"Healing and the Holiness of Time": Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses on Parshat Tetzaveh, 5782

Our ancestors, the ancient rabbis, had a principle called "ein mukdam o meuchar baTorah" meaning: there is no early or late in the Torah. This is a radical principle that the rabbis used to re-organize the narrative of the Torah in order to solve an exegetical problem. Recognizing the dangers of this principle they used it infrequently. However, in the portion of Tetzaveh, Rashi, the 11th century French Bible commentator, employs it to make the claim that the instructions for the tabernacle (mishkan) were given only after the sin of the Golden Calf (in the Torah's narrative, these instructions are placed before the episode of the Golden Calf). With this new narrative order, Rashi illustrates God's great compassion for the Israelites, illustrating that God understands that in worshipping a golden calf God's people needed something concrete, something tangible by which to relate to the Divine Presence. In response God gives them instructions for building a sanctuary, a mishkan, by which they can connect to the Divine presence.