Although Vayakhel and Pekudei seem to be mere repetitions of the previous parshiyos of Terumah and Tetzaveh, the truth of the matter is that the Torah is not repeating itself at all; it is discussing two distinct sanctuaries: a Heavenly model and a terrestrial edifice.
The first two portions outline the structure and composition of the Sanctuary as it was transmitted from G-d to Moses. This was a conceptual, celestial Tabernacle. It was a Heavenly blueprint, a Divine map for a home to be built in the future.
In His instructions to Moses on how to construct the Sanctuary in parshas Terumah, G-d says, “You shall erect the Tabernacle according to its laws, as you have been shown on the mountain.” In other words, on the summit of Mount Sinai, Moses was shown an image, a vision, of the home in which G-d desired to dwell. This image was, obviously, ethereal and sublime; it was a home created in Heaven by G-d himself and presented to one of the most spiritual men in history, Moses.
Plato would describe it as “the ideal tabernacle,” the one that can be conceived only in our minds.
In contrast to this first celestial Sanctuary come the last two portions of Exodus, Vayakhel and Pekudei, in which Moses descends from the glory of Sinai and presents the people of Israel with a mission of fashioning a physical home for G-d in a sandy desert. Here, the Jewish people are called upon to translate a transcendental vision of a spiritual home into a physical structure comprised of mundane cedar and gold, which are, by their very definition, limited and flawed.
This second Sanctuary that the Jews built may have resembled, in every detail, the spiritual model described several chapters earlier, but in its very essence, it was a completely different Sanctuary. One was “built” by an infinite and absolute G-d; the other by mortals of flesh and blood. One consisted entirely of nebulous spirit, the other of gross matter. One was designed in Heaven, the other on Earth. One was perfect, the other was flawed.
In our personal lives, these two Sanctuaries reflect the two lives most of us must deal with throughout our years. Each of us owns his or her Heavenly “Sanctuary,” envisioned atop a summit of spiritual and psychological serenity and representing a vision and dream for a life and marriage aglow with love, passion, and endless joy. This is the ideal home, the ideal family, the ideal marriage. Then we have our Earthly Sanctuary, a life often filled with trials, challenges, battles, and setbacks, and yet one in which we attempt to create a space for G-d amidst a tumultuous heart and a stressful life.
G-D’S CHOICE
Astonishingly, we are told that it was only in the second Sanctuary that the Divine Presence came to reside. He wished to express His truth and eternity within the physical abode created by mortal and fragmented human beings on barren soil, not in the spiritual Sanctuary on top of Mount Sinai.
On the surface, the Sanctuary in Heaven is far more beautiful and perfect than the Sanctuary on Earth. The truth is, however, that beauty and depth exist in our attempt to introduce a spark of idealism in a spiritual wasteland that a palace built in Heaven can never duplicate.
When G-d sees a physical human being filled with struggle and anxiety stretching out his hand to help a person in need or engaging in a mitzvah, G-d turns to the billions of angels filling the Heavens and says, “Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than that?”
(This essay is based on an address delivered by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Shabbas Vayakhel-Pekudei 5718, March 15, 1958.)
Make No Mistake About the Power of Tehillim
Though Rebbitzin Chaya Mushka, the wife of the Tzemach Tzedek*, would recite a lot of Tehillim, she would do so with many mistakes. When one of her sons pointed this out to her, she asked her husband whether perhaps she should stop saying Tehillim. The Rebbe advised her to continue and then called for his son and admonished him, saying that it was her Tehillim that had protected him at the Rabbinic Conference in Petersburg in 1843**. The government, enraged by his views, had placed the Rebbe under house arrest twenty-two times, and it was her Tehillim that had saved him from a more serious punishment.
On another occasion, when a libel was plotted against the Tzemach Tzedek, he asked his wife to recite Tehillim for him.
==== The Weekly Farbrengen #810
* Admor Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, the third Chabad Rebbe
** The conference was about the government, with the Maskilim movement behind it, mixing into the education of rabbanim and yeshivos. They wanted the Tzemach Tzedek, together with other rabbanim, to sign off on their demands, meddling in Jewish education. The Tzemach Tzedek was adamantly against this and did not give in to their demands.
The Rashab said that the Tzemach Tzedek held the reciting of Tehillim by his wife, Rebbitzin Chaya Mushka, in high regard.
==== Toras Shalom p. 81 – Talks of the Rashab
Beis Nissan. Yom Hillula of the Rashab – Admor Sholom Ber, Fifth Chabad Rebbe. 5621-5680/1860-1920
