Moshe Rabbeinu exhorts the Bnei Yisrael to keep Shabbat, and requests donations for the materials for making the Mishkan. He collects gold, silver, precious stones, skins and yarn, as well as incense and olive oil for the Menorah and for anointing. The princes of each tribe bring the precious stones for the Kohen Gadol's breastplate and ephod. G-d appoints Betzalel and Oholiav as the master craftsmen. Bnei Yisrael contribute so many resources, such that Moshe begins to refuse donations. Special curtains with two different covers were designed for the Mishkan's roof and door. Gold-covered boards in silver bases were connected, forming the Mishkan's walls. Betzalel made the Holy Ark (which contained the Tablets) from wood covered with gold. On the Ark's cover there were two figures facing each other. The Menorah and the table with the showbreads were also of gold. Two Altars were made: a small incense Altar of wood, overlaid with gold, and a larger Altar for sacrifices, made of wood covered with copper.

PARSHA INSIGHTS

A World of Wiggle-Room

“These are the thing that Hashem commanded them to do:” (35:1)

When I was in my late twenties, I developed a fascination for vintage motorcycles. I found an old Harley-Davidson WLA in a barn in Devon. The American army had brought thousands of these motorcycles across for the D-Day landings, and this one hadn’t made it across the channel in 1944, and laid buried for thirty years. I brought it to Fred Waugh Motorcycles in the King’s Road in Chelsea to be restored.

The WLA was an ideal military bike because it had plenty of ‘wiggle room.’ It was built to tolerances of about half-an-inch, meaning that it would work even if you got the parts somewhere in the region of the right place. No one on a battlefield has the time or the presence of mind to deal with a machine that needs the precision of a BMW or a Ferrari.

In Judaism, there is a concept called bidieved. An untranslatable word usually translated as ‘after the fact.’ The concept is that a mitzvah has an ideal – lechatchila – way to be performed, but there is also a degree of latitude that, while not ideal, will still cause the mitzvah to have its effect. The WLA was the ultimate example of “bidieved.”’

I was thinking what a tremendous kindness of Hashem it is, that he allowed the existence of bidieved. Was there anyone who ever lived who was able to hit the mark every day all day? Who never let his performance of mitzvot drop from 100 percent?

A mitzvah is the will of Hashem. There can be no bidieved where Hashem Himself is concerned. The will of Hashem is One, just as He is One. The word in Hebrew for “one” is echad. Interestingly, the word in Hebrew for “sharp” is chad. Clearly, they are connected. The two sides of a blade meet at the sharpest point, where the two are closest to being one.

What starts off in the highest realms as the Will of Hashem, as it devolves down through the countless myriad of worlds, each further and further and further from Hashem Echad, the greater the room there is for flexibility, the less exacting becomes the fulfillment of His Will – until we arrive at this, the lowest of worlds, the place where there can be something called “bidieved.”

One might say, a world of “wiggle-room.”