אַ֤ךְ ׀ קָר֣וֹב לִירֵאָ֣יו יִשְׁע֑וֹ לִשְׁכֹּ֖ן כָּב֣וֹד בְּאַרְצֵֽנוּ׃
Oui, proche est son secours de ses pieux adorateurs, si bien que la gloire élira domicile dans notre pays.
Rabbeinu Bahya
לשכנו תדרשו, “you shall seek out His Presence.” You should seek out His attribute כבוד which first became manifest on Mount Sinai. In due course this Shechinah would be manifest in the Holy Land, originally in Shiloh (where the Tabernacle stood for over 390 years.). In this instance, seeing that Mount Moriah as the ultimate site of the Temple was not known yet, Moses has in mind the Tabernacle of Shiloh.
Rabbeinu Bahya
ומראה כבוד ה' The words 'ומראה כבוד ה are an expression for the Shechinah. Our sages refer to the phenomenon as שכינה, whereas the Torah calls it 'כבוד ה'. When we read in Psalms 85,10 לשכון כבוד בארצנו, “to make His glory dwell in our land,” the reference is to the Shechinah, which is also another name for the attribute of Justice known as יד, the attribute (tool) used by G’d to create the universe. This is what Isaiah 45,7 had in mind when he said ואת כל אלה ידי עשתה, “My hand has made all these (phenomena).” All the phenomena which between them make up the universe were described by the prophet simply as אלה, “these.” All of these are creations of the attribute of Justice. This is why Isaiah 66,2 refers to them as ויהיו כל אלה “all of these (phenomena) came into existence.” We find similar expressions in connection with the creation of the universe in Genesis. The word אלה appears in Genesis 2,4 אלה תולדות השמים והארץ, “these are the products of the heavens and the earth.” The word אלה in that verse includes all that had been created both in the celestial spheres as well as what had been created in the terrestrial spheres. Even when enumerating these phenomena in detail we find the expression אלה describing them. These are the phenomena in question in detail: “light, darkness, the Torah, Justice, the in-gathering of the exiles, Israel, the earth’s produce, rainfall. There is a verse describing each phenomenon as a product of G’d’s creative activity, Isaiah 45,7 writing: “I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things." The verse describing G’d as creating the Torah is found in Exodus 20,1 וידבר אלו-הים את כל הדברים האלה, “G’d said all these things.” Justice is referred to in 21,1 ואלה המשפטים אשר תשים לפניהם “and these are the judgments you are to set before them.” The word אלה appears in conjunction with Israel in Genesis 49,28 כל אלה שבטי ישראל שנים עשר, “all these are the tribes of Israel, twelve in number.” The word אלה occurs in connection with the in-gathering of the exiles in Isaiah 49,12: הנה אלה מרחוק יבואו והנה אלה מצפון ומים ואלה מארץ סינים, “here: ‘Look these are coming from afar, these from the north and the west; all these from the land of Sinim.’” We have another verse on this subject in Zecharyah 8,12: ואמרת בלבבך מי ילד לי את אלה ואני שכולה וגלמודה גולה וסורה ואלה מי גדל הן אני נשארתי לבדי, אלה איפה הם? “And you will say to yourself, ‘who bore these for me when I was bereaved and barren, exiled and disdained; by whom then were these reared? I was left all alone- and where have these been?’” We have a verse in which the word אלה also appears in connection with the earth’s produce, i.e. Zecharyah 8,12: כי זרע השלום הגפן תתן פריה והארץ תתן את יבולה והשמים יתנו טלם והנחלתי את שארית העם הזה את כל אלה, “but what it sows shall prosper; the vine shall produce its fruit, the ground shall produce its yield, and the skies shall provide their dew. I will bestow all these things upon the remnant of this people.” The rain too is mentioned in a verse containing the word אלה in Jeremiah 14,22: היש הבלי הגוים מגשימים ואם השמים יתנו רביבים הלא אתה ה' אלו-הינו ונקוה לך כי אה עשית את כל אלה, “Can any of the false gods of the nations give rain? Can the skies of themselves give showers? Only You can, O Lord our G’d! So we hope in You for only You made all these things.”
Rabbeinu Bahya
Whatever the sages mentioned in the Midrash we just quoted which states that the Tabernacle was equivalent to a microcosm, may be understood as a generalization. There are, however, many details which are capable of being derived from the generalizations we mentioned.
In connection with the verse אלה תולדות השמים והארץ, “these are the derivatives of heaven and earth,” Bereshit Rabbah 12,9 states that from the word בהבראם, which appears immediately after these words we can derive that G’d employed the letter ה at the end of the tetragram as the tool with which He created the world, (seeing that that letter was not necessary in that statement). We may perhaps find something parallel in connection with the Tabernacle in the verse אלה פקודי המשכן, i.e. that the letter ה in the word המשכן, is also an allusion to the presence of the attribute כבוד being present in the Tabernacle, i.e. the Shechinah. The last letter ה in the tetragrammaton represents that attribute. This may be further alluded to by the fact that the subject of the Tabernacle occurs five times in the Torah. I have already explained this at the beginning of Vayakhel. The relationship of the words משכן-שכינה-כבוד is further illustrated in the verse לשכון כבוד בארצנו, “for the attribute of Kavod to dwell in our land” (Psalms 85,10).
Just as the world had been planned before being actually created within a space of six days, so the Tabernacle had been planned before being actually constructed. When the Torah speaks about the planning stage of the Tabernacle it writes: לחשוב מחשבות, “to plan designs” (31,4), whereas subsequently it speaks of לעשות, “to carry out (such designs).” Just as the world itself was not a product of externally imposed conditions, so the Tabernacle was a structure built by the free-willed donations of the people constructing it. The Torah underlines this when it writes אשר ידבנו לבו, “whatever his heart will prompt him to donate” (Exodus 25,2). Just as the name of G’d is mentioned at every stage of the creation including His holy name, the tetragrammaton (Genesis 2,4) at the end of the creation of the world, so His name is mentioned repeatedly during the Torah’s report of the construction of the Tabernacle, including G’d’s ineffable name כי ענן ה' על המשכן, “for the cloud of Hashem was above the Tabernacle “(40,38).
Just as G’d employed two separate attributes of His when creating the universe, i.e. the attribute of Justice and the attribute of Mercy, so the Tabernacle was constructed principally by two different craftsmen, Betzalel and Oholivov. The former was from the tribe of יהודה representing the attribute of Mercy, whereas the latter was a member of the tribe of דן, representing the attribute of דין, Justice.
In connection with the verse אלה תולדות השמים והארץ, “these are the derivatives of heaven and earth,” Bereshit Rabbah 12,9 states that from the word בהבראם, which appears immediately after these words we can derive that G’d employed the letter ה at the end of the tetragram as the tool with which He created the world, (seeing that that letter was not necessary in that statement). We may perhaps find something parallel in connection with the Tabernacle in the verse אלה פקודי המשכן, i.e. that the letter ה in the word המשכן, is also an allusion to the presence of the attribute כבוד being present in the Tabernacle, i.e. the Shechinah. The last letter ה in the tetragrammaton represents that attribute. This may be further alluded to by the fact that the subject of the Tabernacle occurs five times in the Torah. I have already explained this at the beginning of Vayakhel. The relationship of the words משכן-שכינה-כבוד is further illustrated in the verse לשכון כבוד בארצנו, “for the attribute of Kavod to dwell in our land” (Psalms 85,10).
Just as the world had been planned before being actually created within a space of six days, so the Tabernacle had been planned before being actually constructed. When the Torah speaks about the planning stage of the Tabernacle it writes: לחשוב מחשבות, “to plan designs” (31,4), whereas subsequently it speaks of לעשות, “to carry out (such designs).” Just as the world itself was not a product of externally imposed conditions, so the Tabernacle was a structure built by the free-willed donations of the people constructing it. The Torah underlines this when it writes אשר ידבנו לבו, “whatever his heart will prompt him to donate” (Exodus 25,2). Just as the name of G’d is mentioned at every stage of the creation including His holy name, the tetragrammaton (Genesis 2,4) at the end of the creation of the world, so His name is mentioned repeatedly during the Torah’s report of the construction of the Tabernacle, including G’d’s ineffable name כי ענן ה' על המשכן, “for the cloud of Hashem was above the Tabernacle “(40,38).
Just as G’d employed two separate attributes of His when creating the universe, i.e. the attribute of Justice and the attribute of Mercy, so the Tabernacle was constructed principally by two different craftsmen, Betzalel and Oholivov. The former was from the tribe of יהודה representing the attribute of Mercy, whereas the latter was a member of the tribe of דן, representing the attribute of דין, Justice.