Random Parsha babblings
Feb. 5th, 2011 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuThese are loose thoughts, not a coherent dvar Torah, but I want to capture them while they're fresh.
Reading Nechama Liebowitz ztz"l on the parsha last night; she discusses different approaches the mefarshim take to the question of when God gave the commandments about building the mishkan (tabernacle). Rashi, and most others, invoke the principle that "there is neither before nor after the Torah" -- i.e., the Torah sometimes narrates out of chronological order to make a point. (Ramban disagrees, but we'll ignore that for now.) So Rashi et al say that the commandments regarding the construction and furnishing of the mishkan were given after the sin of the calf, as a sop to human frailty that needed a glorious physical manifestation of the Divine presence. "Build Me a tabernacle and I may dwell in their midst" is taken to mean "and they may perceive My presence amongst them."
Does this mean that in an ideal world, God wouldn't have commanded that we build a glorious physical presence? No mishkan? No temple? Would we still bring offerings, but to any bamah (high place, i.e., earthen altar)? Is God's ideal a decentralized worship experience; was the abolition of bamot and the centralization of the cultish worship to the beit ha-miqdash another application of the recognition of the limits of humanity?
If so, was the destruction of the beit ha-miqdash not entirely a bad thing? Is our current decentralized service of God closer to God's original intent?
As I said, mostly disconnected questions and topics for research. Research for which I don't currently have time. But maybe I'll come back to this, figure out if there's something there, and write a dvar Torah for a future year.
Reading Nechama Liebowitz ztz"l on the parsha last night; she discusses different approaches the mefarshim take to the question of when God gave the commandments about building the mishkan (tabernacle). Rashi, and most others, invoke the principle that "there is neither before nor after the Torah" -- i.e., the Torah sometimes narrates out of chronological order to make a point. (Ramban disagrees, but we'll ignore that for now.) So Rashi et al say that the commandments regarding the construction and furnishing of the mishkan were given after the sin of the calf, as a sop to human frailty that needed a glorious physical manifestation of the Divine presence. "Build Me a tabernacle and I may dwell in their midst" is taken to mean "and they may perceive My presence amongst them."
Does this mean that in an ideal world, God wouldn't have commanded that we build a glorious physical presence? No mishkan? No temple? Would we still bring offerings, but to any bamah (high place, i.e., earthen altar)? Is God's ideal a decentralized worship experience; was the abolition of bamot and the centralization of the cultish worship to the beit ha-miqdash another application of the recognition of the limits of humanity?
If so, was the destruction of the beit ha-miqdash not entirely a bad thing? Is our current decentralized service of God closer to God's original intent?
As I said, mostly disconnected questions and topics for research. Research for which I don't currently have time. But maybe I'll come back to this, figure out if there's something there, and write a dvar Torah for a future year.