- In this last piece of this year’s series of understanding the nature of Creation/Brit, we reach at last the place of עבודה and זריזות, the essence of עבודה וכהונה. The relationship of Mishpatim:Teruma is as Sinai:Mishkan is as the relationship of חוק to משפט, First-Creation to Toledot-Creation, and ultimately of a human’s sense of his own human potential and the realities of the particular life which became his own. The need to translate Sinai is precisely what we would expect to find immediately post-Mishpatim and the translation takes two forms: Egel and Mishkan, variations on a common theme, which accounts for the presentation of the interwoven story.
The central question that demands addressing is the difference between them. The Kuzari asks only about the difference between the עגל וכרובים, but in reality the deeper question is alluded to by Kuzari also: The עגל was essentially a Mishkan-Synagogue. All references to the grandeur of the materials or parallels to Creation seem about as meaningful as the nature of משפט itself, laws that have crept into evolutionary applications, about the same value as sparkling trinkets to primitive humans in the purchase of Manhattan: Gold is pretty so God must live here! But this is exactly the problem that we encounter with חוקות שמים וארץ לא שמתי in a Universe that self-selected for meat-brains and life as we know it. The answer of ציווי seems a cop-out, as does Shelomo’s סוף דבר הכל נשמע or his משבח שמחה של מצוה. Indeed עמלק is much more of an assurance against עגל-building, in questioning היש ה' בקרבינו אם אין! This may well be the underlying relationship of Amalek-Mikdash.
Indeed, רפידים is the opposite of זריזות which is the essence of עבודה, the entire theme here of רבינו בחיי. The בעצלתיים ימל המקרה which introduces Esther is the opposite of קחו מאתם , the definition of investment. This is the profound connection of the שולחן ערוך מוכן לאכילה of last week to the ממוכן-כלום הכינו שולחן which is the לחם חם, the only violation of entropy-random thermodynamics that is part of Mishkan!
The obvious value in active involvement, the source of success not in בטחון but in(as רבינו בחיי points out here) יגעתי ומצאתי, along with involvement in mitzvah and avoda as in כי זה כל האדם is not merely logistical-psychological, but an existential component of being, precisely the same way that a developing world is the only and most profound sharing of true being, precisely as משפט becomes the meaningful חוקות שמים וארץ, precisely as emergent qualities come to kiss in a Meeting Place the source of the ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים which is the original meeting between תוציא הארץ and יציר כפיו של הקב"ה, precisely as becoming creators in the Mishkan Universe is the only reality to connection to Creator in a Creation that is for its inhabitants: בשביל זה is ultimately Shlomo’s זה כל האדם!!

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