sennerachib did this when he conquered the northern kingdom of Israel.⁴

The policy of giving conquered enemies either mas or death is laid out in the book of Deuteronomy:

And if [the town] answers you with peace and opens to you, then all the people you find in it will be yours for a mas, and to serve you. (Deuteronomy 20:11)

Ironically, in the book of Exodus God helps the Israelites to escape from Egypt and conquer Canaan because they are suffering so much from the mas two pharaohs in a row imposed on them.⁵

When mas is too much

During the first twenty years of his reign, Solomon completes the temple for God, and God fills it with a cloud of glory to prove that God is in residence.⁶ But during the second half of his forty-year reign, Solomon exhibits less chokhmah. He takes 700 foreign wives, far more than needed to be strategically connected by marriage with every kingdom in the Ancient Near East, and builds shrines to some of his wives’ gods.⁷

Apparently he also institutes harsher mas on the ethnic Israelites—at least on the ten tribes that live more than a day’s journey north of Jerusalem.

Late in his reign, King Solomon appoints a capable man named Yeravam (Jereboam in English) to be in charge of the conscripts for mas from the tribes of Efrayim and Menashe in the north. Then a prophet predicts that someday Yerevam will be the king of the ten northern tribes.⁸ Shortly after that Yeravam flees to Egypt, apparently because King Solomon finds out and orders his execution.⁹

After Solomon dies, his son Rechavam (Rehoboam in English) goes to Shekhem, a city north of Jerusalem, to be anointed king. Yerevam returns from Egypt in time for the ceremony. He and his Israelite supporters tell Solomon’s son:

“Your father made our yoke hard. And you, now, lighten the hard labor of your father and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.” (1 Kings 12:3-4)

Rechavam tells them to come back in three days for his answer. When they do, he says:

“My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke! My father flogged you with whips, and I will flog you will scorpions!” (1 Kings 12:14)

The northern Israelites then renounce any fealty to Solomon’s son.

And King Rechavam sent Adoram, who was over the mas. But all the Israelites pelted him with stones and he died. (1 Kings 12:18)

Rechavam flees back to Jerusalem, where he rules only the southern Kingdom of Judah: the arid territory belonging to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. But Yeravam becomes the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel, reigning over the more fertile land belonging to the other ten tribes of Israelites—just as God’s prophet had predicted.

When I was a teenager, most of the boys in my high school lived in the shadow of the valley of death. Though they did not admit it to girls, they were afraid of being drafted and sent to Vietnam to die.

Many of their fathers were veterans of World War II, and considered military service something to be proud of—at least during the early part of the roughly ten years when the United States was fighting on the side of South Vietnam. But a large number of younger Americans were morally opposed to sending Americans to kill people in Vietnam.

In the culture of the Hebrew Bible, and in many other times and places, being in the military was an honorable condition. Men returning from war were treated as heroes because they had risked their lives for their cause or their country—whether they were volunteers or conscripts.

But the teenage boys I knew in Massachusetts saw conscription for the war as an ignoble mas, forced labor in the jungle leading to death for no good reason. They would have preferred carrying heavy stones and logs to a construction site for a temple or palace.

The more body bags Americans saw on television, the less popular the war became.

When the pharaoh subjected Israelite men to mas for too many years in the book of Exodus, they cried out to God and God rescued them. When King Rechavam threatened the northern Israelites with a more severe mas in the first book of Kings, they renounced their allegiance and chose a king of them own. When a burden is too severe, it cannot be imposed forever.

Exodus 40:33-38.
1 Kings 5:22.
Joshua 16:10, 17:13; Judges 1:28-1:35.
2 Kings 17:6, 17:23-24, and 18:11 report Neo-Assyrian King Sargon II capturing the capital of the Kingdom of Israel and relocating tens of thousands of Israelites in the eastern part of its empire. Foreigners are depicted doing heavy labor for Neo-Assyrian kings on relief sculptures.
Exodus 1:11-14, 3:7-10.
1 Kings 8:10-11.
1 Kings 11:1-10.
1 Kings 11:26-39.
1 Kings 11:40.

Terumah: Insecurity

Moses relays a long list of rules to the Israelites and conducts two covenant ceremonies affirming the Israelites’ allegiance to God in last week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1-24:18). The portion ends with Moses climbing farther up Mount Sinai, then waiting seven days until God summons him into the cloud on top.

Then Moses entered the midst of the cloud and went up the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. (Exodus/Shemot 24:18)

During those forty days Moses listens to more instructions from God. But these instructions are not rules of conduct; they are plans for more religious ritual. This week’s Torah portion, Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19), begins:

And God spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the Israelites so they will bring me a terumah. From everyone whose heart prompts him, accept a terumah.” (Exodus 25:1)

terumah (תְּרוּמָה) = contribution; tribute (to God); something dedicated as holy by being elevated. (From the root verb ram, רום = be high, be exalted, be lifted up.)

The voluntary contributions that God calls for are gold, silver, copper, colorful yarns, fine linen, hides, acacia wood, oil, spices, and precious stones. After listing these materials, God says:

“And let them make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them. Like everything that I myself show you, the design of the dwelling-place and the design of all its implements, thus you shall make it.” (Exodus 25:8-9)

The rest of the Torah portion consists of God’s explicit instructions for the design of the portable tent-sanctuary and its ark, bread table, lampstand, and exterior altar.¹ In next week’s portion, Tetzaveh (Exodus 27:20-30:9), God continues with instructions for the priests’ vestments, their ordination ritual, and the incense altar.

Why does God suddenly ask for all these appurtenances of a religion? Why is it no longer enough for the Israelites to follow God’s pillar of cloud and fire to Canaan, and act according to all the rules God commands through Moses?

A theory of jumbled time

One theory is that God’s instructions for a sanctuary are a response to the Golden Calf, the idol the Israelites make on Moses’ fortieth day in the cloud on Mount Sinai. The people crave a concrete object to represent God, preferably something that God will enter and be present in the way gods in other religions enter idols. So God provides a substitute for an idol: a beautiful building with precious ritual objects. And God promises to enter and inhabit this building, so God will be “dwelling among them”.

But why would God start giving Moses instructions for the sanctuary several weeks before the Israelites make the idol? Some commentators² have responded with the declaration, “There is no before and after in the Torah”, a principle that the Talmud tractate uses to resolve discrepancies in dates within the Hebrew Bible.³ According to this Talmudic principle, the events in the book of Exodus were not written in chronological order anyway, so God actually did call for the sanctuary after the Golden Calf incident. The sanctuary was a concession to (and redirection of) the surviving Israelites after the most blatant Golden Calf worshipers were killed.

A theory of affection

Other commentators have countered that the events in the book of Exodus are arranged in chronological order. That means God wanted the Israelites to build a sanctuary all along; the making of the Golden Calf merely interrupted the divine plan for a while.

A less time-insensitive Talmudic approach states:

… God’s original intention was to build a Temple for the Jewish people after they had entered the land of Israel. … it is written “And let them make Me a Sanctuary, that I may dwell among them”, i.e. even while they were still in the desert, which indicates that due to their closeness to God, they enjoyed greater affection and He therefore advanced what would originally have come later. (Talmud Bavli, Ketubot 62b)⁴

Ramban (a.k.a. 13^th century rabbi Moses ben Nachman or Nachminides) promoted this theory in the 13^th century. Contemporary commentator Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg explained:

“In Ramban’s reading, the Israelites have been transformed by their encounter ‘face-to-face’ with God; they have received the basic commandments and committed themselves to fulfilling them; to affirm this, they have entered into a Covenant with God. … In Ramban’s reading, the idea of a sanctuary for god in their midst is a token of transformation: after the Revelation and the Covenant, they have become fit vessels for the Presence of God.”⁵

A theory of second thoughts

I think God calls for a sanctuary and priests because God suspects something like the Golden Calf will happen—unless the people’s anxiety about God’s invisibility is addressed some other way.

Moses and the Ten Commandments, by James Tissot, 1896

At first the God character believes in the Israelites’ enthusiastic allegiance to God immediately after the revelation.⁷ That is why God invites Moses to hike back up the mountain for a permanent copy of the rules, not for a sanctuary design.

And God said to Moses: “Come up to me on the mountain, and I will be there, and I will give you stone tablets with the teachings and the commands that I have inscribed to teach them.” (Exodus 24:12)

But then, perhaps during the seven days while Moses is waiting for God to invite him into the cloud on top of Mount Sinai top receive the stone tablets, God reconsiders.

After all, the anthropomorphic God character in the first five books of the bible is not omniscient, and does not know what human beings are going to do. This God character is also moody, and sometimes has second thoughts.⁸

What if the people all promised to obey everything God said simply out of fear? After all, they were terrified by feeling the earthquake, seeing the lightning and smoke and fire, and hearing the thunder and the blare of horns.⁹ They could not even distinguish between seeing and hearing,¹⁰ and they begged to be excused from hearing God speak.¹¹

Then the anthropomorphic God character might remember how before the Israelites and their fellow travelers arrived at Mount Sinai, any setback caused them to despair and lose faith that God would bring them safely to Canaan. Even the miraculous pillar of cloud and fire that led them to Mount Sinai was not enough to make them trust in God. They are too anxious and insecure.

When Moses and Aaron first presented their demand to Pharaoh, Pharaoh increased the workload of the Israelites who were slaving on his building projects. Moses tried to reassure that God still planned to rescue them,

… but they did not listen to Moses, out of shortness of wind and hard service. (Exodus 6:9)

After the ten plagues, a divine pillar of cloud and fire leads the Israelites out of Egypt.

And the Israelites were departing with a high hand. Then the Egyptians chased after them and overtook them [where they were] camped by the sea—all the horses of Pharaoh’s chariots and the riders and his force … And [the Israelites] were very afraid. And the Israelites cried out to God. And they said to Moses: “Was it that there were no graves in Egypt, so you took us to die in the wilderness?” (Exodus 14:8-11)

Even after the Israelites have crossed the Reed Sea and watched the Egyptian army drown, they grumble on the journey to Mount Sinai whenever they get hungry or thirsty: at Marah,¹² in the wilderness of Sin,¹³ and at Refidim.¹⁴ Each time God provides for them, but they do not trust God to provide the next time. At Refidim,

… they tested God, saying: “Is God in our midst or not?” (Exodus 17:7)

All this grumbling reflects an inability to believe God really will bring them to Canaan and give the land to them. The miracles God performs on demand have no long-term effect on these people.

Clearly something else is needed to cause the people to become confirmed God worshippers.

By the time Moses enters the cloud at the top of Mount Sinai, the God character has decided to give Moses instructions for making the new religion more compelling. So God calls for priests wearing impressive costumes, who will sacrifice offerings on a copper altar in front of a tent-sanctuary with walls woven out of blue, purple, and red yarn in a pattern of winged beasts. The priests themselves must remain in a state of reverence, so God assigns them additional rituals involving the gold objects inside the tent, which only they can enter.

And everything must be portable, because the Israelites need visible sacredness as soon as possible; they are too insecure to wait until they can build a permanent temple in Canaan.

These instructions take a long time to deliver. And by the time Moses descends at the end of the fortieth day, carrying the stone tablets, it is too late; the Israelites are worshiping the Golden Calf. It takes a lot of deaths before both the Israelites and the God character get back on track, and the people start making the sanctuary.

Recently I led a Friday evening service on Zoom. I sang the prayers, but everyone else was muted so I could not hear them singing with me. I spoke to the faces on my laptop about the Torah portion and the meaning of Shabbat. I chatted with a few people after the closing blessings. It was better than nothing, but I felt empty as I signed off.

I needed to be with real people in a sacred space. Like the Israelites, I needed a more three-dimensional religion.

See my blog posts: Terumah: Wood Inside, Terumah: Tree of Light, Terumah:Under Cover, Terumah: Bread of Faces, Terumah: Heavy Metals, and Terumah: Cherubs Are Not for Valentine’s Day.
Including Shemot Rabbah and Midrash Tanchuma circa 500 C.E., Rashi (the authoratative rabbi Shlonoh Yitzchaki) in the 11^th century C.E., and Obadiah Sforno in the 16^th century C.E.
“Rav Menashiya bar Taḥlifa said in the name of Rav: That is to say that there is no earlier and later, i.e., there is no absolute chronological order, in the Torah, as events that occurred later in time can appear earlier in the Torah.” (Talmud Bavli, Pesachim 6b, translated by www.sefaria.org.)
Translation by www.sefaria.org.
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus, Doubleday, New York, p. 316.
Ibid, p. 320.
Exodus 19:8, 24:7.
One example is Genesis 6:5-6, when the God character regrets making the world and decides to destroy it with a flood.
Exodus 19:16-20.
Exodus 20:15 translated literally, says: Then all the people were seeing the thunderclaps and the flames and the sound of the ram’s horn and the mountain smoking. When the people saw, they were shaken and they stood at a distance.
Exodus 20:16.
Exodus 15:22-25.
Exodus 16:2-12.
Exodus 17:1-6.

Vayigash & Terumah: Silver and Slavery

Egyptian silver bowl, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Silver stands for both magic and money in the Torah.

Shining silver glimmers with beauty and mystery (as long as someone polishes it). In the book of Genesis, the viceroy of Egypt’s cup made of silver, and Joseph claims to use it for divining as well as drinking.¹ In the book of Exodus, the Israelites make parts of the portable sanctuary for God out of silver.²

Silver was also used as money in Egypt, Canaan, and the rest of the Ancient Near East. The first example in the Torah is when Abraham purchases the cave of Makhpeilah for 400 shekels of silver.³ At that time, a shekel was a unit of weight, not a coin.⁴

The first time Joseph’s brothers come down to Egypt to purchase grain during the seven-year famine, each man brings a bag of silver pieces, probably molded into convenient ingots. They use their silver to pay for the grain they bring back to Canaan, but the mysterious viceroy (actually Joseph) has their silver secretly returned to their packs, on top of the grain.⁵ At their first camp on the way north, one of them opens his pack.

And he said to his brothers: “Kaspi! It’s been returned! Hey, it’s actually in my pack!” And their hearts left them and they trembled. Each man said to his brother: “What is this God has done to us?” (Genesis 42:28)

kaspi (כַּסְפִּי) = my silver. (A form of the noun kesef, כֶּסֶף = silver.)

Spooked, the brothers are psychologically primed for further mysteries. They return to Egypt for more grain the following year, this time bringing their youngest brother, Benjamin, as the viceroy requested. They are afraid they will be accused of stealing back their own payment, so they carefully explain what happened to the viceroy’s steward, who says their God must have done it.⁶

That night, Joseph has his steward repeat the trick—and this time he also has his own silver cup hidden in the mouth of Benjamin’s bag. He uses the apparent theft of the silver cup as a pretext to arrest all eleven brothers.⁷ Then he decrees that the rest can go home, but Benjamin must stay in Egypt as his slave.⁸ At this Judah, the ringleader who talked his brothers into selling Joseph as a slave 22 years before, steps forward and begs the viceroy to let him stay as the slave instead of Benjamin. Joseph now has proof that Judah and his brothers have changed, so he reveals his identity and unites the family.

Joseph brings his own family down to Egypt and promises to support them, but he continues to charge everyone else for the grain he stockpiled before the famine began.

And Joseph collected all the kesef to be found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan through the sale of grain, while they were buying grain. And Joseph brought the kesef to the house of Pharaoh. Then the kesef from the land of Egypt and from the land of Canaan ran out. So the Egyptians came to Joseph, saying: “Bring us food! Why should we die in front of you, because the kesef is gone?” Then Joseph said: “Bring your livestock and I will give [grain] to you for your livestock, if the kesef is gone.” (Genesis 47:14-15)

Now Pharaoh owns all the livestock of Egypt as well as all the silver of Egypt and Canaan. The following year, the Egyptians tell the viceroy that they have nothing left to buy grain with except themselves and their land. So he acquires them as slaves under a system of serfdom. Pharaoh now owns all the land in Egypt except for the allotments of the priests, and all the farmers must give a fifth of their produce to Pharaoh.⁹

This week, as I delve into the ethics of Joseph’s enslavement of the Egyptians for the book I am writing on Genesis, I am also reading about the call for donations of silver and other precious materials in the current Torah portion, Terumah. Here is the blog post I wrote on the subject: Terumah: Heavy Metals.

The purpose of the donations is to supply the raw materials to build a portable sanctuary for God. But how do the Israelites, ex-slaves in the wilderness of Sinai, have gold and silver to donate?

When God strikes the Egyptians with the final plague, the death of the firstborn, the Israelite slaves pack up to leave the country.

And the Israelites had done as Moses had spoken and asked the Egyptians for objects of kesef and gold, and garments. And God had given the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, and they let them have what they asked for. So they plundered Egypt. (Exodus 12:35-36)

All the Israelites had to do was ask, according to this story, and the Egyptians eagerly handed over their money and everything else made with precious metals. They were desperate to see the Israelites leave the country so that the God of Israel would finally stop afflicting them with plagues.

Silver in the Torah, like money in the world today, does not circulate evenly. It becomes concentrated in the hands of whoever has the most power. When Joseph is the viceroy of Egypt he has power over all the stockpiles of grain, so the all the silver in Canaan and Egypt goes into Pharaoh’s coffers, and all the farmers of Egypt are enslaved. About 400 years later, according to the Torah, the Israelites are enslaved and the Egyptians have silver. After the Egyptians discover that the God of Israel has the most power, they hand over their wealth so God will leave them alone. Now the Israelite ex-slaves have gold and silver.

In a moment of panicked insecurity, the Israelites donate some of the jewelry they extorted from the Egyptians to make a golden calf, hoping that then their god will inhabit something they can see.¹⁰ Meanwhile, God tells Moses in this week’s Torah portion to have the people make a portable sanctuary for God to inhabit.¹¹ After Moses comes down from Mount Sinai and the Israelites have been punished and redirected, they eagerly donate their plundered silver and gold to make the sanctuary.¹²

The silver in the sanctuary is taken out of circulation as money. The people donate their silver and other precious materials because they need to believe God is right there with them, inside the beautiful sanctuary they are building. After all, they need to eat, just like the Egyptians and Canaanites in the book of Genesis who handed over their silver to Pharaoh’s viceroy, who controlled the grain supply. By the portion Terumah in the book of Exodus, the Israelites know that God has the power to give them manna to eat, or withhold it. They hand over their silver and gold to God.

But this time the precious metals are not just money stored away in some strongman’s coffers. The people can see the silver hooks holding up the cloth courtyard walls and the silver bands on its posts; the gold hooks holding up the richly colored cloths of the tent-sanctuary walls, the silver sockets securing the cross-pieces in the frame of the tent, and its gold-plated doorposts.¹³ These touches of shining metal add to the beauty and mystery of the enclosure, elevating the spirits of the Israelites as they worship God.

Genesis 44:2-12.
The walls of the sanctuary proper are cloth hung in wood frames whose sockets are silver (Exodus 26:19-25). The cloth walls of the open courtyard in front of the sanctuary hang from silver hooks, and the posts holding up the framework are banded with silver (Exodus 27:17).
Genesis 23:15-16.
One shekel was 8.4 grams. The oldest coins unearthed in the Israelite and Philistine region date to the late 6^th century B.C.E., when the Babylonian Empire fell to the Persians.
Genesis 42:25-28.
Genesis 43:18-23.
Genesis 44:1-9.
Genesis 44:17.
Genesis 47:18-24.
Exodus 32:1-4.
Exodus 25:8.
Exodus 35:21-24.
Exodus 27:17, 26:19-25, 26:36-37.

Repost: Vayakheil

Every part of the portable tent-sanctuary that God describes in the earlier Torah portion Terumah, the Israelites make exactly as specified in this week’s Torah portion, Vayakheil (“And he assembled”). Here is a link to my 2018 post on God’s description of the menorah or lampstand: Terumah: Tree of Light. The portion Vayakheil uses an almost identical description for the menorah the artist Betzaleil makes.¹

Both descriptions leave room for argument about the actual appearance of the menorah. We know it is made in one piece out of pure hammered gold. A central shaft rises from a base and has three branches on each side. The shafts and each of its branches ends in a bowl for oil, so there are seven lamps across the top. But are the branches curved or straight? Smooth or knobby? Neither Torah portion makes these details clear.

Here is what this week’s Torah portion says about the shaft and branches:

Three bowls meshukadim on one side, on each a kaftor and a blossom, and three bowls meshukadim on the other side, on each a kaftor and a blossom; the same way for all six of the branches going out from the menorah. And on [the central shaft of] the menorah, four bowls meshukadim, [each with] its kaftor and its blossom: a kaftor under a pair of branches from it and a kaftor under a pair of branches from it and a kaftor under a pair of branches from it—for the six branches going out from it. (Exodus/Shemot 37:21-22)

Almond tree in Jerusalem (photo by M.C.)

meshukadim (מְשֻׁקָּדִים) = made like part of an almond tree.

kaftor (כַּפְתֺּר) = a drupe (a fruit with a pit, such as a peach, plum, or almond), a knob, a capital of a column resembling an almond drupe; a native of Crete.

We arrived in Jerusalem when the almond trees were blooming, and I took a picture of one that still had last year’s dried-up almond drupes as well as this year’s flowers. Inside those dark fruits are almonds.

Menorah drawing by Maimonides, Commentary to the Mishneh

So the two shapes used to ornament the stems under the lamps are the flattened oval of the almond drupe, and a flower with five oval petals. But do the branches curve? And are there smooth tubes of gold between these decorations?

12^th-century C.E. Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, a.k.a. Maimonides or Rambam, drew this interpretation of the menorah’s shape in his “Commentary to the Mishneh”. His son, Rabbi Abraham ben HaRambam, wrote that the branches of the menorah were straight lines, like his father drew, not arcs. Rambam’s abstract geometric drawing also shows the ornaments on the branches as continuous, the top bowls for oil at different heights, and the base as a potentially sturdy slice off the top of a sphere. But obviously the line of the central shaft in the drawing is not intended to represent an actual shaft of gold that could support the structure.

A mosaic in a 5-7^th century synagogue in northern Israel depicts a menorah with long smooth curved branches. But it also shows a graceful base with thin legs that could not support the weight of the necessary gold. (See my photo below.)

Mosaic from Bet Shean synagogue, 5-7th century C.E., Israel Museum

How much further can we go back in history for evidence? If only there were another clue about the shape of the menorah later in the Torah! But all we have is this:

And thus Aaron did: toward the front of the menorah Aaron brought up its lamps, as God commanded Moses. And this was the making of the menorah: hammered-work of gold from its base to its fruit is was hammered-work; like the form that God had shown Moses, thus he made the menorah. (Numbers/Bemidbar 8:3-4)

Then the original menorah Betzaleil made disappears from the bible.

When King Solomon builds a temple in Jerusalem to replace the portable tent-sanctuary, he replaces most of the holy items and adds more. (See my post: Haftarat Pekudei—1 Kings: More, Bigger, Better.) Instead of the original single menorah, he sets up ten new ones inside the middle chamber of the temple, five on each side.² Their shapes are not described.

According to Jeremiah 52:19, these ten gold lamp-stands are among the holy objects the Babylonian army carries away when it loots and destroys Solomon’s temple in 597 B.C.E. In 538 B.C.E. the new Persian empire lets Jews in exile in Babylonia return to Jerusalem and build a second temple. The book of Ezra says they even get to bring back thousands of gold and silver vessels and utensils that the Babylonians had taken with them, but the only gold items the book specifically mentions by type are 30 basins and 30 bowls—no lamp-stands, no bread table, no incense altar, and no ark.³

So the second temple in Jerusalem had to be furnished with another new menorah, if only so the priests serving inside the windowless room would have light. Its designer may have tried to follow the same instructions as Betzaleil did in this week’s Torah portion.

But this menorah, too, was replaced. In 169 B.C.E. the soldiers of Antiochus Epiphanes looted the temple, and after the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 B.C.E.) Judas Maccabeus had new utensils made for the re-consecrated temple, everything except the irreplaceable ark.⁴

Herod built the Temple Mount platform and rebuilt the second temple between 25 and 10 B.C.E., while the priests continued making offerings on the altar, and carried out the rebuilding of the temple interior. A gold menorah, bread table, and incense altar remained in the sanctuary, and the Holy of Holies behind the curtain in back remained empty.

Roman soldiers putting down a Jewish rebellion sacked and destroyed this final temple in 70 A.D. Eleven years later a stone relief was carved on the Arch of Titus depicting soldiers carrying away the menorah and other trophies. The real menorah was on display in a temple in Rome—until that city was sacked by Vandals in 455 C.E. Nobody knows what happened to it after that.

For many centuries the relief on the inside of the Arch of Titus at was the oldest depiction of the second temple menorah. Old photographs of this relief show clearly that the menorah’s branches are rounded. Thanks to the air pollution in Rome, the menorah looked this when I saw it in December:

Commentators have questioned whether the menorah on the arch is an accurate likeness or an artist’s fantasy. Now we have a more authoritative drawing, discovered scratched into a plaster wall in an archaeological excavation of an upper-class house on the hill right next to the Temple Mount.⁵This house, like the three adjacent houses or mansions, had mikvot (ritual baths) in the basement indicating that it belonged to a family in the caste of priests. Priests, and only priests, served inside the temple. They saw the menorah; some of them lit and tended its lamps.

Menorah at Wohl Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem (photo by M.C.)

This is a drawing of the Second Temple menorah by an eyewitness who lived during the time of King Herod. (The incised drawing to the right might be a view of the bread table.) This menorah has a base that is either a cone or a pyramid, and curved branches. The branches and shaft have no smooth sections; they are made with a continuous ornamentation, alternating flat round shapes like drupes with flat shapes that might even be derived from petals.

I wonder if the homeowner drew it as an object of meditation before immersion in the mikveh, or as an object of instruction for his sons. Either way, it is our closest connection with the sacred object that once lit the temple in Jerusalem. And that menorah was a recreation of the sacred object that Betzaleil creates in this week’s Torah portion to light up a new sanctuary for God, the creator of light.

I write this today on a hill in Jerusalem that is too far from the Temple Mount to walk. It does not matter, since now everyone in Israel is ordered to stay home except to get essential groceries and medicines. I hope no new measures to fight the Coronavirus pandemic will prevent me and my husband from flying back to Oregon in a few days.

The current situation seems dim for all the world’s people. I pray not only for healing, but for a new cooperation among all people, bringing new light into the world.

—

Exodus 37:17-24.
1 Kings 7:48-49.
Ezra 1:7-11.
1 Maccabbes 1:21.
Wohl Archaeological Museum, Ha Kara’im Street, Jerusalem.

Repost: Terumah

We are in Jerusalem at last—or at least we are in an apartment in a suburb on a hill overlooking a freeway. We have not yet seen the old city. It’s raining today, and I just added illustrations to a blog post I wrote in 2010. You can read it here: Terumah: Cherubs Are Not for Valentine’s Day.

What did the keruvim on top of the ark look like? This week’s Torah portion, Terumah, only mentions their wings and faces, and says they must be hammered out of the same piece of solid gold as the lid. Other descriptions in the Torah are also sparse, though Ezekiel mentions calves’ hooves and says each keruv in his vision had four faces, only one of which was human.

from Neo-Assyrian palace at Kalhu, 9th century BCE, stone (Metropolitan Art Museum collection). *photo by MC*

Keruvim were probably similar to the guardian figures sculpted by other cultures in the Ancient Near East: hybrid beasts featuring the legs of lions or oxen, the wings of birds, and the faces of humans. So I used one of my own photos from the beginning of our journey, when we visited the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York City and saw a pair of guardian figures from a Neo-Assyrian king’s palace. Here is a close-up of one of the stone sculptures.

The word keruv became “cherub” in English. And over two millennia of Christian art, depictions of cherubs have undergone a strange metamorphosis. Only their wings and their human faces have been retained.

One artistic approach was to infantilize cherubs, portraying them as small chubby boys or toddlers with wings too stubby for flying. In the Renaissance they were conflated with Roman putti, chubby winged boys associated with Cupid. The cherubs on Valentine’s Day cards are actually putti.

Titian, Madonna and Child with Saints, detail, Vatican Museums

Cherubs often appeared on painted ceilings surrounding someone rising into heaven, or trailing after God as part of a heavenly retinue. Having lost their former roles as guardians of gates or steeds for mystical chariots, these cherubs are merely decorative.

Andrea della Robbia, San Marco Convento, Florence. *photo by MC*

The alternative way to depict cherubs in Renaissance and Baroque art was to reduce them to floating faces with token wings on the side (sometimes in place of ears, sometimes below the ears), but no bodies at all. Was this a way to erase anything corporeal, not to mention bestial, from Christian symbols associated with heaven?

Fra Bartolomeo, detail, San Marco Convento, Florence. *photo by William Carpenter*

Terumah: Wood Inside

From everyone whose heart urges him on, you shall take my donation. And this is the donation that you shall take from them … (Exodus/Shemot 25:2-3)

All the materials to make the portable sanctuary for God, and all its furnishings, must be given voluntarily. The necessary materials are then listed in this week’s Torah portion, Terumah (“Donation”):

gold, silver, and copper (or bronze). (See my post Terumah: Heavy Metals.)
sky-blue, red-violet, and crimson dyes. (See my post Bemidbar: Covering the Sacred.)
linen thread and goat’s hair, for weaving tent-fabric and curtains. (See my post Terumah: Under Cover.)
reddened ram hides and tachash skins (waterproof, from an unknown animal).
shittim.
olive oil for the menorah and spices for anointing oil and incense.
precious stones for the high priest’s vestments. (See my post Tetzavveh: The Clothes Make the Man.)

shittim (שִׁטִּים) = trees tentatively identified as one of the taller species of acacia, acacia nilotica (also called a gum Arabic tree or a thorn mimosa). Native to India, the Middle East, and Africa, they thrive in arid conditions. The trunks are a source of hardwood, the bark exudes medicinal gum, and the seed pods are used for livestock feed. These acacias can reach a height of 30 meters (98 feet), though short trees are more common.

Why use acacia wood?

All the wood used to make the pieces of the portable sanctuary is shittim. The word shittim shows up in one other context in the Torah, as the place-name for where the Israelites camp on the east bank of the Jordan, before they finally cross into Canaan to conquer their “promised land”.¹

And Israel was staying at the Shittim, and the people began to be unfaithful with Moabite women. (Numbers/Bemidbar 25:1)

What do the Israelite men do with the Moabite women on the acacia-covered plain? They worship the local god, Ba-al Pe-or. (See my post Balak & Pinchas: How to Stop a Plague, Part 1.) The God of Israel punishes them for this act of infidelity with a plague that kills 24,000 people.²

Since acacias were plentiful throughout the ancient Near East, it could be a coincidence that the place where Israelites first worship another god bears the same name as the wood in God’s sanctuary. But it is hard not to read more meaning into the name Shittim.

Rabbi Bachya ben Asher wrote circa 1300 CE that the shittim wood of the portable sanctuary atones for the people’s sin at Shittim because “G’d arranges for the cure before the onset of the disease”.³

Perhaps this wood can be viewed two different ways.

What did they make from the wood?

And they shall make an ark of shittim wood, a pair and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide and a cubit and a half high. And you shall plate it with pure gold, inside and outside … (Exodus 25:10-11)

The divine instructions for the sanctuary also call for shittim wood to make the carrying-poles attached to the ark, the bread table and its poles, and the incense altar and its poles. All three items will be gold-plated so the wood is hidden. Out of all the furnishings inside the tent, the only items that are not gold-covered wood are solid gold: the lid of the ark (with keruvim),⁴ the solid gold lampstand/menorah,⁵ and the solid gold utensils for the bread table and the menorah.⁶

This week’s Torah portion also describes the fabrics and leathers that will be hung to make the walls, curtains, and roof of the tent. The rigid framework to hold these in place will be made of planks, bars, and pillars of shittim, all of them covered with gold, their tenons inserted into silver sockets.⁷

The altar for animal offerings, to be placed in front of the tent, will be made of shittim covered with copper (or bronze).⁸ The curtain-wall defining the courtyard around the tent will be supported by wooden posts, probably also of acacia, though the Torah does not specify the wood. Instead of being completely overlaid with metal, these posts are merely bound with silver bands.⁹

Why are the wood items in the tent sanctuary covered with gold?

Acacia wood is naturally water-resistant, and in the desert it would not need another covering to protect it from rain.

But appearances matter. The Israelites probably found gold more impressive and more likely to elevate the soul than mere wood, which could be seen anywhere an acacia tree cracked or was cut into firewood. The God of Israel deserved a sanctuary in which every exposed surface is either brilliantly colored fabric or gleaming with gold. Gold was the most precious of the precious metals, and it shines like the sun. When the Israelites make an idol to represent their God, they make a calf out of gold.¹⁰

Yet the strength of wood is necessary to hold up the structures that soft gold could not support. The ark lid with its keruvim and the menorah could be made of solid gold because they were relatively small. According to this week’s Torah portion, the ark lid was only one meter (just over 3 feet) by 2/3 meter (just over 2 feet), and the extra weight of the gold keruvim on the two ends would be supported by the gold-plated boards underneath.

The height of the menorah is not given in the Torah, but the Talmud (Menachot 28b) says it was 18 handbreadths: about 1½ meters (just over 5 feet). Pure gold cannot hold its shape, or support any additional weight, if it is taller than two meters.

According to the portion Terumah, God would speak from the empty space between the keruvim and above the lid of the ark.¹¹ Thus the lid and its keruvim are made entirely from gold, the metal associated with God.

But the ark itself, like the bread table and the incense altar, only looks ethereal and golden from the outside. The ark can support the weight of the keruvim, the table can support the weight of the gold bowls, jars, and jugs, and the incense altar can support the weight of the coals only because they are all constructed out of strong wood.

Similarly, the uprights and crossbars of the tent itself may shine like sunbeams, but inside the gold covering are planks of wood strong enough to support the weight of the roof-coverings and curtain walls.

In this week’s Torah portion, God says that after the people have donated all the materials,

Then they shall make for me a holy place, and I shall dwell among them. (Exodus 25:8)

It is not enough for “everyone whose heart urges him on” to donate the materials. The people with generous hearts, hearts open to God, must also donate their labor. And even when every part of the sanctuary is assembled and completed, the work is not over. God is not something that just happens to the people; they must actively serve God by bringing all the prescribed offerings to the altar, by purifying themselves before they enter the courtyard of the sanctuary, and by feeding the priests and Levites who conduct the rituals. They must come to God with their own bodies and hearts.

Perhaps the acacia wood in the sanctuary represents this ongoing human effort. Human beings are like trees, growing and aging, surviving accidents and eventually dying. We are not shiny or immutable like gold, but we are strong. Our relationship with God will not hold up unless we apply our inner strength and persistence, unless we keep reminding ourselves to pay attention and bring the divine into our daily lives. Reserving God for ecstatic, golden experiences does not make a place for God to dwell among us.

On the other hand, if human effort is all bare wood without a glimpse of gold, it may become deadwood. We may forget our purpose in life when we are camped at Shittim on the bank of the Jordan River. Then we end up imitating whoever appears in front of us—perhaps thoughtless neighbors, or famous people in the media. We forget the inner gold standard of our own ethics.

Like the sanctuary, we need both wood and gold.

—

Shittim refers to the same camping site in Numbers 33:49. It appears as a place-name for an unknown location in Joel 4:18.
Numbers 25:9.
Bachya ben Asher ibn Halawa, Shemot 26:15, following Midrash Tanchuma. Translation by Eliyahu Munk, 1998, in Sefaria, sefaria.org.
Exodus 25:17-22. See my post Terumah: Cherubs Are Not for Valentine’s Day.
Exodus 25:31-40. See my post Terumah: Tree of Light.
Exodus 25:9-30, 25:38.
Exodus 25:15-37.
Exodus 27:1-2.
Exodus 27:17.
Exodus 32:1-6.
Exodus 25:22.

Terumah: Tree of Light

In February the almond trees bloom in Israel. They are the first trees to wake up from winter dormancy, and their white flowers appear before their leaves.

Moses receives detailed instructions from God Sinai in this week’s Torah portion, Terumah (“Donations”), for making a tent-sanctuary and each holy item inside it. God describes the lampstand or menorah in terms of an almond tree.

You shall make a menorah of pure gold. Of hammered work you shall make the menorah; its seat and its shaft, its bowls, its kaftorim, and its blossoms shall be from it. (Exodus/Shemot 25:31)

menorah (מְנֺרַה) = lampstand supporting bowls of oil with wicks.

kaftor (כַּפְתֺּר), plural kaftorim (כַּפְתֺּרִים) = knobs, drupes, capitals of columns resembling almond drupes; natives of Crete. (Drupes are fruits with pits, such as peaches, plums, and almonds.)

Since the lamp-stand is hammered out of pure gold, a fairly soft metal, it cannot be any taller than six feet. The Talmud (Menachot 28b) says it was eighteen handbreadths, just over five feet. At that height, the high priest could easily reach the seven oil lamps on top to refill the bowls and trim and light the wicks.¹

(The Arch of Titus in Rome, carved in 82 C.E., bears a relief sculpture of the sacking of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, including two soldiers carrying away a menorah somewhat shorter than they are.)

The overall shape of the menorah, according to this week’s Torah portion, is like a flat or espaliered tree with a central trunk and three branches on each side. The branches and the central shaft all terminate in oil lamps, so there are seven lamps across the top:

And you shall make seven lamps on it … of pure gold. (Exodus 25:37-38)

And [it shall have] six shafts going out from its sides: three shafts of the menorah on one side and three shafts of the menorah on the second side. Three bowls meshukadim on one side, on each a kaftor and a blossom, and three bowls meshukadim on the other side, on each a kaftor and a blossom; the same way for all six of the shafts going out from the menorah. And on [the central shaft of] the menorah, four bowls meshukadim, [each with] its kaftor and its blossom: a kaftor under a pair of branches from it and a kaftor under a pair of branches from it and a kaftor under a pair of branches from it—for the six branches going out from it. (Exodus/Shemot 25:32-35)

meshukadim (מְשֻׁקָּדִים) = being made like almonds. (From one of the two root verbs spelled shakad, שָׁקַד.)

Each oil lamp consists of a bowl that looks like an almond blossom sitting on top of an almond drupe. (Unlike a peach, the fleshy part of an almond drupe is a relatively thin covering over the pit, which has an almond seed or nut inside.) The central shaft of the menorah has the same decorative motif at each of the three junctions where shafts branch out, with the central shaft continuing up from the flower-bowl shape. At the top of the central shaft the fourth almond flower-bowl is open and serves as the middle lamp.

Lexicons classify meshukadim as a form of the verb shakad (שָׁקַד) = made like an almond, as opposed to the identically spelled verb shakad (שָׁקַד) = watched for, was vigilant, was alert. Another passage in the Hebrew Bible uses the identical spelling and pronunciation of the two shakad root verbs as a prophetic pun.

And the word of God happened to me, saying: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said: “A shoot of a shakeid I see.” And God said to me: “You do well to see it. Because I am shokeid over my word, to do it.”

shakeid (שָׁקֵד) = almond, almond tree.

shokeid (שֺׁקֵד) = being vigilant, watchful, alert.

The Hebrew Bible also describes God as watchfully attentive to the Israelites, for good or bad.² Elsewhere in the Bible, the verb shakad that means being vigilant is used to describe people watching for chances to do evil,³ a leopard watching for humans to leave their towns and become its prey,⁴ and people who stay awake at night.⁵

Lamps are symbols of enlightenment, divine inspiration that casts light so we can see something more clearly. The menorah in the sanctuary is the size of a human for practical reasons—but perhaps also because it is humankind’s job to receive and spread enlightenment.

It may be shaped like a tree in recollection of in the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad in the garden of Eden. After all, enlightenment is a spark of insight that blooms into new knowledge.

Why is the design of the menorah taken from the almond tree? I think this is a double symbol, from the double meaning of meshukadim: “being made like almonds” and “from those who are vigilant, watchful, awake, alert”. Almond trees flower before any other useful tree. They wake up and bloom when it is still winter. Similarly, enlightenment can bloom even in the winter of our souls—but only if we keep watch for it, if we stay alert to any sign of holiness.

We can be shokeid, vigilant, by serving as our own high priests, tending the lamps of our own inner menorah. We human beings are all too liable to sink into a semi-conscious state in which we operate automatically, making habitual assumptions instead of asking ourselves questions. Yet when we do pay close attention to our own minds, to the people we encounter, and to the teachings we receive, we create our own menorah and find our own enlightenment.

(I published an earlier version of this essay on January 30, 2011)

—

Aaron, the first high priest, has the duty of tending the lamps. See Exodus 30:7-8, Leviticus 24:3-4, Numbers 8:1-2.
Jeremiah 31:28, Jeremiah 44:27, Daniel 9:14.
Isaiah 29:20.
Jeremiah 5:6.
Psalm 102:8, 127:1, Job 21:32.

Terumah & Psalm 74: Second Home

(One of a series of posts comparing ideas in the book of Exodus/Shemot with related ideas in the book of Psalms.)

David Addresses God, P. Comestor Bible Historiale — David Addresses God, Petrus Comestor Bible Historiale, 1372

Where does God live?

The “heavens” are the primary residence of many gods, including the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible. In Canaanite and Babylonian religions, the gods inhabit both the heavens and any number of statues on earth. The God of Israel flatly rejects idols, but still wants a second home on earth. In this week’s Torah portion, Terumah (“Donations”), Moses is receiving instructions from God on top of Mount Sinai. God tells him:

They shall make a holy place for me, veshakhanti among them. Like everything that I show you, the pattern of the mishkan and the pattern of all its furnishings, that is how you shall make it. (Exodus/Shemot 25:8-9)

veshakhanti (וְשָׁכַנְתִּי) = and I will dwell, and I will stay. (A form of the root verb shakhan (שָׁכַן) = stay, settle, dwell, inhabit. This is the first occurrence in the Bible of the verb shakhan.)

mishkan (מִשְׁכָּן) = dwelling-place, home. (Also from the root verb shakhan. This is also the first occurrence in the Bible of the noun mishkan.)

Gold calf from the temple of Baalat in Byblos

Moses stays on top of Mount Sinai so long—40 days and 40 nights—that in the Torah portion Ki Tissa the Israelites at the foot of the mountain despair of seeing him again. So they make a golden calf in the hope that God will inhabit it.¹ God refuses the golden statue and threatens to destroy all the Israelites except Moses and his direct descendants. Moses refuses God’s offer, and God settles for sending a plague.²

Cloud descends on the mishkan — Cloud on the **mishkan**

After the surviving Israelites have built an elaborate portable tent-sanctuary according to God’s instructions, God descends on it in a pillar of cloud.³ In the book of Leviticus/Vayikra, God speaks to Moses from the empty space above the ark in this mishkan’s innermost chamber.

Throughout the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers the only mishkan for God is the portable tent-sanctuary. In the first book of Samuel a temple in Shiloh houses the ark, and God speaks to Samuel there.⁴

King Solomon builds a temple of stone and wood in Jerusalem for God to inhabit. (See my post Terumah & 1 Kings: Tent vs. Temple.) This temple lasts until the Babylonian army razes it in 587 B.C.E., along with most of the city.

Psalm 74 argues that this act was not merely a political conquest by the expanding Babylonian empire, but an attempt to eradicate the worship of God by destroying God’s home on earth. The psalmist, like most prophets writing after the fall of the first temple, probably believed God arranged the fall of Jerusalem in order to punish the Israelites for worshiping idols. Now that the punishment is complete, the psalmist is waiting for God to rescue the deported Israelites (and punish the Babylonians).

Why, God, do You endlessly reject us?

Your anger smokes at the flock You tended.

Remember Your community You acquired long ago!

You redeemed the tribe of your possession.

Mount Zion is where shakhanta. (Psalm 74:1-2)

shakhanta (שָׁכַנְתָּ) = you dwelled, you lived. (Another form of the verb shakhan.)

History repeats itself: Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, by David Roberts, 1850 (history repeats itself) — History repeats itself:
Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, by David Roberts, 1850

The psalm then describes how the Babylonian army replaced all the emblems of the Israelite religion in the temple with their own emblems, hacked up the carved ornamentation, and burned the wooden parts of the building down to the ground.

They set Your holy place on fire;

They profaned the ground inside the mishkan of Your name. (Psalm 74:7)

Given this disrespect, and given that the Israelites are the people God adopted and brought to Jerusalem in the first place, Psalm 74 asks why God is taking so long to restore God’s own mishkan, city, and people.

Why do you draw back Your right hand,

Holding it in Your bosom? (Psalm 74:11)

The psalm then points out that God created the world and the day and night, then did great deeds without a mishkan on earth. Lack of power is not holding God back. And the Israelites, particularly the poor and needy, belong to God.

Look to the covenant! (Psalm 74:20)

If God would only pay attention, the psalm implies, God would honor Its covenant, restore the Israelites to Jerusalem, and cause a new mishkan to be built there to facilitate worship.

Do not let the miserable turn back disgraced.

Let the poor and the needy praise Your name! (Psalm 74:21)

In Psalm 74, the mishkan of God is also the mishkan of the people. They need their own home, and they need to have a home for God in their midst. Then, instead of suffering miserably, the needy can praise God and rejoice.

Many Jews still want a home where we are free to praise God, to practice our own religion without fear or discrimination.

Half of the Jews in the world live in the nation of Israel, founded in 1948 as a homeland where Jews could escape the genocide, as well as less drastic forms of discrimination, inflicted on them in Europe. Yet over the next 69 years, the Jewish and Muslim residents of Israel have been attacked both by neighboring countries and by each other.

Most of the Jews living outside Israel today are American citizens. Discrimination against Jews in the United States has fallen over the past sixty years, and many of us view America as our real home, where we can participate in the life of our country and remain free to practice our own religion. God has many second homes among religious American Jews; every synagogue is a divine mishkan, and each of us can make a mishkan for God to dwell in our own hearts.

Yet in the past year, discrimination against ethnic and religious groups has become more socially acceptable in the United States. Psalm 74 suddenly seems more relevant.

I pray that the divine spirit blooms in all of our hearts. May we quickly reverse this dangerous trend. And may all people, everywhere, find a safe home.

Do not let the miserable turn back disgraced!

—

¹ Exodus 32:1-5.

² Exodus 32:35: Then God struck the people over what they had done with the calf that Aaron made.

³ Exodus 40:33-34: When Moses completed the work, the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the magnificence of God filled the mishkan.

⁴ 1 Samuel 3:1-10.