Musar untuk Imamat 9:1

ויהי ביום השמיני . Our sages (Bereshit Rabbah 42,4) have taught us a rule that whenever the Torah uses the expression ויהי, this is a reference to a painful experience. The sages are sometimes hard-pressed to demonstrate the validity of this dictum. Our question is why the Torah chooses to use an expression which points at something unpleasant when we are taught that elsewhere (Genesis 7,2) the Torah spent additional verbiage such as הבהמה אשר לא טהורה, "a category of animal which is not ritually pure," instead of simply saying בהמה טמאה, "an impure animal," merely to avoid referring expressly to something unpleasant?

Rabbi Abba son of Kahane in Vayikra Rabbah 11,2 quotes Proverbs 9,1-3: "Wisdom has built her house, when she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered the meat, mixed her wine; she has also set her table. She has sent out her maids, she cries out." He explains these verses as referring to the Tabernacle. He understands the words חכמות בנתה ביתה, "wisdom built her house," as a reference to Betzalel, concerning whom the Torah (Exodus 31,3) says: ואמלא אותו רוח אלוקים בחכמה בתבונה, "I have filled him with the spirit of G–d, with wisdom, etc." Rabbi Abba understands the words חצבה עמודיה שבעה, "she has hewn her seven pillars," as referring to the seven days of מלואים, consecration, during which Moses performed the service and Aaron and his sons prepared themselves for their holy task. The words טבחה טבחה, are understood as referring to the animals which served as the sacrifices, the words מסכה יינה refer to the drink-offerings; the words: אף ערכה שלחנה, refer to the לחם הפנים, the show breads. The words: שלחה נערותיה תקרא are a reference to Moses. The first verse in our פרשה reports that Moses called on Aaron, etc. Thus far the words of Rabbi Abba.

Keeping this in mind we can answer the question how Moses could have performed service in the Sanctuary during the seven days preceding the eighth day of Nissan mentioned in Leviticus 9,1. Our sages answered this question saying that Moses went in wearing a white shirt (Taanit 11). At first glance the question does not seem to fit the answer. If the questioner wanted to know whence Moses had taken the sacred vestments to enable him to perform the service in the Sanctuary -because he presumed that such service could not be performed without the sacred vestments- then the answer simply skirts the issue. If, on the other hand, the questioner did not consider the wearing of the sacred vestments as an absolute prerequisite before such service in the Tabernacle could be performed, what was the point of the question?