Commento su Esodo 26:5

מקבילת הללאת אשה אל אחתה — Be careful that you make the loops (place them on the curtains) to one measurement: that the spaces between one loop and the other be exactly the same, and further, as their measurement is on the one so shall it be on the other, so that when you lay out one section next to the other the loops of the one shall come exactly opposite those of the other. That is what is meant by the expression מקבילות, viz., “one opposite the other”. In the Targum the translation of נֶגֶד “opposite” is לקבל (hence the term מקבילות from קבל). The curtains were twenty-eight cubits long and four cubits wide, so when they joined five curtains together along their lengths it followed that their width was twenty cubits. The same was the case with the other section. The Tabernacle was thirty cubits in length from East to West, for it is said, (Exodus 36:23) “twenty boards for the south side (which was the long side of the Tabernacle) southward,” and the same is stated with reference to the north side; and as each board was one cubit and a half in breadth you have thirty cubits from East to West. The width of the Tabernacle from North to South was ten cubits, for it is said, (Exodus 36:27, 28) “and for the side of the dwelling westward he made six boards … and two boards … for the corners of the dwelling,” so you have ten cubits (this appears to give a breadth of twelve cubits, but each of the corner boards stood partly behind the thickness of the adjoining board that stood at right angles with it, and as the thickness was one cubit it took off a cubit on each side from the inside measurement). — I shall explain these verses each on its place. — They spread the curtains with their length over the breadth of the Tabernacle, whereby the ten middle cubits served as a roofing for the inside over the width of the Tabernacle and a cubit on each side of these ten cubits went to cover the thickness of the boards which were one cubit thick, so that there remained altogether sixteen cubits — eight hanging over on the north side and eight on the south side, covering the vertical boards which were ten cubits in height; consequently the two lowest cubits of the boards were left showing. The breadth of the curtains after having been joined together was forty cubits, twenty cubits for each section. Thirty cubits of these served as a roofing for the inside of the Tabernacle over its length, and one cubit for the thickness of the tops of the boards of the westside and one more cubit to cover the thickness of the columns in the east side — for there were no boards in the east side but there were five columns on the hooks of which the screen was spread and hung as a kind of curtain (cf. Exodus 27:10). Thus there remained eight cubits which hung on the back of the Tabernacle on the west side, leaving the two lowest cubits showing. This I have found in the Boraitha מ"ט מדות. But in Treatise Shabbat 98b it is stated that the curtains did not cover the thickness of the columns on the east side, and consequently there were nine cubits of the curtains hanging on the back of the Tabernacle. The text of this section suppports this view, since it says (v. 33) “and thou shalt hang up the partition veil under the catches;” for if it were as the Boraitha states the partition veil would have been distant from the catches one cubit to the West.

The loops of one drape [should] line up exactly opposite the loops of the other. . . The loops of one are lined up with the loops of the other, and the clasps join them together.

V. 5. קָבָל עם ,מקבילות (Kön. II. 15, 10) so viel wie נגד העם, dem Volke gegenüber, in Gegenwart, קַבֵּל, entgegennehmen, empfangen. הַקְבִיל sich zum Empfange darbieten, einem andern in gerader Richtung zugewandt sein, hier noch vollständiger, von mit einander zu verbindenden Schleifen: jede der andern zu deren Empfange zugewandt.

חמשים לולאות, fifty loops. The total amount of space for these 50 loops was three and a half cubits. How is this arrived at? When you allow a half cubit of air space to separate the 49 airspaces needed to separate one loop from the next, this amounts to twenty four and a half cubits. This leaves three and a half cubits for the boards to complete the 28 cubits in length occupied by them when fastened to one another snugly by the bolts we shall hear about still. Seeing that the eleven carpets made of goats’ hair were a total of thirty cubits in length, you were left with five and a half cubits for the loops, as those were thicker than the loops made of a mixture of wool and linen as described for the previous carpets. [There the Torah had specified that the loops were of the same materials as the carpets; seeing that for the goats’ wool carpets the material for the loops is not specified it is logical that these too were made of the same material as the carpets that they were meant to join. Ed.]

Result in the paroches being a distance of one amoh westward from the clasps. . . Explanation: the paroches divided the Holy of Holies from the [remainder of the] Ohel Moed, and stood ten amohs from the west side, equal to the length of the Holy of Holies. Thus, the distance from the paroches to the [Ohel Moed’s entrance in the] east was twenty amohs. Now, if the drapes covered the one-amoh width of the eastern pillars, and then covered another twenty amohs before reaching the paroches of the Holy of Holies, then the paroches would be one amoh distant from the clasps. This is because the clasps were in the middle of the [two groups of] drapes, on the [inner] edge of each twenty-amohs-wide group. The drapes would have to cover twenty-one amohs [before reaching the paroches].

מקבילות הלולאות, “the loops shall be opposite one another;” this is the way Rashi understands it and he is supported by the text of the Torah. The Torah writes in verse 33: ונתת את הפרכת תחת הקרסים, “you are to place (hang) the dividing curtain under the clasps;” if we follow the text of the Baraitha, the position of the dividing curtain was about one cubit beyond (westward) of these clasps. Some commentators explain and answer the difficulty in that Baraitha by saying that the pillars supporting the dividing curtain were attached to the end of the twentieth cubit of the length (interior) of the sanctuary part, as opposed to the Holy of Holies part of the Tabernacle. The dividing curtain hung facing the eastern entrance of the Tabernacle. In this way it was beneath the 50 golden clasps described as connecting the primarily blue woolen carpets. The curtain at the eastern entrance of the Tabernacle called מסך, was similarly suspended in a manner that its thickness completed the twenty cubit long sanctuary part of the Tabernacle. According to the Talmud, Shabbat folio 98, where it is stated that none of the carpets covered the pillars at the eastern end of the Tabernacle, the dividing curtain would have been hung towards the western part of the Sanctuary, or Holy of Holies respectively.