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By Rabbi Tuvia Bolton, Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim, Kfar Chabad, Israel 

This week’s Torah reading is called ‘Shemini’ (“Eight”), referring to the day after the seven days of inauguration of the ‘Tabernacle’ that the Jews built in the Desert.

The Tabernacle was a remarkable and unique detail of Judaism. It was a large, portable ‘Temple’ made mostly of wood and tapestries including; a large animal-sacrifice altar, a smaller incense altar, a seven-stem candelabra, a ‘Holy of Holies’ room with the Tablets that Moses received on Sinai and more.

But before it was functional it required a complicated seven-day inauguration process (explained in the end of last week’s Torah portion ‘Tzav’). And our weekly Torah portion begins on the ‘eighth’ day when G-d’s presence actually filled the edifice.

But at first glance this is not understood.

First of all, why did the Jews need a Tabernacle, isn’t G-d everywhere? Why didn’t they just pray, or ‘connect’ like all the other religions? And why couldn’t they wait till they entered Israel, why did they NEED it in the desert?
Second: Why didn’t the Tabernacle just work the first day it was erected? why did it need a seven-day inauguration?
Third: what is so special about the EIGHTH day that it is the title of an entire Torah portion… why weren’t seven days enough?
And finally, the Torah is a book of life instruction. What has this ancient, 3,320 year old story got to do with us today? And even back then this inauguration was only done once by Moses and the Cohanim (priests) and was never repeated. So what is the lesson here for everyone?

To understand this, here is a personal story.

For the past forty years I have flown a lot around the world. And, with G-d’s help, every flight from or to Israel I always take my Tefillin, stand up from my seat at the first opportunity and walk down the aisles asking the passengers if they are Jewish and if they want to do the commandment of putting on Tefillin.
Amazingly there are always some passengers that agree to do so, and sometimes the numbers reach into the thirties!
But once when I flew to Johannesburg South Africa I was seriously considering not asking anyone.
The reason is that some ten months earlier I had also flown there and EVERYONE, both on the flights there and back, said they were gentiles!
This was such a disheartening experience that I figured that this must be typical for South African flights and this time I would stay seated and mind my own business like everyone else.
As soon as I made that decision I transformed!
At once I became a normal passenger! It became so clear and obvious to me that asking strangers to put on Tefillin was ridiculous! It disturbed people’s privacy, made me look like a fool and took me from learning Torah. No one in their right mind would comply anyway: if they were religious, they didn’t need me. And if they weren’t… why would they agree to do a complicated ritual …. in public!
Not only that … I was tired, there was turbulence every half hour, people didn’t want to be disturbed, they were reading, eating, wanted to be with their families, were watching the movie etc. etc.
Suddenly I grabbed my head in my hands and almost yelled “Stop it!” I realized that I was actually thinking myself to ‘death’!
“Bolton” I thought to myself “All those negative things are certainly obstacles. But you can’t use them for excuses!” I thought a bit more and concluded, “And what should a Chassid do when confronted with obstacles? Overcome them with … joy (Simcha)!”
I don’t know how, but it worked! Without delay I opened the overhead compartment, took out my Tefillin, walked to the beginning of the aisle, held them out before me and asked the first man if he wanted to put them on.
His answer was, “CERTAINLY NOT!!”
“Ah!” I thought to myself “Another obstacle! Need more Simcha!”
So, undaunted, I asked the person behind him who was watching us, but as soon as I said the first word and held out the Tefillin he held up both hands like stop signs and said “Not Jewish! I’m not Jewish!”
Encouraged by my dismal failures I preceded to a heavy-set, muscular fellow with a shaved head, perhaps in his forties who looked a bit like a professional wrestler.
I held out the Tefillin and asked him if he was interested. But he just stared at me. I thought that maybe he’s not Jewish so I asked him if he was Jewish. But he just kept staring. He didn’t even blink. So I figured that maybe he doesn’t speak English so I repeated both questions in Hebrew (after all we were flying from Israel). “Tefillin? Yehudi?” But he just stared at me.

Usually I would have just moved on but my decision to be positive wouldn’t let me. I forced a smile, imagined that this is my best friend and moved the Tefillin closer to him. I figured if he wasn’t Jewish, he would at least do something. So when he didn’t respond at all, I slowly put a Yarmulke on his head, took his hand, raised it and cautiously began to slip the Tefillin strap on.
At that point he took over. He made the blessing, I put on the head tefillin, gave him the page with the ‘Shma’ prayer on it and let him do the rest on his own.
I went to the back of the plane for a minute to let him alone and when I returned and helped him remove the Tefillin he said quietly to me, “We’ll talk later.”
Across the aisle sat a young fellow with a big smile on his face who said “Now me! Right? Wow! The last time I put on Tefilln was years ago at my Bar Mitzva.”
Then, after he finished there was an older man that added that he hadn’t put on Tefillin for fifty years (his wife kept saying … ‘Fifty? Fifty? Try sixty!). When he finished, I noticed that the ‘wrestler’ was motioning that he wanted to talk.
As I approached, I noticed that he was rubbing his face but when I got closer I saw that it was because …. he was crying.
“You have to excuse me for crying” he said shaking my hand. “But when I see how you care for others and don’t seem to care about yourself … and you do it with such simcha. Well, it makes me think what am I doing?” He blew his nose a few times and continued.
“You know what? I just decided, I’m going to buy a pair of Tefillin for myself and start putting them on! I used to do it ten, twenty years ago, but I stopped. I’m going to do it again! You know what? I’m going to do it!”
He shook my hand warmly and I went on to put Tefillin on four more people.

If it wouldn’t have been for my decision to not be ‘normal’ (get discouraged by the past or nervous about the future) it would have been a normal flight… with nothing to get happy about!

This answers our questions about the Tabernacle and the Eight day.

The number Seven signifies ‘nature’. That’s why G-d created the world in SEVEN days when He could have done it in one instant, because according to Kabala, creation is an expression of G-d’s SEVEN emotional attributes.
But EIGHT is above creation and represents holiness.
The uniqueness of the Jewish people is that they were ‘chosen’ by the Creator to do what Adam, the first man, was created to do: make the entire physical world ‘Holy’ i.e. above nature
But Adam failed, he surrendered to nature and consequently pulled the entire world after him.
Until Abraham came on the scene almost 2,000 years later and got the first commandment; to remove his foreskin on the EIGHTH day. This became the covenant between the Jews and G-d. To draw the ‘Eight’ i.e. the Creator, INTO the ‘Seven’ days of creation.

This is why the Tabernacle was necessary and why it was finished on the 8^th day: it was a PHYSICAL place designed to bring this holiness (EIGHT) into the physical world (Seven).
This is the prototype of what the Jews were (and are) ‘chosen’ for; even in our everyday lives. And although it requires constant preparation: learning Torah, doing the Commandments, Prayer, giving Charity etc. the most important is our attitude:

We must be like the number eight; regarding obstacles not as excuses for defeat (G-d forbid) but rather to as challenges to be transformed into Joy… by means of Joy! (Just as when a child is circumcised and when the Tabernacle was finished, both on the eighth day, it is and was a joyous occasion.)
But our joy will not be complete until Moshiach actually transforms the entirety of creation into a Holy Temple.

That is the lesson for all of us. Don’t let nature get you ‘down’. Rather it is up to us to raise’ nature to new heights. It’s all in our hands to transform ourselves and the world around us it depends on us to bring Moshiach even one moment sooner. And not much is lacking. We are standing on the merits of thousands of years of Jewish efforts, efforts, faith and suffering.
Now it could be that just one more good deed, word or even thought; especially if done in joy, can tilt the scales and bring the total redemption. with …

Moshiach NOW!!

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