Samples of details from Parshat Vayakhel:
"He made fifty golden hooks and attached the panels one to the other with the hooks- so the Tabernacle-spread became one." ~Shemot 36:13
"He made fifty copper hooks to attach the Tent-spread so that it would be one." ~Shemot 36:18Details of accountings of gold, silver, and copper that were collected:
"All the gold that was used for the work- for all the labor of the Sanctuary- the offered-up gold was twenty-nine kikar and seven hundred thirty shekel, in the shekel of the Sanctuary." ~Shemot 38:24
"The silver of the accountings of the assembly, a hundred kikar, one thousand shekel of the Sanctuary;" ~Shemot 38:25
"The hundred kikar of silver were to pour the sockets of the Sanctity and the sockets of the Parochet; a hundred sockets for a hundred kikar, a kikar per socket. And from the one thousand seven hundred seventy-five he made hooks for the pillars, and covered their tops and belted them." ~Shemot 38:27-28
"The offered-up copper was seventy kikar and two thousand four hundred shekel. With it he made the sockets of the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, and the copper Mizbe'ach, the copper lattice that was on it, and all the implements of the Mizbe'ach; the sockets of the Courtyard all around, the sockets of the gate of the Courtyard, all the pegs of the Mishkan, and all the pegs of the Courtyard, all around." ~Shemot 38:29-31Explanations of Rashi:
On Shemot 38:27
Rashi itemizes the 100 silver sockets that are referred to. He explains that there were 48 beams, each with 2 sockets [48 x 2 = 96]. Then, there were 4 sockets on the parochet. 96 + 4 =100. Aside from these 100 silver sockets, the blueprints indicate that all other sockets were copper.
On Shemot 38:28
Rashi explains that the remaining 1,775 shekalim of silver was used to cover the tops and bands of the pillars.
This week's double parsha begins with Parshat Vayakhel (link to last year's post) reviewing all the specifics of how the mishkan was built. This section is actually an exact review of the same blueprints that were given in Parshat Terumah. What's the difference between the two sections? In Terumah we are told that this is how the mishkan is to be built, and in Vayakhel we are told that this is how the mishkan was built. So, we are basically being told that Betzalel, Aholiav, and the other wise-hearted men who worked together built the mishkan according to the exact specifications that were given to Moshe.
Our double parsha continues with Parshat Pikudei, where we have an accounting of the gold, silver, and copper that was donated for the building of the mishkan. In last year's post, I first began by calculating the unit conversions to see how much gold, silver, and copper was collected when measuring with just the unit of shekel, rather than the mixed measure amounts that were given in Kikars and Shekels. At the end, I followed Rashi's example, and I finished off the post by working through the calculation to confirm that the amount of silver that was donated did indeed match up with the census population that was calculated.
The two parshas come together to give us a complete view of the materials used, and how they were divided up to build the mishkan, down to the smallest details.
Sometimes information is organized in one way for one purpose, but needs to be reorganized for another purpose. When the blueprints are given for the creation of the mishkan, the details are organized based on the way that the information would be most understandable when actually putting together each piece of each item that was being built. However, when figuring out how much of each material should be apportioned for each piece of the mishkan, the details from the blueprints should be reorganized according to the materials from which each item was to be made.
This activity of reorganizing the given information in order to have a better vision of the breakdown based on materials used for the project fits well into the activity I have mentioned before, that of organizing, mapping, and creating a model mishkan based on the blueprints.
This activity can be done on a larger scale, including the aspects of:
*a full start-to-finish organization of all the information related to building the mishkan
*creating blueprints from the information provided
*building a complete scale model mishkan
This activity could also be done on a smaller scale, by:
*choosing only a single item
*mapping out what materials would be needed for the chosen item
*creating blueprints for the chosen item
*possibly even building a scale model of the chosen item
Choosing as your activity to try to align the building information in Parshat Vayakhel directly with the detailed materials lists that are given in Parshat Pikudei would require organization of all the information given regarding building the mishkan, even if you're ultimately only interested in looking at the information for a constructing a single item. The reason for this is that the amount of gold, silver, and copper was to be divided based on what was donated to the construction. In order to divide up the materials to be used for the items, you need to account for all of the items and detailed pieces that needed to use each material. For example, from the pasuk and from Rashi above (38:27), we know that the 100 kikar of silver was used to make the 100 silver sockets, so there was 1 kikar of silver for each socket. For the remaining silver, however, there is a list of the remaining items amongst which it was to be divided, so additional calculation, thought, and possibly estimation would need to go into figuring out how many shekalim of silver went into each of the remaining items.
Real-Life Example:
Think about the sample situation of cooking for and hosting a dinner party. In order to host a dinner party, you will need to plan out your menu. When you plan a menu, you choose dishes to serve for each course. In order to plan the dishes that you are serving, you think about how the completed, cooked foods will go together, how they'll complement each other, and what order you will serve them in. At this point in the planning, you don't think about specific details of the ingredients, unless you are keeping in mind to specifically include or avoid certain individual ingredients. Even then, your focus is primarily on the final outcome of each cooked dish.
Once you have your menu planned, you need to start thinking about actually preparing and cooking the foods. In order to cook the foods, you need to go make sure that you have all of the ingredients. When you calculate to see what you have in stock and what you need to buy, it doesn't matter which 3 recipes call for orange juice, it only matters how much total orange juice you need in order to cook everything and whether or not you have that total amount of orange juice in stock. When you go to the store, it's not important how many carrots are in the soup and the side-dishes individually, or how many eggs you need first for the side-dishes and then for the desserts. When you walk into the store, you want to know how many carrots you need all together, and how many eggs you need all together.
The reorganization of information from individual recipes into a compilation of total ingredients needed in order to do all your cooking is exactly the same as the reorganization of information that I mention about in thinking about planning and dividing specific materials in order to build a model (or the real life) mishkan.
