TRIBUTE TO THE TACHASH: PARSHAT TERUMAH
Shira Smiles shiur – 2016/5776
Summary by Channie Koplowitz Stein
Parshat Terumah contains the beautiful verse that reveals Hashem’s love for us.
He tells us, “Make for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” The parsha
then continues with detailed instructions on how to build the structure and all
the vessels necessary for the services to be conducted therein. Obviously,
something of this symbolic significance must be invested with much thought and
meaning in every piece of material and in every inch of its structure. It is
with this in mind that we will focus on one element of the Mishkan, of the
sanctuary Bnei Yisroel were to build.
While most of the materials Hashem asked Bnei Yisroel to contribute to the
building of the Mishkan are familiar, gold, silver, wood, wool, and so forth,
there is one that is unknown to us. This is the skin (hide) of an animal called
the tachash. This skin was to be used as a covering above the entire
Mishkan. The Gemarrah Shabbos explains that this was a beautiful, multi colored
animal that existed only at that time, neither before from creation nor after,
and then became extinct. Onkelos then writes that the tachash sos
gavna, rejoices and prides itself in its colors. Since this animal existed
at no other time or place, there would be no name for it in any other language.
Therefore, explains Rashi, Onkelos is not translating the word but
explaining it.
Shenayim Mikra takes Onkelos translation and explains the words
differently. Instead of writing that the tachash rejoices (sos)
in its colors, Shenayim Mikra reads it as six (shesh)
colors. Using this interpretation, the Ohel Yosef writes that the six
colors represent the six sefirot, the six emanations through which God
is manifest in the world. The seventh sefirah is Malchut, the
sovereignty of God Himself, above all the others and above the Mishkan.
The tachash was created and existed only within this very short time
frame in the desert so that its special skin could be used in the construction
of the Mishkan after which time it became extinct.
If we say that the tachash was prideful in its colors, we are implying that it
was arrogant. This presents a problem to the Shvilei Pinchas who reminds
us that haughtiness is antithetical to God’s presence. How could the tachash
then be used for the place of Hashem’s dwelling? Rabbi Raphael Blum in Tal
Hashamayim answers that question very simply: The Tachash took pride for the
short time that it was in the service of Hashem. Even a Talmid Chacham can have
a small bit of measured pride for doing Hashem’s will, writes Hashir
Vehashevach. After all, much pride he cannot have, for he knows that he was
created from dust. Therefore, posits Hashir Vehashevach, the tachash
must be other worldly, created from outside this world to exist for only a
short time to help us feel Hashem’s presence, for only in the Mishkan where
Hashem presence is manifest can we find pride (haughtiness) and greatness (ga’avah
u’gedulah) together.
Hashem’s presence in this world was palpable only two times, first during
creation and then at the giving of the Torah at Sinai, and will be palpable
again with the coming of the Moshiach. Each of these times is represented by a
different part of the Shabbos day when Hashem’s presence is again close to us.
Friday night represents creation when creation was completed. Shabbat day
represents that Shabbat day when we received the Torah. Shabbat evening, the
time of the third meal, represents the yearning for Moshiach.
Rabbi Belsky (whose loss we mourn this week) writes in Einei Yisroel
that the Ramban notes, that the Mishkan in the desert, constructed
immediately after our stand at Sinai, was meant to eternalize the vents of
Sinai within Klal Yisroel. He supports his point by noting that just as Sinai
had concentric boundaries beyond which only some could go until only Moshe
himself could ascend the mountain, so too did the Mishkan have boundaries for
different people, from the Holy of Holies into which only Aharon could enter
all the way to the outer courtyard for all of Bnei Yisroel. As Rabbi Pliskin
notes, the grandeur of the Mishkan was because of God’s presence. When one
approached the Mishkan, one would be awed by God’s grandeur, and all one’s
pride and arrogance would melt away. In God’s presence, he would truly
recognize his own lowliness and realize that only God could raise him up. The
closer one is to God, the more humble one becomes. Therefore, the Torah bears
witness, Moshe who was closer to God than any other man, was the humblest of
all men.
The Shvilei Pinchas, Rabbi Pinchas Friedman, takes a different approach
as he focuses on the beautiful colors of the tachash and what they
represent within the Mishkan, the Ohel Moed, Tent of Meeting.
Rabbi Friedman notes that each side of the Mishkan represented one of our
forefathers. The right side represented Avraham and his attribute of chessed
(kindness); the left side represented Yitzchak and his attribute of gevurah
(severity, strength, restraint). But there was a center bar that went from one
side to the other, bridging the gap and joining the two. This bar represents
Yaakov whose attribute was tiferes, glory and splendor which is the
point at which chessed and gevurah meet in balance. Yaakov, who
is described as a dweller in tents, thus joined the “tent” of his father
Yitzchak to the “tent” of his grandfather Avraham, forging a solid bond between
them.
Where did these side beams and especially the center beam come from? When
Hashem commanded that the Mishkan be constructed, He commanded, “You shall make
the beams … of acacia wood, standing erect.” In other words, these were
to be made of wood already specified for that purpose. Their source offers
further validation to the idea that the Mishkan is most closely associated with
Yaakov Avinu. When Yaakov went down to Egypt with his family, the move that
would begin the enslavement of Bnei Yisroel, he planted acacia trees in Egypt,
knowing through Divine inspiration that Hashem would command the building of a
structure that would require acacia wood. Before his death, Yaakov commanded
his children that when the redemption occurs, they are to take these trees with
them. It is these trees that were to become the beams of the Mishkan. Further,
Rabbi Friedman notes that whenever Hashem says “for Me,” as He does here with,
Make for Me a sanctuary …,” it denotes eternity. According to the Gemarrah,
although the Mishkan was indeed dismantled, it was never destroyed and all its
parts remained hidden under the tunnels of the Heichal, the great hall
of the Beit Hamikdosh.
It is from this line of reasoning that the Shvilei Pinchas cites the Alshich
in noting that the first Beit Hamikdosh was in the merit of Avraham Avinu but
was destroyed because of Yishmael, Avraham’s son. The second Beit Hamikdosh was
built in the merit of Yitzchak Avinu but was destroyed because of Esau. The
third Beit Hamikdosh will be built in the merit of Yaakov Avinu and will
incorporate the hidden elements of the Mishkan within it. Likewise, as the
middle link in attributes, Yaakov incorporates within himself the attributes of
Avraham and Yitzchak.
This idea brings us back to the tachash, the beautiful multi hued
animal. Avraham and Yitzchak are each represented by a single color, Avraham by
the white of chessed and Yitzchak by the red of strength. Yaakov, on the other
hand, is represented by green. (Green is the middle color of the rainbow,
bridging the opposite extremes.) The tachash was important not
because it was a specific animal, but rather because its skin had the ability
to incorporate many colors and create a beautiful synthesis to create
tiferet, splendor.
Nevertheless, the name of the animal itself alludes to this synthesis, as tachash
is an anagram for Torah, chaim and shalom.
[These three things are what a person merits who sees a well in their dreams.
Yaakov upon entering Charan sees a well, and three flocks, representing these
three elements, by the well.] Yaakov represented each of these elements. He sat
in the tents of Shem and Ever and studied Torah, the Gemarrah says Yaakov Avinu
never died, (chaim), and he was able to create the balance and peace between the
gentle chessed of Avraham and the harsh strength of Yitzchak, hence shalom.
However, when the forces of evil corrupt this balance, we get the reverse
anagram, shachat, destruction. Like the tachash,
Yaakov takes pride in synthesizing these elements and creating a new and
beautiful “color.” It is this synthesis that covers the entire Mishkan and is
the source of shalom.
The Chasam Sofer adds that unity of purpose creates this shalom. While the
children of Esau are recorded as six souls, in the plural, the family of Yaakov
descending to Egypt is recorded as seventy soul, in the singular. The Chasam
Sofer posits that each of Esau’s descendants either worshipped a different god
or, even if they worshipped the one true God, each was motivated by his own,
personal agenda. Bnei Yisroel, on the other hand, were all motivated by the
single desire to worship Hashem and were united around this goal, much as a
circle consists of many points each equidistant from the central focus.
Rabbi Ben Zion Firer explains this point more fully. The tachash was a
kosher animal that was created to teach a unique lesson. While it was one
animal and was completely kosher (else it could not have been used in the
construction of the Mishkan), it contained within it many different, beautiful
hues. So is Bnei Yisroel all centered around one unchanging halacha, the
specific laws of Jewish observance. However, each person and each group brings
to this observance its individual beauty and perspective in the form of custom
and tradition. Witness, for example, a Sephardi wedding and an Ashkenazi
wedding, or a Sephardi and Ashkenazi bris. The major elements are the same, but
what beauty there is as different customs are introduced within that framework.
That was the lesson and significance of the tachash of many colors that
would surround the central law of the Mishkan. The Mishkan itself is exact, but
the tachash that surrounds it represents the diversity and individuality
we each bring to that observance.
There are many ways to serve Hakodosh Boruch Hu writes Rabbi Brazile in Bishvili
Nivra Haolam. Therefore there are twelve distinct tribes, each with its own
attributes and each capable of serving Hashem in its own way. The very word for
tribe, shevet, bears witness to the truth of these multiple paths. The first
two letters shev, mean clalm and peaceful, while
the T is equal to nine. Nine is a mathematically perfect number.
The digits that form the product of any multiple of nine can be added and will
in turn total nine: 18=1+8; 27=2+7, etc. That perfection is truth. Each of us
is a unique combination of nature and nurture, of our genetics and our
environment, and so each of us has a unique path and a unique goal in our service
to God. In the same manner, the tachash was also created to fulfill a
unique purpose in a specific moment of time, notes Rabbi Frand.
Like the tachash, continues Rabbi Brazile, we can each be happy and proud
when we realize that there is none other like me who can fulfill my specific
purpose on earth. The tachas short lived existence bears witness to the
primacy of each individual being created for their unique purpose for our short
sojourn in this world. It is the Torah Shelaymah who notes
that it was the observer rather than the tachash who became happy and
proud upon seeing the tachash and recognizing his own uniqueness in the
world.
Not everybody merited being able to find a tachash and donate it for the
Mishkan. The Modzitzer Rebbe gives us a wonderful interpretation for
appreciating the tachash. Only he who was sameach bechelko, happy
in his personal lot and portion, was given the opportunity to locate a tachash
writes the Rebbe. Someone who recognized that his chelek,
was a path for his unique journey to serving Hakodosh Boruch Hu would be able
to appreciate his own uniqueness and relate it to the tachash. He who
saw what was cham warm- in his life, what was lach
- wet and damp - what was kar – cold and uncomfortable
– as well as yavesh, dry, would know that every hue and tone, every
nuance and color in his life made him a unique vessel in Hashem’s service. He
is happy with his lot, knowing that Hashem has provided for all his needs.
The tachash provides us with lessons in appropriate pride tempered with
the humility that is the mainstay of our service to our Creator. It teaches us
that our diversity and multiple hues present a beautiful and textured setting
for Hashem’s presence to rest among us, for although each of us is unique,
together we represent the glorious multiplicity of the universe and our unique
placement within it.