Parshat Pekudei 5782
Rabbi Jablinowitz
We read in the beginning of this week’s parsha, אלה פקודי המשכן, משכן העדת. Rashi comments on the term משכן העדת as referring to the Mishkan as a Mishkan of testimony. He explains that Hashem allowing His Shechinah to rest in the Mishkan was testimony that He forgave Bnei Yisrael for the sin of the golden calf.
Hashem’s testimony to us is paralleled by our testimony to Him. We read in sefer Yeshayahu (Chapter 43, Pasuk 12), ואתם עדי נאום ד'. The Navi is teaching us that testimony is fundamental to the function of the Jewish people in the world. As a result of keeping Torah and mitzvos as commanded by Hashem, we testify that Hashem created the world. This role was totally upended by the sin of the golden calf. Committing the sin of חטא העגל, a cardinal violation of the Torah, was in total contradiction of what our role in the world is meant to be.
By resting His Shechinah in the Mishkan, Gd was teaching Bnei Yisrael a fundamental lesson. He was teaching them, you might have sinned, but it doesn’t change your essential nature. You are still a people tasked with proclaiming Hashem as the Creator. The ערב רב might have influenced you to sin, but you still retain the position of אתם עדי.
The Gemara in Avodah Zarah 4B teaches in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi לא עשו ישראל את העגל אלא ליתן פתחון פה לבעלי תשובה. It wasn’t appropriate for Bnei Yisrael to sin with the golden calf; it happened in order to teach בעלי תשובה a lesson. And that lesson is that when a Jew sins, he can always return. A Jew is בעצם, in essence, a witness for Gd. But he sometimes strays and gets lost. Nonetheless, he should never despair. No matter how much he might fall, he can always pick himself up. And this is the primary reason why the Shechinah rested in the Mishkan after the sin of the golden calf.
The Vilna Gaon teaches in his commentary on Shir HaShirim (Chapter 1, Pasuk 4) that the resting of the Shechinah among Clal Yisrael is illustrated through the mitzvah of Succah. He explains that the reason we celebrate Succos on the fifteenth of Tishrei is because this is the day the ענני הכבוד returned to Bnei Yisrael. Moshe Rabbeinu came down with the second set of Luchos on Yom Kippur, the tenth of Tishrei. This was when Hashem forgave Bnei Yisrael for the חטא העגל. The very next day, the eleventh of Tishrei, Moshe commanded Bnei Yisrael the mitzvah of building the Mishkan. The next two days they brought all the materials necessary. On the fourteenth, the skilled workers received the gold from Moshe and on the next day, the fifteenth of Tishrei, they began building the Mishkan and the clouds of glory returned. This is why the mitzvah of Succos was given precisely on the fifteenth of Tishrei.
And this explains why every year we celebrate Succos after Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur our sins are forgiven and immediately afterwards we enter the Succah. Just as the Shechinah rested in the Mishkan, so too the Gemara in Succah 9A teaches us that שם שמים rests on the Succah; the Shechinah is in the Succah. And just as the return of the Shechinah in the Mishkan taught Bnei Yisrael they could do Teshuvah, so too the Succah is a unique place reserved for the Ba’al Teshuvah. This is the meaning of the Gemara in Berachos 34B מקום שבעלי תשובה עומדים צדיקים גמורים אינם עומדים. The message for the Ba’al Teshuvah is that a special place is reserved for him to show him that his sin doesn’t express who he really is. And this special place was the Mishkan in the desert, and every year the return of the Shechinah is recreated in the Succah after Yom Kippur.
Good Shabbos
Print this article