There is a fascinating מדרש in this weeks פרשה. We have a few פסוקים with the commandments to send anyone that is a מצורע, זב, or טמא מת out of the camp. Rashi explains that this פרשה was said on the inaugural day of the משכן, and the מדרש רבה ז’ א’ gives an explanation as to why it was said on that specific day. Here is what the מדרש says:
When the Jews left Egypt, “כל רובן”, all of most of them were blemished and maimed. And the מדרש goes on to explain how those doing physical labor in Egypt would get bruised. So, Hashem says, is this the way to honor the Torah? For it to be given to a generation of maimed people? And Hashem sent מלאכים to heal the people, and this is proven from the פסוקים that are brought by Rashi. It says they stood at the mountain, which means they could all stand. They said נעשה ונשמע, which means that they were able to speak, they could hear, and they were confident in their hands being able to do. They saw the sounds, which they were not blind. But when they sinned with the עגל, they all reverted back to their maimed state (my understanding of this is that their status quo was maimed, but their connection to the Source of Life healed them, as soon as that connection was gone, they defaulted back to their original state), and they also became זבים and מצורעים. Aside from physical blemishes they also had spiritual damage now. The פסוק says that Moshe saw them, and they were פרוע, and by a מצורע the פסוק says ראשו יהיה פרוע, so it means that Moshe saw them with צרעת. And once the משכן was built Hashem tells Moshe, before I built the משכן, I would only come to you with words privately, but now that you have made a משכן and my שכינה will dwell there consistently, you need to send out those that are זבים, מצורעים, and טמא מת. In order to fulfill the פסוק of ולא יטמאו את מחניהם אשר אני שכן בתוכם, do not contaminate their camps that I will dwell within it.
Most of these concepts are ones that we are taught and are vaguely familiar with, but if you imagine the scene it paints a different picture than what we would have thought. You imagine the day of the inauguration of the משכן with all the Jews dressed in beautiful clothing ready to welcome the שכינה and serve Hashem. But in reality “most of all of them” were exiled that day. I don’t know exactly what that phrase “most of all of them” means but it is at the very least the majority of people. This means that more than 300,000 men were bruised, maimed, and hideous, both physically and spiritually and needed to be exiled that day. Kind of gloomy.
I think there is a deeper message here which is both more encouraging and is applicable for people today.
The מדרש תנחומא on this weeks פרשה which relates two פסוקים. The פסוק in our פרשה which says ויהי ביום כלות משה להקים את המשכן, on the day Moshe finished building the משכן, and the פסוק in שיר השירים, באתי לגני אחותי כלה, Hashem calls us His sister, His bride, and He comes to His garden. But it doesn’t say the garden, it says My garden. Which means that when Hashem came down into the משכן, He was coming back to the place He had once been previously. Since the שכינה had originally been on this world with Adam, and then when Adam ate from the tree, the שכינה left the earth and went up to heaven. Moshe’s construction of the משכן fixed this and brought the שכינה back to its original place on earth where Hashem wanted to have a relationship with us humans. But before this could be complete there was another journey that needed to be undone. Adam had been exiled from גן עדן and there were כרובים with fiery swords guarding the path to the tree of life. Here too, Hashem had come back to His place, but man needed to come back to the original place as well. A majority of the nation needed to be sent away, but not for the purpose of sending them away, the true purpose was their return, the sending away was only to create a platform for them to return.
The language points to this parallel as well. In the commandment to send out the פסוק says, מזכר עד נקבה תשלחום, and by Adam it says זכר ונקבה ברא אותם. By Adam the פסוק says וישלחהו יהוה אלהים the same way that here it says וישלחו אותם. Both subjects are sent out of their “camps”. And is it a coincidence that Adam has כרובים guarding his path to his עץ החיים, and in the newly completed משכן there were also כרובים “guarding” the Torah, about which the פסוק says עץ חיים היא.
But here is where it gets interesting: Adam was sent out to “serve the ground which he had been taken from” and the language in our פרשה says “do not contaminate their camps, which I dwell within”, אשר אני שוכן בתוכם. Guess how many times the word שוכן and בתוכם are used in the same פסוק in the entire 24 books of תנ”ך? You guessed it, only twice! Here, and in the פסוק we all know and love, ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם. We all know that פסוק is referring to each of us individually, since it says, and I will dwell inside “them”. It teaches us that we are each meant to create a משכן, a house, a carved out holy space for Hashem to live within us. In our bodies, in our minds, in our time, in our homes, in our daily monotony, and in every single area of our influence and existence we are commanded to build some sort of structure or system that will allow God to come in.
I think that the mission of those זבים and מצורעים that were sent away that day was to see themselves as pure and loved despite their blemishes. To know that Hashem has no interest in them being outside the camp. Their purpose was to journey back and work through the blemishes, fix them, heal them, embrace them. They, just like Adam before them, were sent out to “work the land from which they were taken” and to build a home for Hashem using their blemishes and imperfections as the bricks and mortar.
So many people nowadays feel imperfect and blemished. But there’s good news. We’re in the same boat as the majority of כלל ישראל was on that ראש חודש ניסן when the משכן was completed 3,329 years ago. And I am positive that Hashem has no interest in us feeling outside of the camp. He wants us to make the journey back, to work the land that we have which we may think is imperfect, and to use our failings, imperfections, struggles, and the hideous parts of ourselves to carve out a glowing and beautiful משכן so that He can come move in with us. If we do this then we will be able to access that path that Adam had in front of him so long ago, and we will be able to bypass the כרובים to grab hold of our עץ החיים.