The Wisdom of Action
After detailing the components of the contribution for the Tabernacle, the ultimate purpose is expressed (in the tenth verse, “The tenth shall be holy”), “And let every wise-hearted among you come and make all that God has commanded.” Rabbi Moshe of Kobrin explained: “It is not intellectualism that is the essence of wisdom, but rather coming and practically doing all that God has commanded.” In other words, the wisdom of the heart is not abstract intellect, but the sense needed to come and actually “do all that God has commanded.”
The wisdom here is expressed specifically through action, as in the verse, “With wisdom You have made them all.” Also, as taught by the Baal Shem Tov, on the verse, “Whatever your hand endeavors to do with your strength, do it,” meaning that you should act with the power (כֹּחַ) of mah (מָה), which together spell the word “wisdom” (חָכְמָה). We are required to connect action and thought, or the sefirot of kingdom (corresponding with action) and wisdom (corresponding with thought). The unification of kingdom and wisdom is alluded to at the end of the verse that serves as a source for the concept of Four Worlds, “All that I have called by Name and to which My honor, has been created, has been formed, has even been made” (כָּל הַנִּקְרָא בִשְׁמִי וְלִכְבוֹדִי בְּרָאתִיו יְצַרְתִּיו אַף עֲשִׂיתִיו) work is the secret of "I have also made it." All the levels of creation are to be found in the end within the World of Action, the sefirah of kingdom, where everything is “made.”
This practical wisdom, the wisdom of the heart expressed through the artistry of the hands, is feminine wisdom, the wisdom of kingdom, as described later in the portion, “And every wise-hearted woman spun with her hands... and all the women whose heart stirred them in wisdom spun the goats' [hair]." In the way of numerical allusion, “the work of the hand” (מְלֶאכֶת יָד) — which has the same numerical value as “halachah in practice” (הֲלָכָה לְמַעֲשֶׂה), i.e., the practical implementation of the Torah’s wisdom — also has the same numerical value as the idiom “true judgment” (דִּין אֱמֶת).
Even among the men working on the construction of the Tabernacle, Bezalel and Aholiav to name the most important, there is a feminine aspect, since the entire Tabernacle is a type of “feminine kingdom.” The Tabernacle and later the Temple are God’s “house,” and we know that “His house” refers to one’s wife,” since its purpose is to provide a place for the indwelling of the Divine Presence. In the Tabernacle and the Temple, we find the High Priest, adorned magnificently and managing it with the finesse of an experienced homemaker.
Indeed, the source and inspiration for this wisdom is the soul of Moses. Moses’ root is in supernal wisdom, the sefirah whose inner essence is an absolute nullification to performing “all that God has commanded” (thanks to the clarity emanating from Moses’ special level of prophecy, “This is the thing that God has commanded, saying...”). Yet Moses is an applied healer who takes all the wisdom and brings it down to be implemented in practice, through the 613 commandments of the Torah.
Indeed, 613 is the value of Moses’ best-known connotation, “Moses our teacher” (מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּנוּ). Moses receives the ability to take from wisdom and to bring it to kingdom, into practical use, from the merit of Joseph—the archetypal soul of foundation—whose bones Moses carried with him from Egypt and through the wilderness.
Therefore, both Joseph and Moses are hinted at here in the verse: the value of “Joseph” (יוֹסֵף) is the same as “And every wise-hearted [individual]” (וְכָל חֲכַם לֵב). Moses is hinted to in a more complex way. We recently discussed the three roots of Moses’ soul, good, nothingness, and Abel. These three roots appear in the verse as follows. The value of the entire verse, “And every wise-hearted among you will come and make all that God has commanded” (וְכָל חֲכַם לֵב בָּכֶם יָבֹאוּ וְיַעֲשׂוּ אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה י-הוה), 1708 is a product of 28, the value of “power” (כֹּחַ) times “nothingness” (אַיִן), the Divine power of “wisdom emerges from nothingness” (וְהַחָכְמָה מֵאַיִן תִּמָּצֵא). When a person says, “I have no power [of my own]” (אֵין כֹּחַ), that is the gateway to receiving the Divine power of nothingness, which is akin to saying, “I have power only from God.”
The value of just the words “And every wise-hearted among you will come and make” is 17, the value of “good” (טוב) times “Abel” (הבל)! More directly, the sum of every other word in the verse, “And every... hearted... will come... all... Havayah (וְכָל חֲכַם לֵב בָּכֶם יָבֹאוּ וְיַעֲשׂוּ אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה י-הוה) is 3 times “Moses” (מֹשֶׁה). The sum of every other letter—וכָל חֲכַם לֵב בָּכֶם יָבֹאוּ וְיַעֲשׂוּ אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה י-הוה—is 690, 2 times “Moses” (מֹשֶׁה), 345.
Artistic Beauty and the Golden Ratio
The wisdom that is expressed in the beauty of handiwork is the secret of the Golden Ratio, the mathematical proportion that governs the beauty of Creation. We also identify it as the secret of the verse, “God gives beauty to Japheth, and he will dwell in the tents of Shem.” One of the allusions to the Golden Ratio can be found in the idiom “wise-hearted” (חֲכַם לֵב), whose value is 100. The value of the initial letters of the two words that make up this idiom (חל), 38 and the remaining letters (כם ב ), 62, is the closest division of 100 into integers according to the Golden Ratio.
However, since the next word “among you” (בָּכֶם) also equals 62, this means that the sum of all three words, “wise-hearted among you” (חֲכַם לֵב בָּכֶם), will be 162, the next number after 100 in the Additive Series in which 38 and 62 appear. The full Additive Series is thus: 6, 4, 10, 14, 24, 38, 62, 100, 162, ...
They Will Come and They Will Make
The most unique expression in the verse is “they will come and they will make” (יָבֹאוּ וְיַעֲשׂוּ). An almost identical phrase appears regarding the construction of the Second Temple, “they came and made” (וַיָּבֹאוּ וַיַּעֲשׂוּ).
Why is it necessary to come before acting? Simply put, one could imagine the place of construction of the Tabernacle (or the Temple) as a construction site to which one must arrive and perform the necessary work. But on a deeper level, the coming is the preparation for the correct action:
The Baal Shem Tov expounds on the verse “The wise-hearted will take commandments” (חֲכַם לֵב יִקַּח מִצְוֹת). The “wise-hearted”—as discussed here—is someone who knows how to take two aspects in every commandment he performs: the intention and the action. Thus, in every act, the wise-hearted person performs unifications—the service of God whose purpose is “to unify the Holy Blessed One and His Shechinah in the lower realms.” The verb, “they will come” is then related to coupling and unification and it is what needs to precede the action itself.
Taking action, in and of itself, belongs to a lower realm, as it is associated with kingdom. But because of the act of first “coming,” i.e., “they will come and make,” it becomes a vessel to reveal the secret of the supernal World of Action. What is so special about “coming” and then “making?” We can get a hint of the answer by looking at the value of this phrase, “they will come, and they will make” (יָבֹאוּ וְיַעֲשׂוּ). Its numerical value is 411, the same as “something from nothing” (יֵשׁ מֵאַיִן). Usually, when something is made (i.e., in the lower realm of kingdom, the mundane World of Action), it is an act of making “something from something”; only the form shaping the material is added or changed. But this special phrase causes the level of the act to completely change and become, like the Creation, an act of “something from nothing.” 411 is also the value of “chaos” (תֹּהוּ). This adds to our understanding that the building and making of the Tabernacle and its vessels, etc. introduced the supernal lights of Chaos (אוֹרוֹת דְּתֹהוּ) into the World of Action, thereby leading to a level of supreme level of rectification. This state is known as, “light of chaos in rectified vessel” (אוֹרוֹת דְּתֹהוּ בַּכֵּלִים דְּתִיקּוּן).
(From a class given on 19 Adar 5782)
