Rashi's Comments on the Previous Verse: "Blue, Purple... Sheish"
This also explains Rashi's comments on the previous verse, "blue, purple... sheish." Rashi explains "blue" as wool dyed with the blood of the chilazon, which is blue. He explains "purple" as "wool dyed with a sort of dye named argomon." Finally, he defines "sheish" as "linen." It would appear as if Rashi is explaining what these three things are. However, that cannot be the case. Firstly, Rashi never defines argomon, a point on which other medieval commentators dispute, exactly what color it is. Secondly, why does Rashi find it necessary to define "sheish?" The word appeared earlier, and there, Rashi did not explain it. That makes it evident that even the beginning student knows the word's meaning!
This makes it clear that Rashi's purpose is not to explain the meaning of these words. Rather, he answers the same question that bothered him regarding the wood. The Jewish people needed to own these items. How could they have had a chilazon? How could they have had argomon? Therefore, Rashi explains that the Torah means wool dyed these colors, and we know that the Jewish Nation had many sheep. Rashi also tells us here that "sheish" means linen. This emphasizes what he already told us: Egypt has linen. Thus, it is evident that when the Jews left and "emptied" Egypt, they brought linen. Rashi is just showing that we owned everything needed for the Mishkan. Since we know how precise Rashi is, we can now understand why he begins his commentary on our verse with the word "and." "And from where did they have wood in the wilderness?" It continues his explanation of the previous verse, in which he said we had wool and linen.
It remains difficult to know why Yaakov began preparing for this more than 200 years before it was time to build the Mishkan. We also do not understand the need to bring trees from Israel and replant them in Egypt. We can explain that Yaakov prophetically knew that Hashem would tell us to "take" the donations. But the fact that Hashem would require us to take trees from Israel and replant them in Egypt, only to carry them out of Egypt more than 200 years later, requires explanation!
Rashi answers this question by saying, "Rabbi Tanchumah explained." Tanchumah is derived from the Hebrew word "nechomoh," meaning "consolation." The Jews knew that G-d had promised to redeem us. However, throughout all of the years of slavery, we could look at actual, physical cedars brought from Israel (conveying the idea of redemption) and be comforted from our suffering by a solid, concrete sign of redemption.
