Humility That Leaves Room for the Shechinah

1“The work was sufficient for all the work, to do it, and there was extra.”¹ The commentators, among them the Ohr HaChaim, point out that the verse seems to contradict itself. First it says the work was “sufficient,” meaning just enough for what was needed and no more; then it adds, “and there was extra.” We must also ask about the long phrase “for all the work, to do it,” which seems to use more words than it needs.

2aMy holy father and teacher, zt"l, taught this in the name of the Ateres LeRosh Tzaddik. Something was left over from the work of the Mishkan, so each person thought that perhaps his own share was the part left over, and that nothing of his had gone into making the Mishkan. As a result, every one of them was humble and lowly in his own eyes. What the Creator chiefly intended in the making of the Mishkan was to dwell in the hearts of Bnei Yisrael who humble themselves before Him. Through their humility they were privileged to have the Shechinah rest among them, and that was the completion of the work. About this it says, “The work was sufficient.” So the work “was sufficient” precisely because there was extra.

2bWith this my holy father explained a passage in the early Midrash Tanna Devei Eliyahu: “As soon as Israel accepted the yoke of the kingship of Heaven with joy and said, ‘All that Hashem has spoken we will do and we will hear,’ the Holy One, blessed be He, at once told Moshe to tell Israel to make Him a Mishkan, as it says, ‘Speak to Bnei Yisrael and let them take for Me an offering … And they shall make Me a Mikdash, and I will dwell among them.’”² The idea is this. By saying “we will do and we will hear,” they took it upon themselves to be always ready to hear anew and to do anew. Even when they had been privileged to “do,” to perform the mitzvah and fulfill it, they would still always wonder whether they had done it as it should be done, and would always want to do it again, with more and more devotion. This shows how great their humility was, and it is in just this way, out of humility, that the Shechinah comes to rest. The Mishkan was made to bring the Shechinah to rest upon them. So at the very moment they said “we will do and we will hear,” when they were lowly in their own eyes, Hashem at once commanded them to make it, telling them, “Let them take for Me an offering … And they shall make Me a Mikdash, and I will dwell among them.” Those are his holy words.

3aTo understand all this more clearly, we can explain it as follows. There are two paths in avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem. At times a person must act in the spirit of King Yehoshafat, of whom it says, “his heart was lifted up in the ways of Hashem,”³ and at times he must be humble and lowly. Joining these two together is “a difficult service in the Beis HaMikdash,”⁴ since each is the opposite of the other. Betzalel, we find, had both. On the one hand, his heart lifted him to come forward to the work, and he was confident that he could do it. As the verse says, “Moshe called Betzalel and Oholiav and every wise-hearted man in whose heart Hashem had put wisdom, everyone whose heart lifted him to come forward to the work, to do it.”⁵ The Ramban writes that none of them had learned these crafts from a teacher or had ever trained his hands in them. Rather, each found in his own nature that he knew how to do this work, and “his heart was lifted up in the ways of Hashem” to come before Moshe and tell him, “I will do all that my master says.”⁶ So far the Ramban's words.

3bOn the other hand, we find that those who did the work were humble and set themselves aside completely. The Sifsei Kohen, by one of the Arizal's disciples, writes this on the verse “Betzalel and Oholiav and every wise-hearted man, in whom Hashem had put wisdom and understanding, shall do the work.”⁷ The verse says Hashem put wisdom and understanding “in them,” bahemah, which can be read beheimah, “an animal”: they made themselves like an animal. That is, they humbled themselves without relying on any understanding of their own, like an animal that cannot tell one thing from another. Here is how Betzalel joined these two qualities in his holy service. In the physical part of the work, the yetzer hara could have come and held him back by saying, “Who are you to be able to do this?” There he took the path of “his heart was lifted up in the ways of Hashem.” But as for the Shechinah resting on the work of his hands, he knew that this did not come from his own strength and deeds. It came only through the merit of his forefathers and the wisdom that Hashem had put within him.

4The work of the Mishkan, after all, was of two kinds. One was the physical work of putting it up, which needed precious stones, gold, silver, copper and everything else it required. Besides this there was spiritual work to be done: bringing Hashem's Shechinah to rest within it. This was done through the mystical meditations known as unifications and combinations of the holy Names, as Chazal said: “Betzalel knew how to combine the letters with which heaven and earth were created.”⁸ We may say that in the spiritual part of the work, Betzalel made himself like an animal and credited everything to the merit of his forefathers and to help from Heaven. But in the physical part, the crafts themselves, he must have regarded himself as someone who knew how to do the holy work, in the spirit of “his heart was lifted up.”

5In light of this, we may say that the verse uses two expressions for these two separate things. “The work was sufficient” refers to the physical part of the work of the Mishkan, while “and there was extra” refers to the spiritual part. For everyone who did the work held that it was not they who had brought about this spiritual part, and that it had not come from their own strength. To them it was as if everything were still left over, just as before.

6That is why the verse speaks of the merit of the forefathers right in the middle of the account of the work of the Mishkan: “See, Hashem has called by name Betzalel son of Uri … of the tribe of Yehudah.”⁹ It shows that all through the building of the Mishkan, Betzalel kept in mind that he had been privileged to build it only through the merit of his forefathers and through the wisdom Hashem had given him, as it says, “He filled him with the spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding and with knowledge … to do every kind of skilled work.”¹⁰

7May it be His will that we be privileged to busy ourselves with mitzvos and to attain true humility, and so bring the redemption closer. Amen, may it be His will.