Thursday, February 22, 2007

details of the construction

Parshat T'rumah

Why does the Torah have to describe in such great detail the contruction specifications of the mishkan? This was a one-time requirment, as the Beit Hamikdash was contructed differently.

Why was it so important go inform us of all the specifics? Unless you are an engineer or an architect, it is all pretty boring. Why not write down the generals - build x for this and y for that, etc. use these materials, etc.. Why all the specifics?

We often find many things transmitted without having been specifically written in detail in the Torah. Why was this written in such great detail?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

that is a good question if you are orthojew and accept that the torah is the direct word of god and was given over complete.
However, if you accept a more anthropological version of events, where ther torah was written by multiple authors over time in conjunction with a small tribe that grew larger with the passage of time, then the reasoning is that the author of that era put down the specifics because it was the first large project of the israelite's society's time.