Unscrolled, Vayakhel-Pekudei: Where Shall God Dwell?

At first glance, the final portion of the book of Exodus seems like little more than a repetition of what we’ve seen before. After an exciting return to narrative with the story of the golden calf, we are thrown back into detailed descriptions of the tabernacle, its sacred vessels and the vestments of the high priest.

A few hours ahead of my family’s weekly Torah study session, I can almost hear my father sighing and asking why on earth the Torah is bothering to go through this all over again.

Indeed, he may not be alone in finding this rehashing to be a bit dull. As I was reading through these chapters, I noticed an unusual feature of the page layout. Normally, each page contains just a tiny amount of Torah text surrounded by a much greater amount of commentary from Rashi, Ramban, Rashbam, Sforno, Kli Yakar and other great commentators.

In these pages, however, there was a great deal less commentary text than usual. It seemed that the commentators had run out of things to say about the planks of the tabernacle, the bells on the High Priest’s hem and the oil of anointing.

If we focus only on the material descriptions of the tabernacle and its accoutrements, we will find little here that is new. We will hear of the same gold, silver and copper; the same blue, purple, and crimson yarn; the same twisted linen curtains; and the same skins of ram and dugong.

If we focus on the grammar, however, we will discover that the “thou shalt” of previous parashas has transformed into “they did.” In our earlier portions, God told Moses what to build and how to build it. In Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei, the theoretical becomes actual. This is not a repetition. It is a culmination.

A careful reader will also notice that while God commanded Moses from the inside out, Bezalel, the artisan of the tabernacle, builds from the outside in. God started with the sacred vessels — the Ark, the Menorah, the Table of the Bread of Presence — and then moved outward to the Tabernacle structure itself. Bezalel, on the other hand, starts with the Tabernacle and then moves onto the sacred vessels.

While God commanded Moses from the inside out, Bezalel, the artisan of the tabernacle, builds from the outside in.

The Talmud takes up this reversal of sequence, describing how Bezalel approached Moses, saying: “Moshe Rabbeinu, the standard practice throughout the world is that a person builds a house and only afterward places the vessels in the house.” Moses replied stubbornly, insisting that the vessels be created first. This interesting machloket (disagreement) pits the sensibility of the craftsman, who considers first the needs of material, against the sensibility of the prophet, who considers first the needs of the spirit.

Ultimately, it is the craftsman’s approach that wins out. Bezalel asks, “If I do so in the order you have commanded, where shall I put the vessels that I have made?” Moses, astounded by this very good point, assumes that it would take a prophet to have discerned it. “Perhaps you were in God’s shadow, and you knew precisely what He meant!” A simpler explanation would be that Bezalel relied on common sense, but perhaps a prophet, who relies on divine disclosure, has little understanding of such things.

When the Tabernacle is erected and the sacred vessels are put inside, the presence of God descends from heaven above and inhabits its new accommodation. This is a powerful and moving moment, one which validates the hard work we have done in studying — again and again — the complex details of its creation.

But for those who are still puzzled or put off by the repetition, I appeal to the Hasidic commentator Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim of Sudilkov, who insists that none of this was written without purpose. The Torah is eternal, he argues, and if it repeats itself, that means there is something there for us.

For Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim, that something is a lesson that has little to do with what concerns the craftsman. Rather, we are being instructed in how to build a sanctuary of the spirit within each of our souls.

After all, as God said, “Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell within them.”

Read it closely. It is not written, “that I may dwell within it,” the tabernacle, but rather “within them,” the people of Israel, which is to say, us.

Matthew Schultz is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (2020). He is a rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts.