VOLUME 121 NUMBER 3
Sivan 13, 5786
May 29, 2026
Parshas Nasso
Candlelighting Time 8:02
The Mishkan was a highly celebrated event in the nation. It was the culmination of months of hard work after a very successful fundraising campaign that covered all the expenses necessary for its construction. The Torah compares its completion as that of a bride, a kallah, entering into the chupah, the wedding canopy, with her bridegroom, the choson. Seemingly, the Shechinah, the Divine Presence, was the choson, and we the people were the kallah. It would then be appropriate to define the Mishkan as the chupah. Was there a special significance in referring to the Mishkan’s inauguration as a wedding or was it simply a term used to refer to this time as one of great simcha for the nation?
Our Sages also compare when the Torah was given on Mt. Sinai to a wedding as well. It would appear that the same kind of comparison that the Mishkan alludes to also applies to the reception of Torah on Mt. Sinai. Furthermore, Nachmonides in his preface to Bamidbar clearly states that the Mishkan was actually a marginal reproduction of what occurred on Mt. Sinai when the Torah was given. Therefore, the wedding that took place when the Mishkan was inaugurated was actually the very same wedding which occurred when the Torah was given. So really there was only one wedding or were there two?
A wedding is a serious event. A bond is created between two people that desire to build and create a life of studying Torah and observance of mitzvos. But the connection transcends its minutiae. Although through Torah and mitzvos one can associate with Hashem in a way unlike any other manner of relationship, however, once that intimate link is established, its expands far beyond just the study and observance. It creates a uniqueness in the person and of the person that appends the very essence of that individual. Each and every person that was present at the reception of the Torah accessed a level of spiritual purity and elevation that was never replicated again. Indeed, their physicality was suspended and compromised due to their body’s inability to contain the essence of their soaring spiritual expansion. Angels were dispatched to revive everyone due to their incredibly heightened reality. Although that extreme bond that was cemented at that time suffered a tremendous setback due to the tragic Golden Calf tragedy, nonetheless Shavuos as a reliving of the Mt. Sinai experience remained intact and annually celebrated, a contemplation and bolstering of our powerful and quintessential connection to Hashem.
The Mishkan was indeed a model of that initial bond that was established at Mt. Sinai and served as a continuity of that special interaction that occurred then. This continuance was ongoing for hundreds of years as the nation eventually entered into the Land of Israel and the Mishkan was extant for hundreds of years in different locations until the Beis HaMikdash was built almost 500 years after the exodus from Egypt. Indeed, our Sages teach us that since the Mishkan was constructed with pure intent it was never destroyed just buried and contained beneath the earth, a testimony to its fundamental crux of spirituality and our eventual exodus from the complex and dangerous exile that we continue to experience when it will become revealed once again at that special time.
A BYTE FOR SHABBOS
The ten fingers that the Kohanim raise up when they bless the congregation correspond to the 10 channels that emanate from on high conveying Hashem’s blessings to this world. Furthermore, they also represent the 10 commandments that we received at Mt. Sinai. The ten commandments are firmly rooted in the ten channels of Hashem’s benevolence that emanate from the celestial regions. Contained within the ten commandments are an allusion to the 613 mitzvos of the Torah. From the Kohanim descend the blessings that we reap from the Torah which has 25 letters equivalent to the Gematriya of the word preceding their blessings. The word ‘Koh’ meaning so shall you bless the nation in Hebrew is spelled with two letters which have the numerical equivalent of 25. K’SAV SOFER
GOOD SHABBOS
