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Feb. 4th, 2014 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretThis past week's Torah portion dealt with the commandment to build a tabernacle to God in the wilderness. I struggled, as I do every year, with a particular Midrash on the parsha.
God commands Moses that the Menorah will be constructed, in its particular shape, from a single piece of beaten gold. There are many beautiful explanations of why this is, why the Menorah in particular, a symbol of the luminescence of the Jewish people, must be formed of a single piece. But in addition to being singular in its symbolism, it's a really hard thing to make.
The Midrash, which Rashi brings down, says that Moses was unable to visualize the Menorah as described by God, so God demonstrated it to him in what I imagine to be a sort of holographic display of fire. And then when it was demonstrated, Moses couldn't imagine how it was made, so God formed it in the fire and provided it to Moses.
And my question every year on this Midrash is the same: Why is this Midrash about Moses, rather than Bezalel? Surely it was Bezalel's responsibility to create the menorah, not Moses?
I came up with an answer in my fic "In the Shadows"- Moses feels a responsibility to be part of the construction process since it is his responsibility to inaugurate the Mishkan. He is struggling because the menorah in particular is the symbol of the unified Jewish nation that he leads, and he wants that to be his contribution to the Mishkan, but he cannot figure out how to actually execute it. And God eventually says to Moses, because of your desire to contribute, because you have struggled with good intentions and a failure to execute, I will make it for you, so that you will be able to contribute. Your leadership is nothing without my support, but with my support it can accomplish the impossible.
cahn didn't directly tackle the question in her Moses und Aron fic, but I think she indirectly confronts it in one of my favorite little details from the fic: Bezalel crafting from the manna. cahn's Bezalel is a compulsive creator. He is a person who will always be making beautiful things no matter what the circumstances and what the equipment he has. It would make no sense for this version of Bezalel to be the protagonist of the Midrash because he couldn't not know how to make the menorah, and therefore it has to be a Midrash about Moses, because this lesson was important to deliver to the nation.
Neither answer fully satisfies, though. I've written plenty here about why Bezalel matters to me, about how he signifies the space that exists in Judaism for engineering, art, design, and science. The fact that this Midrash erases him from the story and turns the Menorah from an act of inspired craftmanship into a gift from God frustrates me.
God commands Moses that the Menorah will be constructed, in its particular shape, from a single piece of beaten gold. There are many beautiful explanations of why this is, why the Menorah in particular, a symbol of the luminescence of the Jewish people, must be formed of a single piece. But in addition to being singular in its symbolism, it's a really hard thing to make.
The Midrash, which Rashi brings down, says that Moses was unable to visualize the Menorah as described by God, so God demonstrated it to him in what I imagine to be a sort of holographic display of fire. And then when it was demonstrated, Moses couldn't imagine how it was made, so God formed it in the fire and provided it to Moses.
And my question every year on this Midrash is the same: Why is this Midrash about Moses, rather than Bezalel? Surely it was Bezalel's responsibility to create the menorah, not Moses?
I came up with an answer in my fic "In the Shadows"- Moses feels a responsibility to be part of the construction process since it is his responsibility to inaugurate the Mishkan. He is struggling because the menorah in particular is the symbol of the unified Jewish nation that he leads, and he wants that to be his contribution to the Mishkan, but he cannot figure out how to actually execute it. And God eventually says to Moses, because of your desire to contribute, because you have struggled with good intentions and a failure to execute, I will make it for you, so that you will be able to contribute. Your leadership is nothing without my support, but with my support it can accomplish the impossible.
cahn didn't directly tackle the question in her Moses und Aron fic, but I think she indirectly confronts it in one of my favorite little details from the fic: Bezalel crafting from the manna. cahn's Bezalel is a compulsive creator. He is a person who will always be making beautiful things no matter what the circumstances and what the equipment he has. It would make no sense for this version of Bezalel to be the protagonist of the Midrash because he couldn't not know how to make the menorah, and therefore it has to be a Midrash about Moses, because this lesson was important to deliver to the nation.Neither answer fully satisfies, though. I've written plenty here about why Bezalel matters to me, about how he signifies the space that exists in Judaism for engineering, art, design, and science. The fact that this Midrash erases him from the story and turns the Menorah from an act of inspired craftmanship into a gift from God frustrates me.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-02-05 06:29 pm (UTC)(I went back and read "In the Shadows," which I haven't done since writing that fic -- the more time I spend with these guys, the more resonant that fic is for me.)
I've been thinking about this off and on since I saw your post, and I don't know that I have good answers. I also apologize for any inaccuracies in what I'm about to say. Not least because I find midrashim rather horrendous to try to research, so any knowledge I have about it has been cobbled together from what snippets I could find via various google searches :)
One possibility, it seems to me, stems from the part where the people of Israel asked Moses to speak to God for them (Exodus 20:19 - Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die) - so perhaps it could be Moses who speaks, but Bezalel whom he is speaking for. I think (? this is one of the things I am not sure about) there is a midrash that says that it may have been Bezalel who cast the gold into the fire for God to form? (This is kind of a cool idea, if indeed this is the case; it brings to mind, to me, a partnership/relationship between God and craftsman, paralleling the relationship between God and man.)
If I were writing this as (another) fic, I might cast it as Moses' error: he is, canonically, really bad at delegating. (When you have to have your father-in-law come advise you on the principle of delegation...) So he wants to create the Menorah, as in your fic, instead of delegating it to the proper person, who would have been Bezalel. And the natural consequence of this is that he can't do it, and God has to do it for him. But meanwhile (in my putative fic) through God's act, Bezalel himself also is blessed, not through creation in this case (although he is blessed primarily through that: there are many other things which he does create), but through being able to learn from the ultimate Craftsman. And maybe then he can use what he's learned to make more beautiful all the other things he's been tasked to create...
(no subject)
Date: 2014-02-05 07:31 pm (UTC)Another possible thought is that from a literary perspective this Midrash is mirroring another famous and perplexing Midrash: The one that says that when Aaron got the gold for the Golden Calf, he threw it in the fire and the calf emerged. A lot of Jewish writing, and a lot of Rashi's commentary on the significance of the Mishkan in particular, specifically links the Mishkan as the atonement for the Golden Calf. So it makes a skewed sort of sense that God would magically create a golden Menorah for Moses as atonement for God magically creating a golden Calf for Aaron. (On the other hand, as the grandson of Hur, Bezalel is almost as well-positioned as Moses to atone for Aaron's sin.) Still, I like the thought that the Menorah is being contrasted to the golden Calf.