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I was speaking to a gentleman some years ago, a tall, stocky man, and he told me that he had a bad back. I told him that I was fortunate and, thankfully, my back is completely pain-free. He laughed and told me that all the “big guys” have bad backs. But why?
Well, let’s say you have to move a piece of furniture. People think nothing of asking a two hundred plus pound man to do it. Unfortunately, it’s easy to underestimate the difficulty involved, and many people end up with injuries. But people like myself, of average height and relatively slender, are always advised to wait until someone else arrives to help. In recent years especially, I don’t argue with that.
In this week’s portion, Terumah, Moses is advised on the details of building the desert Tabernacle. In fact, not only is he given a verbal description, but is shown a model. (Exodus 25:40) Did this lead to Moses thinking – mistakenly – that he was going to do the construction himself? The Midrash Tanchuma (Vayakhel 8:1) assumes so, as we read:
At the time that the Holy One, blessed be He, spoke to Moses on the mountain about the construction of the Sanctuary, He revealed to him every vessel that was to be made for the Sanctuary and how to make it, as it is said: And see that you follow the patterns for the vessels that are being shown to you on the mountain (Exod. 25:40). Moses believed that he was to build the Sanctuary, since G-d had said to him: You shall make the poles, you shall make a table, you shall make an altar, you shall make an ark-cover, and you shall make a basin. G-d told him all about the implements that were to be in the Sanctuary. After G-d had mentioned every item, Moses said: Master of the Universe, who will do all this? He replied: I have called by name, Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. (Exodus 31:1)
Now the question is why Moses himself didn’t carry out the work. I have
no clue about Moses’ physical stature, but the Torah does tell us that Moses was 80 when he stood before Pharaoh. Even if we treat the Torah’s numbers with a certain degree of caution, let’s look at it this way: Moses lived to be 120. When he stood before Pharaoh, he had lived 2/3 of his life. So if I’m totally optimistic about myself and assume I’ll live to age 90 (no guarantee, of course), then Moses and I are contemporaries.
In other words, G-d assigned the work to Bezalel because with all the things Moses needed to deal with –a man his age didn’t have time for a bad back.
- Rabbi Scott Hoffman
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