About this you cannot disagree: Moses was the ultimate boyscout. Much to Tzippora's ire, Moses was so proud of being a boyscout that he wore his merit badge sash most of the time. He took it off only when they attended state functions. Otherwise, Moses flaunted his training, showing off badges for such esoteric skills as "Getting Your Wife to Do the Circumcision," "Negotiating with Evil," "Carving Covenants," "Punishing Your Sister with Impunity," and "Communing with God." The merit badge of which he was the most proud, the one he loved telling tales about to his buddies as they pushed back cold beers, the one he bent over to show small children when they tugged with awe on his desert robes, was the merit badge for...arson.
Before I explain how Moses earned this badge about incinerating buildings, a word about the parashah. It is common for darshans to dwell on the phrase we read: ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם (Make for me a mikdash, and I will dwell among you.[1])
People have droned on for hours about this verse. Don't worry. Today we turn our attention to the next verse, Exodus 25:9. Take a look at it.
The simple reading of the verse has God showing Moses divine architectural plans for the mishkan and its accoutrements. In fact, two more times in this parashah we learn that God shows these heavenly plans to Moses on Mount Sinai[2]. But what, exactly, does God show Moses? What is the tavnit hamishkan - the pattern of the tabernacle? Is it a floor plan, complete with elevation drawings, cross-sections, electrical and plumbing details, all drawn to scale? Or is it a rough sketch on a napkin of an edifice with flying buttresses, gargoyles, parapets and palladian windows? Maybe it is a three-dimensional rotating hologram of a building that is stucco, post-modern, arts-and-craft, and bauhaus - all in one. What is God's architectural aesthetic and how does God show it?
As we read this morning, God tells Moses that the mishkan is to be made of colorful cloth strung over a simple frame. That is, the divine verbal instructions command constructing a big tent. How blazee. Surely the pattern, the tavnit, God shows Moses is more interesting than a tent manual published by Desert Equipment Co-op.
According to the rabbis of old, when God said to Moses, "Make me a mishkan," Moses might simply have brought four poles and stretched skins over them to form the Tabernacle. Since Moses did not do so, the rabbis infer that God showed Moses the materials with which to make the mishkan. These materials were none other than red fire, green fire, black fire, and white fire. Pointing to those colorful flames God barked at Moses, "Make me a mishkan!" Moses sputtered back, "Master of the Universe, where [on earth] am I to get red fire, green fire, black fire and white fire?[3]" For Moses knew that Desert Equipment Co-op did not carry any of these colored fires.
And if the mishkan was nothing but fire, what about the vessels to be put in it? What could withstand abiding in heavenly flames? When Moses became baffled about making the lampstand, God said, Fine, "I will make [a pattern of] it in your presence." God set about showing him the proper materials - again, white fire, red fire, black fire, and green fire - and from these God forged the lampstand, its cups, its calyxes, its petals, and its six branches. God turned to Moses, pointed to the fiery structure and said, "Nu! This is how you make the lampstand."[6] But where on earth could he find such technicolor fires? Could these incandescent elements be controlled, or would they only kindle trouble?
Moses knew that the most bizaare of the fires is green. He recalled that during one of his lengthy hiking trips when he ascended into the fourth heaven, he saw a Temple whose staves were made of green fire.[7] When he got back home he found in his kabbalist guide books that green fire is the mystical second compartment of existence, a compartment called Shochad, Destruction. There is nothing but darkness in this compartment, the Zohar claims. No mercy would is granted to those who insult sages after they die, to those who embarrass others publicly, and especially to those who exalt themselves not the for the sake of heaven.[8] Moses smiled: If human tactlessness and snobbery fuel green fire, then surely there would be ample amounts on earth for him to find.
What about red fire? Back at that temple in the fourth heaven, Moses had seen pillars made of red fire.[9] And in the seventh and last heaven, Moses had seen two angels, Af and Hemah, Anger and Wrath, whom God created at the beginning of the world. These angels were forged out of chains of red fire and black fire, and they surged above, towering 500 parasangs in height.[10] Which angel was which fire, he wondered now. He shrugged. If it only takes anger and wrath to forge interlocking links of red and black fire, then surely he would have little problem finding either on earth.
Pausing a moment, Moses vaguely recalled something else about black fire. Didn't the Zohar say that the primordial darkness that swept over the the surface of the deep - וחשך על-פני תהום - is actually fire? Indeed, it claims this darkness is the most powerful fire for it can empower chaos - תהv ובהv .[11] But this primordial flaming darkness is cannot be seen, according to the very nonmystical Maimonides. It is not luminous but only transparent. "For if the elemental fire had been luminous," Maimonides says, "we should have seen at night the whole atmosphere in flame like fire."[12] Obviously Maimonides never saw the Aurora Borealis. That aside, if black fire does not illumine, maybe it enlightens? Perhaps another aspect of black fire is not so hidden. Moses looked around his study at the thousands of ancient and holy books piled haphazardly andlaughed.
Of course! Moses knew that these ancient tomes refer to the Torah many times as nothing but "black fire on white fire."[13] Black fire is revelation's wisdom captured in ink, and it is legible precisely because it flickers against the backdrop of flaming white parchment.[14]
Would white fire then be the inverse of revelation? Moses recalled that back on that interminably long hike through the heavens, he encountered in the third heaven an angel so tall it would take 500 years to ascend its height. This was no ordinary tall angel. It had seventy thousand heads, each head having seventy thousand mouths, and each mouth having seventy thousand tongues, and each tongue having seventy thousand sayings, and each saying having seventy thousand myriads of angels made of white fire - all praising and extolling God. These, Moses learned from Metatron - the ultimate angelic tour guide you should take on every hike - are the Erelim. The Erelim are appointed over the grass, trees, fruits and grain, and once they have done the will of their Creator they return to their assigned places and continue to praise God.[15] Later on, at the red and green fiery Temple in the fourth heaven, Moses also saw thresholds made of white fire. Angels kept going over these white flaming thresholds to praise God within the Temple.[16] Moses mulled these details over for a few moments and concluded that, on the whole, white fire is more heavenly than earthly. Where on earth could he find it?
Flipping through his mystical books, Moses found that white fire kindles precisely when all Israel joins together in prayer and song.[17] Eureka, Moses cried! Adjusting his sash, he pictured this precious earthly white fire: every time Jews got together to daven, they would fluctuate, standing and sitting, bowing and straightening like flickering flames, each consumed by their personal colorful issues, whispering prayers like smoke to ascend and dissipate on high, each flaring uniquely yet searing and soaring collectively. How fitting, Moses thought, that praying Jews recreate white fire immediately in front of the ner tamid, that eternal flame[18] so close to the ark, itself a fiery closet housing black fire on white fire. Jews spark white fire in a house of fire, to illumine fire, and yet, they are not consumed.
He now had earthly sources for these fires and was eager to forge the mishkan. Yet he wondered if this was actually possible. For how could rudeness, rage and anger work together? How could he get black fire to show its face all the time? And as the people were notoriously cantankerous and divisive, the supply of white fire that required their collaboration was tenuous at best. Since these colorful fires were unreliable, perhaps he could source the colors themselves and then set them on fire!
Moses recalled something among the creation legends involving these four colors.[19] He frantically searched his books until he found this: While angels made many of the creatures wandering the earth, it was God who directly made humankind by collecting dust from the four corners of the world: red dust, black dust, white dust and green dust. The red dust became blood, the black became the entrails, white became bones and sinews, and the green paled to become the skin.[20] Eureka, Moses cried again!
So if each human being already embodies the four necessary colors for the mishkan all Moses would have to do is bring humans together and, uh, burn them? This macabre thought bummed Moses until he remembered that ish and isha - aleph-yud-shin and aleph-shin-heh together contain yud-heh, God's name. As long as both men and women adhered to God's ways God would shield them from the aleph-shin, the esh, or fire, that otherwise would ultimately consume them.
Wiping his brow with relief, Moses realized there was no need to burn people from the outside; people are already aflame with divine fire within. He now recalled that the ancient Greeks took embodying divine fire seriously, too, they even coined a term for it: entheos, which means to be possessed or inspired by God from within. Enthused people are not consumed by their internal fires; on the contrary - enthused people transcend themselves, outperform limitations, and leap to where hope or prayer only flickered.
Moses enthusiastically envisioned the earthly solution to the tavnit hamishkan challenge. Whereas the ancient Greeks built magnificent edifices of stone into which they had to bring fire and games to spark enthusiasm in competitors and spectators alike, he would build magnificent edifices of communities in which men and women sparked enthusiasm in each other. Unlike the Greek division of players from audience, in Moses' vision, all people would be vital participants and contributors. It would be critical that both men and women be intimately involved in these communities, lest the communities sever God's name and presence in half. No doubt some people might leyn and others lead, some would love law more and others legend and lore, nonetheless each person would add spark and verve to the community's wellbeing. And whereas the Greek's fire was external to their buildings, the mishkan Moses envisioned would burn from within insofar as each person's passion would kindle enthusiasm in others. While Greek flames would ultimately exhaust their resources, sputter and ultimately be exinguished, the Jewish flames would endure through time and space as long as Jewish individuals dared to argue for the sake of heaven. For if they argued, it meant they took each other seriously (but not too seriously), that they valued each person's presence, perspective and passion. Indeed, minority opinions were just as cherished as those that garnered majority support. Arguing for the sake of heaven, Moses knew, would keep people and communities close to God. If the people argued for the sake of heaven they would wrestle more with issues that mattered - issues of justice, compassion, meaning and mortality - and less about such ephemera as half pipes, pucks and podiums. It would not matter whether the arguments for the sake of heaven - makhloket l'shem shamayim - would flare briefly or blaze through the generations. What mattered was that each individual, personally embodying red, black, green and white, participated with enthusiasm in the community's deliberations. In this way the people and their arguments would be a veritable kodachrome light unto the nations. All Moses had to do was give them something heavenly to argue about.
Downing the last of his beer and adjusting his sash, Moses handed the people God's tavnit hakahal - the instruction manual to build a righteous community. Instantly the people erupted into a technicolor blaze of passionate disagreement about how best to achieve this. Moses smiled, and God gave him the merit badge.
Arson requires neither match nor structure. For with the right materials and with sufficient enthusiasm, arson would be no crime but a sublime achievement. Indeed, if everyone burns sufficiently l'shem shamayim, ועשו לי מקדש ושחנתי בתוחם - we will not dwell in this fiery place alone.
I welcome your rebuttals.
Shabbat Shalom.