Parshas Terumah - mystery supplies

God instructs Moshe to take up a collection, from among the people of Israel, for items needed for the construction of the Mishkan (the portable sanctuary the Jews used in the desert, for 40 years). “This is the offering that you shall take from them: gold, silver and copper. Greenish-blue wool, dark red wool, crimson wool, fine linen, and goats’ hair. Red-dyed ram’s skins, tachash skins, and acacia wood. Oil for the lamp, spices for the anointing oil, and for the incense of aromatic spices. Onyx stones and filling stones for the ephod and breastplate.” (Exodus 25:3-7).

Of all the requested donations, one strikes the commentator Rashi as problematic – the acacia wood. He asks: Where did they get this wood in the desert? He answers the question by quoting from the Midrash Tanchuma, which asserts that the patriarch Jacob prophetically understood that the Jews would build a sanctuary in their desert journey centuries later. So Jacob brought cedar trees with him when he relocated his family to Egypt (towards the end of the book of Bereishis/Genesis), planted the trees there, and instructed his children to take them when they left.

Though the midrash answers an apparent discrepancy quite neatly, I’m left with more questions. One problem I have is that there is another element on the list of donations that is also puzzling, which Rashi does not address. We learn later in the parsha that the artisans working on the Mishkan were to make a large menorah out of one solid block of pure gold (25: 31, as explained by Rashi). Where did the Jews get such a large block of gold? While it is true that the Jews requested and received from their Egyptian neighbors all sorts of valuables, including “gold articles,” right before they departed Egypt (Exodus 12:35), it seems unlikely that any Egyptian would have a large block of solid gold in his home to offer. So where did the Jews get this block of gold?

There are other items on the donation list that may appear as unlikely supplies of a people that rushed into the wilderness after centuries of slavery (such as the incense). The fact that none of the other items receive the same attention from Rashi accentuates the question: Why does the acacia wood alone get this attention from Rashi and the midrash? One possible answer – the wood represents the framework, of both the ark that carried the tablets and the walls of the Mishkan itself. The midrash illustrates the value of our leaders exercising foresight, to plant the seeds (both literal & figurative) for the framework of the next generation’s basic needs.

That answer may work. But are there others?

I welcome comments on this Dvar Torah. The best way to reach me is through this email address: donlegofzechut@yahoo.com