פרשת תרומה תשי"ב - הארון

And they shall make an ark of acacia-wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.

...Another opinion: And they shall make an ark of gopher wood. And immediately after: and they shall make an ark of wood. What is written above? And take for Me gifts. Just as the Torah comes before everything, so too here, in the deeds of the Tabernacle, the Ark comes before any vessel. Just as light came before all the deeds of Creation, as it is written "And E-lohim said 'let there be light' (Genesis 1) so too regarding the Tabernacle, in the Torah that is called light, as it is written 'Because a mitzvah is a candle and Torah is light' (Proverbs 6), all the deeds came after the Torah. Another opinion: 'And they shall make the ark' - why regarding all these vessels it is written 'and you [singular] shall make' but regarding the ark it is written 'and they shall make'? R. Yehudah the son of Shalom said: The Holy One said to him [Moses] - all can come and busy themselves with the ark, so that all come and merit the Torah. And R. Shimon b. Yochai said: There are three crowns -- the crown of royalty, the crown of priesthood and the crown of Torah.The crown of royalty -- this is the shulchan (Table), about which it says, "a gold crown all around."The crown of priesthood -- this is the mizbe'ach (Altar), about which it says, "a gold crown all around."And the crown of Torah -- this is the aron (Ark), about which it says, "a gold crown [all around]"...Why does it say about all of them, "You shall make for it," whereas about the Ark it says, "You shall make on it?" [This is] to teach you that the crown of Torah is superior to all of them. If a person merits Torah -- it is as if he merited them all.

ועשו ארזן, "They shall construct an ark." It is strange that G'd phrased the directive to build the ark in indirect speech whereas the directives to construct the Tabernacle, the Altar, the Table, and the Lampstand are all phrased in direct speech, i.e. ועשית. Not only does the Torah employ indirect speech in this verse, but when elaborating on the details of the construction the Torah reverts to use of direct speech, i.e. "you shall cover it with pure gold, etc." Perhaps we can find in this anomaly a hint that the bulk of Torah cannot be fulfilled by any individual but requires participation of the entire nation. No single individual can fulfil all the commandments of the Torah, however much he may desire to do so. If an individual happens to be a priest he cannot fulfil the commandment of allocating the 24 gifts which the Torah directs the Israelite to give to the priest. He cannot fulfil the commandment of redeeming his firstborn son. A Levite also is prevented from fulfilling certain commandments by the mere fact that he is a Levite. The phrasing of ועשו ארון in the indirect plural may be intended to remind us of this fact.

The staves shall be in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it.

לא יסורו ממנו, “they shall not be removed from it.” In the Talmud tractate Yuma, folio 72, the question is raised that seeing the Torah had already written: “the staves for carrying the Ark are to be affixed to the Ark,” and it had instructed its craftsmen to insert the staves through these rings, its appears that the purpose was to insert these staves only when the need arose to carry the Ark. This could only be done if they were to be inserted from time to time when the occasion demanded this? The staves in the process of lifting the Ark or lowering it would slip out of the rings! How could the commandment never to remove them be possible to be observed? Answer: The staves were thicker at their respective ends so that they could only just fit through the rings, whereas in the middle they were thinner. [The reader who is interested in the mechanics of this is referred to the commentary by Or Hachayim on this verse, or on my translation of it on pages 775776. Ed.] This is also how Rashi explains the problem in his commentary on the Talmud on this folio. An alternate explanation: both in this instance and again in Exodus 40,18, it was Moses who had to insert the staves through the rings. In the Book of Numbers 4,56 however, we read that Aaron and his sons were to position the ark inside the Tabernacle as well as to position its staves in the proper places. The commandment for the staves not to be moved only came into force at that time. Alternately, although Moses had placed the staves through the rings (without having been instructed to so), G-d wished for this to be done by Aaron and his sons who were priests. It was at that point that the Holy Ark attained the pinnacle of its holiness. The fact is that even during the Israelites march through the desert there were only a few days during which the people were on the march, whereas during more than 99% of the time the people and the Tabernacle remained stationary in a part of the Tabernacle that even the High Priest only entered one single time during the year. (four times during that day). During all this time, there was no need for the staves to be attached to the Ark This is why the Torah wrote in Exodus 27,7 בשאת אותו, “when it is being carried.” (the altar)