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by, Moshe Burt
Back in Philadelphia, in the “old country”, R’ Moshe Ungar would speak about the Mizbeiyach in terms of both the Beit HaMikdash and in terms of the personal Mizbeiyach which burns eternally in our hearts. And there is the well-known wish to a Chosson and Kallah that the fire of the personal Mizbeiyach burn eternally.
In our Parsha, we begin learning about the construction and the contents of the Mishkan.
The Shem Mishmuel [Parsha Teruma, pg. 169-172) cites R’ Shimon who said;
These are the three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of Kehunah and the crown of Malchut. But the crown of a good name is greater than them all.
Then Shem Mishmuel goes on to enumerate the four primary objects of the Beit HaMikdash; the Aron HaKodesh, the Shulchan and the Mizbeiyach which all had rims and the Menorah, “which represents the good name attainable by every member of the Klal Yisrael” who is connected to pure Divine influence, which was without rims.
He then went on to discuss the loshen for crowns, for rims: zer — which signify rising above human desires to a holier, more spiritual realm and related it to the nazir, one who dedicates his life to kedusha “by abstaining from wine and certain other things for a designated period.”
But then, to go back R’ Moshe Ungar’s personal Mizbeiyach, and the wish to a Chosson and Kallah, it is puzzling that the Shem Mishmuel did not address the connecting terms Eizer and Eitzer in the context of marriage as they seem so connected to the term “zer” — crowns.
This puzzlement resulted in contacting the local RBS Shem Mishmuel guru, R’ Arye Gordon.
R’ Gordon spoke in terms of the tongue movement used to pronounce a letter “Zayin” of Eizer — partner and how close it related to the movement of the tongue needed say the sound of the “Tzadik” of the term Eitzer; stop, control, authority, royalty. But he qualified his comments by saying that he was not a linguist and suggested contacting Rav Matosyahu Glazerson, a renowned Chacham, well-known linguist and author of s’forim such as Sparks of Holy Tongue, Building Blocks of the Alef, Bet and more.
Rav Glazerson confirmed to me that there is indeed a connection between “eizer” and “eitzer”, that one must control himself in order to control, to govern others, to be of royalty. Further, one in control of himself, no matter what his material wealth, is wealthy.
To extrapolate to man and his wife, the “eizer kennegdo” of marriage, the discussion in our Parsha of the crowns, the “zer” seems connected to and have implications for marriage, ergo the ages-old definition; helpmate opposite him.
Some of the keywords connected with the “eizer”/”eitzer” connection are stop-limit, confine, contain. One of the attributes of this connection is that when man and woman marry, the woman takes over some of the previous bachelorly duties of man enabling him to focus more closely on his spiritual responsibilities.
Rabbi A. Eliyahu Kitov, author of the sefer “The Jew and His Home,”
title’s chapter 5 (pg. 37-38) of his sefer “And I will Dwell in Their Midst” and cites Rabbi Akiva who taught;
If husband and wife are deserving, Hashem’s Presence dwells in their midst. If they are not deserving, fire devours them.
Rabbi Kitov writes further;
Whereever Hashem’s Presence dwells, that fire gives warmth and heat, but does not devour and consume. …Its blessing rests on the work of their hands and they become partners in the act of Divine creation. But if they make the Presence unwelcome so that it does not dwell in their midst, they are left only with two consuming fires.
And so, it seems that when a man treats his wife kindly, caringly and with respect, that they are, as we say today “on the same page”, the flame of their Mishkan burns in unison and they both have a “zer”.
May we be zocha in this year that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole, that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard and captive Chayal Gilad Shalit and the other MIAs be liberated and returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem and that we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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