With all the necessary materials donated for the construction of the Mishkan, it was time to erect the structure but, Rashi tells us, the Yidden couldn’t complete the job. Therefore, they brought everything to Moshe Rabbeinu — “the tent and all its furnishings, its clasps, its planks, its bars, its pillars and its sockets...” “Moshe had done no work in the Mishkan,” Rashi continues, and therefore Hashem decreed that he should finish the construction, “since no human being could erect it [by himself] because of the heaviness of the planks.”
Moshe himself could not lift the planks either and protested: “How can a human being erect it?” Therefore, Hashem told him to do what he could and Hashem would complete the work; and so it was.
The Be’er Hasadeh asks how we should understand this. Imagine you’re trying to build your sukkah and you realize that the long beams you want to extend from one side to the other are too heavy to lift. What do you do? Run to your Rav or daven for help? Isn’t it more likely that you’ll ask your neighbor to lend a hand?
He answers that building the Mishkan was technically an impossible task. It was inevitable that the Yidden would get stuck at some point and realize not that they needed more human force but rather, that they needed Divine force — otherwise known as siyatta diShmaya.
Often, when we confront challenges in life, we oscillate between sitting back and letting Hashem do all the heavy lifting, and struggling along on our own. Instead, we need to learn from Moshe Rabbeinu and do the best we can, all while davening for Hashem’s help in every single area in life.
The Sfas Emes teaches that the “accounting” Moshe Rabbeinu made to the Yidden for all the materials he received as donations for the Mishkan was in fact an accounting of how he reached such a high madreigah. Hashem wants us to know that while He helps everyone to fulfill his tafkid in life, when we do our best this itself awakens siyatta diShmaya that enables us to reach ever higher madreigos, and we are given koichos greater than we could have imagined.
