출애굽기 30:11의 무사르

Rashi disagrees with the words of the Zohar in פרשת כי תשא on 31,18 stating that the fact that the donations for the Tabernacle are not reported in the Torah until after the episode of the golden calf does not mean that Moses had not collected the donations already prior to it. The Torah is not obligated to report matters in a chronological order. [In our editions of Rashi there is a bracket which quotes another Zohar which specifically includes the mixed multitude in the donations for the Tabernacle basing itself on the words "from everybody;" Ed.] this statement is also found in the Midrash Tanchuma on פרשת תרומה. It is very puzzling why Rashi makes such an effort to use the verses in פרשת תרומה and פרשת ויקהל respectively to prove the principle that the Torah does not need to report events in chronological order. Whereas Rashi is quite correct in claiming that Moses communicated the instructions to bring donations for the building of the Tabernacle on the morrow of the Day of Atonement, but how do we know that he had withheld this information from the Jewish people since before they made the golden calf, i.e. for several months? Perhaps he himself had not been told about it until then?

This is also what the Rabbis may have meant when they said that מספר, refers to a time when Israel performs the will of G–d, לא יספר when Israel fails to do so (Yoma 22b). When Israel does not perform the will of G–d, this is caused by their cleaving to this physical material world. When they do perform the will of their Maker, however, even counting them does not constitute something finite, something that imposes limitations on their development; then it is not something negative. When G–d was ready to take up His residence amongst Israel, He commanded them to be counted in order that this aspect of numbering should be understood; in that case their number was of course, finite.. This had to be so, since all those counted were at that time of this physical world, of course. We have explained in Parshat Ki Tissa, how the number six hundred thousand corresponds to the ספירות, emanations, and how all this demonstrates Israel's relationship to the שכינה.

We will deal with the significance of the שור in connection with פרשת פרה, which is usually read on the Sabbath we read פרשת כי תשא. Due to our being in exile on account of our many sins, our preoccupation with Torah is unfortunately greatly reduced; this situation will not be drastically changed until the time of the final redemption when the whole world will become filled with the knowledge of G–d (Isaiah 11,9). Our sages state that though generally speaking the Torah is referred to as masculine, when the Torah is spoken of in connection with exile it is referred to as feminine such as in Deut. 31,21 כי לא תשכח מפי זרעו, “For she will not be forgotten by its descendants." When Torah is thus "weakened," it assumes the image of a feminine שור, i.e. a cow. This is the mystical dimension of the פרה אדומה, the red heifer and of the legislation concerning its treatment. We view the red heifer as the instrument that is to expiate for the fact that the Torah has been downgraded from the image of the male (ox), to the female (cow). The ash of the red heifer purifies a person who has been ritually contaminated by contact with a dead body or exposure to the enclosed airspace harbouring a dead body.