The first vessel of the Tabernacle
described in the Parasha is the Ark of the Covenant, as we
read:
Make an ark of acacia wood,
two and a half cubits long, two and a half cubits wide, and one and a half
cubits high. Cover it with a layer of pure gold on the inside and
outside, and make a gold rim all around its top.
Exodus 25:10-11
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Rashi, based upon the Babylonian Talmud [Yoma 72b],
comments on “Cover it with a layer of pure gold on the inside and the outside”
by stating that Betzalel made three cabinets [aron],
two of gold and one of wood, each open on top, placing the wooden one into the
golden one and then the other golden one into the wooden cabinet, covering the
upper lip with gold, and thus the ark was covered on the inside and the
outside.
Midrash Shir haShirim Rabba [1] presents a slightly different wording:
How was the Ark made? Rabbi Ḥanina and
Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish differ. Rabbi Ḥanina says
it was made as three boxes [teiva], two of gold and one of
wood. [Betzalel] placed the wooden box into a golden box and then a
golden box into the wooden one, covering the lip with gold. Reish
Lakish says the Ark was made of a single box [teiva], which Betzalel covered
inside and outside.
Besides adding the
difference of opinion between Rabbi Ḥanina and Reish
Lakish, the Midrash describes the Ark not as aron,
but as teiva. [It is noteworthy that both disputants refer to the
Ark as teiva.] The change of a single word has great significance.
The Torah uses the word teiva only
in two connections. Noah [Genesis 6:14] was commanded by God to make a teiva of
gopher wood. Concerning the infant Moses, we read [Exodus 2:3] “When she [Yocheved]
could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus box [teiva], coating
it with asphalt and pitch, and she placed the child in it. She placed it
in the rushes near the bank of the Nile.”
Noah’s teiva was
the instrument for the salvation of all mankind, while the papyrus teiva of
Moses was instrument for saving the redeemer of God’s chosen people. We
can see a progression from the general to the specific, and back to the
general. Noah’s teiva saves all peoples and Moses’ teiva saves
the Chosen People. It is through the Chosen People that all people will be
blessed [Genesis 12:3].
Parenthetically, we can
add that Zohar twice teaches that the papyrus teiva of
the Master of all prophets represents the Ark of the Covenant.
Returning to the
significance of the Midrash’s choice of the word teiva to
describe the Ark, we can say that if Noah’s teiva was the instrument
for the salvation of mankind and Moses’ teiva the instrument
for the salvation of Israel’s redeemer, the Ark of the Covenant is the
instrument for the salvation of the entire cosmos, for our Sages [Babylonian
Talmud Shabbat 88a] taught that had Israel not accepted Torah,
the cosmos would have been returned to tohu vavohu [“formless
and empty” Genesis 1:2].
The very existence of the
world and the salvation of the universe depend upon the Torah which was kept in
the Ark. Thus, as an instrument of salvation, the Ark is well described as teiva.
Zohar [2:161] teaches: “God looked to Torah and
created the world; man looks to Torah and maintains the
world.” Torah is simultaneously the blueprint of the world and
its owner’s manual.
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