Drash Cards for Pekudei (5774)

by Marc Mangel

• This is an example of why one cannot simply read the Torah literally in translation without commentary

• I did not get past the first line, particularly the word ‘eidut’ (Miskan ha-eidut’) which was translated in my Chumash as ‘testimony’, but also elsewhere as ‘witness’, ‘pact’. Go from the worldly to the supernal

• Abarbanel (witness): Levites (lead by Itamar) audited the use of gold (we are not told how the gold was used)

• Malbim (testimony): Proof of the audit’s accuracy and that none of the materials used in the miskan were previously involved in a sin

• Levi Yitzchak (testimony): Israel had regained the spiritual level that they had when they left Egypt

• Sefat Omer (witness): God had forgiven Israel for the Golden Calf.  Art Green on this: “The insight that guilt is the great impediment to true religious life was well known to the Chassidic masters”

• Isbizter (testimony): The mishkan is testimony that God not only exists but is involved in the physical world, something that idolaters deny

• Levi Yizchak once more: The Gematria of the first three words is 86, the same as that of Elohim; the mishkan is our link to God

• Maor V’Shemesh (testimony, pact): Gematria of ‘eidut’ is the same as ‘Talmud’.  When we study Torah we arouse the supernal worlds as they were when the Mishkan was first built.  As long as Israel is engaged in Torah study, the Mishkan is a testimony that they will not descend to Gehenna

• Shalach: The Tabernacle in our world stood opposite that in the celestial regions. Perhaps this is the reason for “…the Mishkan; Mishkan of The Testimony/Pact/Witness”