What does the lechem hapanim have to do with setting up the Mishkan? I must add that I found a teretz to an old kasha, and I am sure that I asked this many years ago.
Why is the lechem hapanim, the bread that was on the Shulchan, mentioned at all in Parshas Vayakhel-Pekudai, even though it has nothing to do with the setting up in the Mishkan?
You may say, well, it says shemen lamaor, the lighting of the Menorah, of putting in the oil, is one of the items donated. It is known in the name of the Brisker Rav that the Menorah is only the Menorah when it is lit, and therefore, when they built the Menorah, they had to light it. Maybe the same thing with the Shulchan. The Shulchan is only a Shulchan when it has lechem hapanim, and that is why they had to make the lechem hapanim as part of the building of the Shulchan.
That is incorrect, because the whole point is that it says donate shemen lamaor in the list of donations in Parshas Terumah, so we know that lighting is part of the building of the Mishkan. But it doesn’t mention flour that it should mention lechem hapanim as part of the avodah. Tzorech iyun gadol.
And then, last night, I opened up the Sefer Hak’sav V’hakabalah (page 455 on 39:36), to the end of this week’s parsha, and I see that he answers the question. He says that this is a normal thing. When we mention the lechem hapanim, we don’t need the bread at all; we mean the keilim of the lechem hapanim. After all, this is a list of keilim, a list of things that were made, and when it says lechem hapanim, it means the various keilim, like the mixer to mix the dough, the forms to place them in the oven, whatever was needed for the lechem hapanim. Just as we find by the Mizbaiach that things like the shovels are part of the building of the Mishkan, kemo kain, the same exact thing here, the utensils needed for making the lechem hapanim are part of the lechem hapanim.
