Shemos Chapter 38 – Transcript

Shemos Chapter 38: The Outdoor Vessels of the Mishkan

Introduction: The Structure of Chapter 38

We’re continuing with Shemos chapter 38, which is the continuation of Betzalel creating all of the vessels. More particularly, according to the logic of whoever made the chapters, we’re moving now to the outdoor vessels.

Until now we had what’s called the Keilim HaPnimim – the inside, the things that were inside the Mishkan, which is the Ulam and the Kodesh HaKodashim: the Shulchan, the Menorah, and the Mizbeach HaKetoret in the Mishkan. Now we’re moving outside in the Chatzer really, where there are two other things called the Mizbeach Ha’olah here. Earlier it was just called the Mizbeach and the other one was called the Mizbeach HaKetoret. Here it’s the opposite, or not the opposite – we have Mizbeach HaKetoret and Mizbeach Ha’olah. The Mizbeach for the Korban Ha’olah, for the Tmidim, which is outside.

This separation of the outdoor Keilim and the inside is not something that is actually in the pesukim here. It is in some sense in the pesukim earlier, in Parshas Terumah, because in Parshas Terumah the Mizbeach is entirely not in the right place and the Mizbeach also was later. But here it actually seems to belong together with all the other Keilim, so I’m not sure that this person that made the chapters is correct. But in any case.

The Copy-Paste Nature of the Construction Account

More or less again, it’s copy-paste from what we had in the command, in the mitzvah, where it said what you should do. Here it just said that he did it, just changing the verb from future, from imperative to present to past. There are some minor differences as always, but I don’t think there’s any meaningful differences here.

The Mizbeach Ha’olah (The Outer Altar)

We have the Mizbeach: it’s five by five, it’s square, it’s three amos tall. It has four karnayim. It’s covered in copper and has all its Keilim – all its serving tools, utensils that are used with it – also made of copper. It has something called a michbar, not entirely clear what that is, some kind of net around it, made of just like a kind of skirt for the Mizbeach. It has rings to carry it with and it has the badim – the beams with which they are carried – also covered in copper.

A Note About the Badim

This is actually maybe a comment. We discussed how at this time where it says that everything was made, it doesn’t say what they were made for in the sense it doesn’t say the avodah that was done on each thing. Same by the Mizbeach – it doesn’t say what the avodah is done on the Mizbeach. But when it comes to the badim, the carrying sticks with which it’s carried, it does say for all the Keilim that these are in order to carry them with.

But that seems to make sense because this is part of the description of the kli, and maybe even they’re already starting to carry it because they have to carry it into the Mishkan or carry it around when they’re making it and so on. It’s not part of the avodah, it’s part of the description of the kli itself.

So we have that, and we have also the description of it being navuv – whatever that means, it probably means that it was hollow inside. So that’s the story of the Mizbeach.

The Kiyor (The Copper Basin)

Then we have the story of the Kiyor and the kan of the Kiyor – the base for the Kiyor. This is again much shortened from the previous description, although in the previous description it didn’t either give any measurements for the Kiyor. So the Kiyor is one of the Keilim that it just assumes that we know what a Kiyor is and doesn’t say how tall to make it, doesn’t say anything about how it’s set up or anything like that. It just says it’s a Kiyor made out of copper and has a base also.

The Unique Detail: The Mirrors of the Women

One interesting thing, and a very interesting thing that was added here as part of the story – doesn’t belong earlier, right? Earlier we did have at length the mitzvah of the Kiyor, right? How the Kohanim should wash themselves when they come into the Mishkan from the Kiyor. All of that is missing here, just like all the parts of the avodah are missing here.

But something else is added here which is not – nothing similar is added to any of the Keilim – is what the Kiyor specifically was made out of. So we know that the Mishkan was made out of these donations and we also had a sort of detailed list earlier when the people brought the donations: who brought the gold, the silver, the copper, what these things were made out of.

It didn’t have these descriptions here. For example, when we discussed the Eigel, which was donated from, made from donated gold, we did have a clear description of what, where this gold came from – how it was supposed to come from the nezem, the rings in their ears and the ears of their wives and children, which maybe didn’t happen in the end if you read the drash that the Midrash made of that. But in any case, we have that there.

We do not have that in any of the previous descriptions of the zahav, of the kesef and the nechoshes that they brought. It doesn’t say like that these were originally jewelry or what they were. It just says whoever had gold or silver were bringing it.

The only time where we have something like this – actually it does say, I’m wrong, it does say for the gold it says that it was made – there’s a list of jewelry, list of different jewelry that was made from. For the silver and the copper there isn’t anything like that.

The only time we have that in the other things is here for the nechoshes. And it says explicitly what we don’t have in any other place: which kind of original thing the precious metal was in, which of that was made into which kli. It doesn’t say like the Aron was made from the most precious jewelry that was brought or anything like that. We don’t have anything like that. All gold is considered equal. All silver is considered equal.

The only thing that is not considered equal is the nechoshes. It says that the nechoshes was made b’mar’ot hatzov’ot, hatzov’ot – this literally means something like “with the mar’ot” – means the mirrors – “of the gatherers who have gathered,” the feminine gatherers who have gathered at the entrance of the Ohel Moed.

So this is like the same language we have tzava. Tzava means translated as an army, but maybe more literally something like a gathering, like we have tzva hashamayim – all the stars gather together, the mass. So maybe we could translate something like “the mass” – to have massed at the entrance of the Ohel Moed.

And so this is a description both of what it was made out of – like which, what was the original thing, what was the original thing that it was – and also who was the donor. We did have some descriptions of who was the donor – the Nesi’im that brought certain things – but this is the only time we have besides for that who the donor was.

Interpretations of the Mirrors

There’s many different speculations in the different interpreters what this might mean. The most simple pshat is what Ramban says in his third pshat: that apparently, just like we had earlier, there’s zahav tahor, kesef tahor, there’s different levels, different grades of the metals. Specifically, the Menorah is repeated several times it’s made out of pure gold. All the other things are also pure gold, but maybe the Menorah was even more pure, because of different levels, different grades.

In the same way, the Kiyor seems to have been made out of a different grade of copper than the other things, and that’s probably why this is mentioned. Because you can imagine that a mirror needs to be made out of a pretty good grade of copper so it should be shiny, it has to be polished so it should be able to function as a mirror. And probably that’s why these mar’ot – of course, where do you have mirrors? So women have mirrors. And they were women that were coming, they came, they all came to give their donation. And these mirrors, the kind of copper they made was what they made for the Kiyor so it should be this kind of beautiful copper, versus the other parts of copper which we’ll see in the end of this chapter, the beginning – it’s just a list of copper for the nails and technical things that don’t have to be as beautiful. So that’s probably a simple meaning.

The Chatzer (The Courtyard)

That’s the end of the Keilim. Now we have making the Chatzer. Chatzer means the – I mean, you know, make a courtyard, right? It’s the gate around the courtyard. Also made in a similar way to the Mishkan, only here it’s more clear that the amudim – it’s more, maybe we could say more similar to the paroches and the masach – where there are these beams and there are hanged fabrics or something made of shesh.

So it gives us the material for the fabric – linen – and hanged onto these beams. And also it says they have hooks to hang them with, which is some kind of other technical part to hang it with, or maybe just something for beauty around them, and so on. And it describes the measurements of these.

Missing Measurements

There is some interesting thing that I don’t know the meaning of. Where in the mitzvah, when we talked in Parshas Terumah about the Chatzer, we had twice all the measurements. So there were measurements, so you could read: there were 100 amah of kela’im for the two longer sides, the right and the left side, with 20 amudim for each, and 20 adanim for the amudim, and the same for the left side. And the back there were 50, and then the front is 15 and 15, and then 15 left open for the – sorry, I guess more than 15 left over, right? There – 20 left over for the door.

And that’s one description. Besides that, it gives a description in like numbers and full amos numbers, just like – and also, so how wide and how long the Chatzer was, and also how tall it was, meaning how tall these curtains or however exactly we want to describe them were around.

So that’s missing entirely here. It doesn’t say – it’s obvious that it was 100 by 50, but it doesn’t say that it was 100 by 50. It’s just if you calculate you see that it’s 100 by 50. And therefore we’re also missing the height – it doesn’t say that it was five amos or three amos high, the Chatzer. So that’s missing here. I don’t know why.

Different Order and Summaries

In any case, there’s also a slightly different order where there’s like these generalities where it says that everything – all the kela’im were shesh, all the adanim were nechoshes, all the hooks and the chashukim were kesef, they were covered in their heads with silver, and so on. So here we have a more clear summary. At the end of the part over there, it was more mixed into it. Here also some of it was more mixed in, so I don’t know if these things are meaningful or what to make of them.

That’s the story with the Chatzer.

The Masach of the Sha’ar HaChatzer (The Courtyard Gate)

Then we have the story of the masach of the sha’ar ha’chatzer, similar to how we had a masach and the sha’ar ha’Mishkan. Again, it is 20 amah wide, as we said, there’s 20 amos left, five amos tall, and set on four amudim. So we can see that the calculation is something like there are four amudim, each amud supports the five amos of kela’im in between, and…

Parshas Vayakhel and Pekudei: The Accounting of the Mishkan

And that’s the story of the building, the Mishkan. This is really where it ends. And this is where Parshas Vayakhel ends and Parshas Pekudei starts.

Whoever organized the chapters thought that we should continue a little more and have this summary of – in other words, he saw the list of Pekudei HaMishkan, which is the lists of who made it, again to confirm that Betzalel and Oholiav made it, and the amounts of the precious metals. There isn’t amounts for anything else but the precious metals – the gold, silver and copper, how much it was and what was done with it. That is, to him it was the end, really.

We could see that it’s another thing. It’s not really like you could formulate this at the end as the end of the creating of the Mishkan, and then it talks about the creating of the Bigdei Kehunah. But I’m not sure that’s the most correct way. It’s really a separate thing. And whoever separated the Parshiyos of Vayakhel and Pekudei understood that this is a new beginning, therefore start Parshas Pekudei here.

The Header: Eleh Pekudei HaMishkan

Anyways, we will just describe what it is. There’s the header, “Eleh Pekudei HaMishkan” – these are the countings of the Mishkan, which Moshe counted. So there’s a confirmation Moshe wasn’t charged. He was the chief accountant, so to speak. Someone has to take charge whenever there’s a great donation effort. Someone has to make sure to be responsible, to be really the one who’s reliable, to know that there’s a count, there’s people taking it and what it’s going for.

So that’s Moshe. And we get also the heads of everything else. So we get the Leviim headed by Itamar the son of Aharon. It’s not clear what the Leviim – they would probably see later in Parshas Bamidbar really the elaboration of this, how Itamar was in charge of the carrying of everything.

And then of course we have the confirmation that Betzalel did everything and Oholiav did everything. And again the list of the – here a little shorter than we had before – list of three arts that they were good at and the materials that they worked with. It’s interesting, but I’m not going to get into the length.

The Accounting of the Precious Metals

Gold

And then what we got is this list. The list of the amounts of gold that they were – it was 29 kikar and 730 shekel of gold.

Silver

The list of amount of silver: 100 kikar and 1,775 shekel of silver.

The silver is different because the silver says that this was donated half a shekel, or a beka, for each head. This connects us with Parshas Ki Tisa, where it said that each person was commanded to bring a half a shekel of silver, for precisely 603,550. Therefore, if you count it all together, you end up with 100 kikar. Those were for the 100 Adonim that were needed – precisely 100. If you count them up, you see that there was 100 exactly needed.

And then you left over with 1,775 shekel, which were for the other copper things that we have discussed – the hooks and the headers, the head coverings, sort of like hats for the Amudim, and the Chashukkim for the Amudim, which seems to be some kind of design that was on the Amudim, maybe like a gartle kind of thing.

Nechoshes (Copper)

And then we have the list of Nechoshes: 70 kikar Nechoshes and 2,400 shekel.

So it’s interesting that there’s less Nechoshes. There was the most silver. Seems like Nechoshes is considered – although in the order it’s always Nechoshes is after Kesef – if you count up the numbers, maybe the reason there’s so much silver is because of this Shekel BeKhol Gulgalta business, so they got a lot of silver. Or maybe Nechoshes, as we saw earlier with the story of the Marot HaTzovot, some at least some grades of Nechoshes were considered more precious and were not so much available.

And it gives a long list of everything made of the Nechoshes: the Adonim for the doors, the Mizbeach, the parts of the Mizbeach, the Adonim for the Chatzer, all the Yetedot, all the nails for the Chatzer, for the Mishkan. That’s the end of the Nechoshes.

The Fabrics

And then we have not an accounting, but just a general statement of the fabrics, which are the main fabrics. It doesn’t talk about the Shesh, or of the Oros, any of the skins or anything else. And it just says that they made Bigdei Serad – it’s not clear if that means itself the Bigdei Kehunah – but it also says that they made Bigdei Kodesh for Aharon as God commanded.

And then this is why the chapter – I already moved you into Chapter 39 – because whoever cut up the chapters thought that that belongs to that, but really it’s just the end of this accounting, I think.