פרשת פקודי תש"ל - סיום עבודת המשכן

Thus was finished all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting; and the children of Israel did according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so did they.

Thus was finished all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting; and the children of Israel did according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so did they.

ויעשו בני ישראל AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL MADE the work ככל אשר צוה ה' וגו׳ ACCORDING TO ALL THAT THE LORD COMMANDED MOSES [SO DID THEY] or [SO THEY MADE IT].

והמלאכה היתה דים (lit., and the work was their sufficiency — was enough for them — for all the work) — this means the work of contributing was the sufficiency of (was enough for) the workers at the Tabernacle, for all the work connected with the Tabernacle to make it and even to leave some over.

Thus was finished all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting; and the children of Israel did according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so did they.

Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

And the children of Israel went and did so; as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they.

Thus was finished all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting; and the children of Israel did according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so did they.

ויעשו בני ישראל, the children of Israel did, etc. The Torah teaches that a person's delegate is accounted as like the person who has delegated him. The Torah here credits all of the Israelites with having constructed the Holy Tabernacle although it was only Betzalel (and his helpers) who had actually performed all the work. While it is true that Betzalel had received his instructions from G'd and not from the Israelites, the fact that the Israelites had given their silent consent to Betzalel's appointment meant that he acted as their delegate.

It appears that the Torah teaches us a general rule about the way Torah can be observed successfully by showing how the Israelites conferred merits one upon the other. The Torah (in its entirety) is only capable of fulfilment by means of the entire Jewish nation. Every individual Jew is charged with the duty to perform those commandments which he is able to fulfil, keeping in mind his individual status [an Israelite cannot perform service in the Temple, for instance, Ed.] This is the true meaning of Leviticus 19,18: "you shall love your fellow Jew as he is part of yourself." Without the fellow Jew, no individual Jew would be able to function as a total Jew. Each Jew has a task to help another Jew to become a whole Jew by means of his fulfilling commandments which the second Jew is unable to fulfil either at that moment or ever. As a result, the fellow Jew is not אחר "someone else," but is part of "oneself," כמוך. This is the only way in which we can reconcile ourselves to G'd's commanding us to fulfil 613 commandments without which our body and soul are not really truly "healthy." The Torah has actually denied us a chance to fulfil a substantial part of all these 613 commandments. Are we to be permanent physical and spiritual cripples? Clearly, Torah and its observance then is not only a project for the individual but for the community. The Torah drove home this point by legislating laws which can be performed only by women, only by Levites, only by priests, and, in some instances, only by sinners, i.e. sinners who are anxious to rehabilitate them selves. Our verse describing the whole nation as performing what G'd had commanded Moses that they do, teaches this lesson. The reason that this was an appropriate time to teach us this lesson is that the 13 basic raw materials needed for the Tabernacle were as interdependent one upon the other as Jews are dependent upon each other in order to achieve the harmonious personality G'd desires for each Jew to develop into by means of his מצוה performance. It makes perfect sense therefore, that the Torah considers every Jew as having contributed all 13 kinds of raw materials needed for the Tabernacle.