Parashiot VaYakhel-Pekudei - 5764

“Who was that Masked Man?”

Today’s Parashiot, VaYakhel and Pekudei, bring to a close the Book of Shemot. It is worthwhile to review what happened in that great Book of the Bible, which describes the emergence into history of the Children of Israel. The contents of Shemot can be broken down roughly into seven sections, as follows:

1. Enslavement of Jewish People – to fulfill the prophecy given to Avraham Avinu in Bereshit 15:13, “You shall surely know that your descendants will be strangers in a strange land. And they will enslave them and they will afflict them for four hundred years. But the nation that they will serve I will judge, and afterwards they will leave with a great treasure.” The “great treasure” included the ability to empathize with the downtrodden (Shemot 23:9), “And you know the soul of the stranger, for you were a stranger in the land of Egypt.” During this period, Moshe plays a dual role: observer from the royal house; then, himself a fugitive from the oppressive regime, after he saves the life of a Jewish slave by killing a vicious Egyptian taskmaster.

2. Ten Plagues – Moshe, together with his brother, Aharon, act as messengers of G-d to predict and deliver Ten Plagues upon the Egyptians, for the purpose that they should recognize HaShem and obey His command (Shemot 8:16), “...Thus said HaShem, ‘Send out My People, that they may serve Me.’ ”

3. The Pesach Sacrifice – On the eve of the Tenth Plague, The Plague of the First-Born, during which all the first-born of Egypt, from human to animal will die, Moshe is commanded to instruct each family among the Children of Israel to take the god of Egypt and sacrifice it to HaShem, to indicate that He is the true G-d.

4. Splitting of the Sea of Reeds – As the climactic punishment delivered to Pharaoh and to Egypt for their excessive mistreatment of the Jewish People, Moshe is commanded to implement the Splitting of the Sea of Reeds and the drying of its seabed for the Children of Israel to pass, and to bring it crashing down upon the heads of the Army of Egypt, as it pursues its former slaves.

5. Giving of the Torah – Moshe delivers the People to the foot of Mt. Sinai and the Jews receive the rest of their “great property” as described, beginning with (Shemot 19:16), “On the third day, when it was morning, there was thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud on the mountain, and the sound of the shofar was very powerful, and the entire People that was in the camp shuddered.” And HaShem made the Ten Utterances for which the World was created.

6. Sin of the Golden Calf and the Prayer of Moshe for Forgiveness – While Moshe is on Mt. Sinai receiving the Torah for the first time, the Jewish People acts as an unfaithful bride committing adultery under her own bridal canopy, by constructing and worshipping a Golden Calf. So serious is this Sin that they are worthy of destruction, until (Shemot 32:11-12), “Moshe pleaded before HaShem, his G-d, ‘...Relent from Your flaring anger, and reconsider regarding the punishment against Your People.’ ” After he destroys the first Luchot and the Calf, severely reprimands the People, and enlists the Tribe of Levi to exact G-d’s revenge against 3,000 of those bearing the greatest guilt, Moshe returns to HaShem and says (Shemot 32:31-32), “I beg of you! This People has committed a grievous Sin and made themselves a god of gold. And now, if You forgive them,...” (the verse is shortened, but Moshe clearly means “then well and good”), “but if not, erase me now from Your Book that You have written.” HaShem initially says that He will erase only those who have sinned, but ultimately agrees to a reprieve of the great Sin.

7. Construction of the “Mishkan,” the Sanctuary – Now begins the series of events by means of which the People, according to the Ramban, return to the level of the Avot, who had the “Shechinah,” the Divine Presence, with them always. Moshe is instructed to collect materials of great value (Shemot 25:1-7) for the purpose that “They shall make a Sanctuary for Me, so that I may dwell among them.” (Shemot 25:9) The last two Parashiot in Sefer Shemot, VaYakhel and Pekudei, describe in detail the collection of these materials, and the first seven days of the Consecration of the “Mishkan” and of Aharon and his sons, who will found the eternal dynasty of priests that exists till today.

Who was that Masked Man? - For those who used to watch or, earlier, used to hear on radio, the “Lone Ranger,” the question that serves as the title of this essay will probably sound familiar. It was asked about a masked hero who used to travel the Wild West, riding on a white stallion called “Silver,” in the company of an Indian named Tonto, defending the virtuous and their virtues, with a trademark of a silver bullet.

As Parshat Ki-Tisa begins to recede into the past, we recall the end of last week’s Parashah, where Moshe came down from Har Sinai, where he had spent forty days and forty nights without food or drink, but imbibing instead from the Torah of G-d and internalizing it to such an extent that it came to be known as well as “Torat Moshe,” the Torah of Moshe. Moshe came down, bearing the second set of Luchot, that he had inscribed himself. And as a reward for his super-human effort, he had come down with the face of a “Malach,” an Angel, resplendent and dazzling, frightening even his brother, Aharon, who had become used to his greatness. To make others more comfortable in his presence, he had donned a mask, to partially conceal the light.

There is a principle that “A righteous person decrees and the Holy One, Blessed is He, fulfills the decree.” Sometimes the righteous person doesn’t have in mind at all that his words be fulfilled in this manner. As cited above, Moshe had said, in defense of the Children of Israel, “and if not (that is, if you will not forgive them), erase me now from Your Book that You have written.” Perhaps it was in fulfillment of that decree that he had to be erased from the end of the Torah, before the Children of Israel entered the Promised Land, because in truth, HaShem has never completely forgiven the Jewish People for their great Sin of the Golden Calf.

Another considerably less severe fulfillment of that decree of Moshe, the righteous individual, is the fact that he is nearly totally erased from the Haggadah, the text of the Exodus, that we read at the Pesach Seder, which is most surprising, for who else if not Moshe deserves honorable mention in a narrative of the Exodus? It was suggested in an earlier essay that Moshe served as a “double-symbol” for the Jewish People, a “Prince” and a “Pauper,” coming to their rescue from the palace of the Pharaoh, and who empathized with their degradation as slaves. “Matzah,” unleavened bread, a highlight of the Seder, is also a double-symbol: of freedom and as “poor-man’s bread.” Perhaps Moshe in his humility was replaced at the Seder by the Matzah. To accomplish this substitution, the Ba’al HaHaggadah, the great scholar and poet who composed the Haggadah, took the middle-letter of Moshe’s name, “Shin,” and replaced it with the middle-letter of Matzah, “Tzadi” (which, incidentally, probably means “righteous”). Taken together, these two letters form the abbreviation of the term “Shaliach-Tzibbur,” “Messenger for the Prayers of the Community;” for Moshe was called a faithful “Messenger of HaShem,” and a Faithful Shepherd of His Chosen People, the People of Israel.

Rabbi Pinchas Frankel

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