Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Why does the Torah devote so much time/space to the construction of the Mishkan?

Four out of the next five parshiyos are devoted to describing the construction of the Mishkan. This is a tremendous amount of resources for the Torah where for most mitzvos we have 1 or 2 pesukim in the Torah and a whole lot of Torah Sheb'aal Peh. For example, the mitzva of tefillin is 1 pasuk in parshas Bo which is very unclear and expanded greatly in the Torah Sheb'aal Peh. The same for Shabbos, the Torah says don't do Melacha and not much else and from that comes all of Hilchos Shabbos. And yet, when it comes to the Mishkan the Torah devotes 4 whole parshiyos and goes into excrutiatingly painful detail not once but twice. First the Torah describes the commandment and then the Torah describes the actual construction. Even more difficult is the fact that much of the detail about the mishkan is not even relevant לדורות but was rather a הוראת שעה.

In short, it is very difficult to understand why the Torah devotes so much resources to the Mishkan and so little to other mitzvos.

The truth is this question bothered me even when I was a true believer, I haven't even seen a good apologetic answer.


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