Dimensional Oddities in the Mishkan

The first half of the 17th chapter of Maseches Keilim discusses the various units of measure that appear in halacha. Mishnah 10 notes that, although an amah, the cubit-based unit of length, is usually equal to six handbreadth-based tefachim, the amos with which the keilim of the Mishkan were measured were actually only five tefachim in size. Hence, for example, the size of the aron would be only 2.08 X 1.25 X 1.25 amos when measured using normal units, rather than the 2.5 X 1.5 X 1.5 indicated by the pesukim. The opinion of R' Meir differs slightly from that of R' Yehudah stated above, but also acknowledges that for certain parts of the Mishkan, these smaller amos were used. Why is this the case?

There are also several other dimensional oddities that occurred in the Beis HaMikdash. One example of such is the Aron which, according to Megillah 10b, did not take up any space in the Kodesh HaKodoshim. Another, described in the 5th perek of Pirkei Avos, is the miracle that despite everyone being packed together in the Courtyard of the Beis HaMikdash on Yom Kippur, they still had plenty of room to bow down when the kohen gadol pronounced the name of God.

Stephen Greenman notes these oddities in an essay* that appears in _Encounter_, a set of essays published by the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists (H. Chaim Schimmel and R' Aryeh Carmell, ed.). He suggests a potential correlation to the special theory of relativity, which states that as the velocity of an object approaches the speed of light, its length along the axis of its motion decreases asymptotically. Applying this idea to the matter at hand, perhaps the greater holiness of the keilim of the Mikdash causes a condensation of their perceived volume. So, too, when the people in the Azarah heard the name of God pronounced, perhaps their bodies underwent a similar temporary shrinkage. The aron, the center of the holiness of the Beis HaMikdash upon which the shechina rested, is analogous to an object traveling at the speed of light itself, which has no volume at all. Much as special relativity has a negligible effect on our everyday activities, which occur at velocities much lower than the speed of light (roughly 650,000,000 miles per hour), so, too, would this analogous relationship have an imperceptible effect outside of the Beis HaMikdash.

The author provides further data points connecting physical energy and holiness in the article, as well as analogs to the relativistic condensation of time as one approaches the speed of light, but does not pass judgement on whether the juxtaposition of the two concepts is anything more than an intriguing parable.

* "Relativity and the Bet HaMikdash: a metaphorical extrapolation or an intriguing parable?"

Vayak'heil-Pekudei 2 - Terumah

When HaShem issued the original command to Moshe to collect supplies with which to build the mishkan (25:2), he stated "ויקחו לי תּרומה", they shall take for me Terumah, focusing on the fact that the donations will (35:5) be going for a holy purpose, while when Moshe reported the command to Bnei Yisroel , he phrased it as
"קחו מאתכם תרומה", take from yourselves Terumah, focusing on the fact that the donations will be coming from the Jews. This is a somewhat counterintuitive dichotomy. When one asks people for donations, one tries to emphasize the importance of the cause for which one is collecting and/or tries to emphasize how the donations being requested are easily affordable; additionally, one would expect HaShem to focus on the idea that the donations are important to Him because it is the Jews who are giving it from themselves, rather than due to any specific need of His.

Perhaps this latter point is what Moshe wanted to emphasize to Bnei Yisroel, namely, that the donations are not significant because HaShem needs the materials for his abode, but rather because of the fact that the Jews are giving from themselves. I would have said that the same applies by korbanos, in that HaShem does not need to "eat" our offerings, except that the formulation for korbanos is a third formulation (Vayikra 1:2): "'אדם כי יקריב מכם קרבן לה" - When one offers a korban from you to HaShem, emphasizing both the origin and the destination.

In the other direction, although Moshe had to express to Bnei Yisroel the idea that the primary benefit of the Mishkan was for them, as a means of interacting with God, perhaps HaShem wanted to make known on a deeper level, to Moshe at least, that the Mishkan satisfies a need of God, k'v'yachol. The same word is used with respect to the Beis HaMikdash (Yeshaya 66:1): "אי זה בית אשר תבנו לי".

Vayak'heil-Pekudei - Thoughts from Shabbos

1) Why in 37:29 is the Shemen HaMishchah referred to as "kodesh" while the K'tores is referred to as "tahor", as opposed to vice versa? (credit: Sam)

My immediate reaction was to recall a sugya that I saw in Menachos (96b) earlier this week in which the description "tahor" as applied to the shulchan of the Mishkan teaches us that it is m'kabeil tum'a (the gemara's initial thought is that it not be, since it is an immobile wooden object, although it resolves the problem by explaining that they would bring the shulchan out to show the olei r'galim the warm bread on it, so it was not actually immobile). The only way that incense could be m'kabeil tum'a would seem to be through tum'as ochlim, and only a handful of the spices are edible (according to Wikipedia: cassia, saffron, costus and cinnamon - perhaps also spikenard, which apparently has medicinal purposes - does that qualify?), so perhaps one could apply a similar idea to the k'tores, that all of it be m'kabeil tum'a. The shemen ha-mishchah would not need such a d'rasha, since all of the spices are immersed in the olive oil, which is m'kabeil tum'a, so really have no identity on their own (Perhaps one could also attribute it to an issue of rov, where rov of the k'tores is not m'kabeil tum'a while rov of the shemen ha-mishchah is? What would the halacha be for a regular mixture of edible and inedible spices used for fragrance?)

Of course, I don't think that we would be able to make such a drasha on our own, but it would be interesting if such is, indeed, the halacha.

A cursory glance at the m'farshim produced the S'forno, who says that "tahor" means that the spices of the k'tores must be pure from any impurities - and this adjective is also applied to it in P' Ki Tisa. The question would still remain, though: why only the k'tores and not the oil? S'forno also comments that kodesh by the oil means "bilti nifsad", in the sense of "It should be holy to Me for your generations in P' Ki Tisa" - but I don't understand what this means.

Chizkuni explains "tahor" that the incense requires purity, and quotes the passuk of "Dead flies putrify the perfumer's oil" (Koheles 10:2) to prove his point. I am ignorant, also, of how this verse specifically applies to the incense, and not the oil.

Alternatively, one could answer that "tahor" as describing the k'tores is juxtaposed to the oil, so that it applies to both - this would answer the questions on both of the m'farshim's comments, as well as eliminating the need for any explanation of the differentiation between the two. The gemara says in several places that the concept of hekeish is d'oraissa, but I think that we still need a mesorah in order to invoke a hekeish.

The opposite question, regarding why only the oil is called kodesh is not a question, as the incense is also called kodesh, in P' Ki Tisa.

2) Pekudei is one of the 5 parshiyos in the first four chumashim that do not start with a vav ha-chibbur. The others are Bereishis, Noach, and - interestingly - B'chukosai and Mas'ei. The significance to this tidbit is dependent on who is responsible for our system of parsha divisions. It would be interesting if the three aforementioned sets were the most often doubled up, so that we had parshiyos starting without a vav ha-chibbur as seldom as possible, but this is not the case (IIRC, T-M and/or A-K are doubled more frequently that V-P). Perhaps Bereishis and Noach are just too long to double up (they would even dwarf this week's gargantuan leining).

3) Did anyone else think about R' Nosson Kaminetzky and R' Slifkin while listening to today's haftarah reading? Granted, Yechezkeil's (near-)ban was a bit different, in that it was being done over 500 years following his death (as indicated by the fact that Chananya ben Chizkiyah ben Garon, one of the students of Shammai, successfully defended against it). One can ask why specifically the Rabbis of that generation felt the need to put it in genizah when their predecessors did not, but precedents do exist - 2 of them by Chizkiyahu in the 4th perek of Pesachim.

Addendum (transferred from my comments section): R' Moshe Feinstein touches on the issue of the ban on Yechezkeil in one of his pieces about the peirush on chumash attributed to R' Yehuda HaChassid (whose authenticity he speaks out very strongly against), explaining that, despite the prohibition against stifling a nevuah, Chazal saw that there was a good rationale for doing so, in the case of Yechezkeil. I didn't read it so closely, but, IIRC, it's in the 2nd or 3rd volume of Igros Moshe, Yoreh Dei'ah.