Yes, that's just what the Hebrews thought....

 

 

Studystack:  https://www.studystack.com/users/ryruss/picmatch-3132102

https://www.studystack.com/users/ryruss/picmatch-3123907

Pronoun chant- test!

Numbers again

 

Sugar sugar sugar!  

        Lyrics

            Song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t4k5YT2y64

Indy:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joqX0_llyWE  at 2:1

Quiz about gold.

Thinkpage: What is the most precious thing in your home?

Bimbam:  https://youtu.be/-7NV_pjxNeU?si=toEF56Ng6WEr1noR

Shemot 25

Acacia wood? Commentary!

The Mishkan in 3D at Timnah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGji3lsKOHc 

 

1)    Which of these is not an actual type of gold metal?

a.    White Gold

b.    Red Gold

c.     Rose Gold

d.    Blue Gold

e.    Rabbi Shira Gold

 

2)   What is green gold also known as?

a.    Uranium

b.    Platinum

c.     Bronze

d.    Electrum

e.    Notrealium

 

3)   How much is gold worth by the ounce today?

a.    $2.26

b.    $2,026.00

c.     $202,600.00

d.    $2,026,000.00

e.    Dude, only the government can afford to buy gold these days.

 

4)   When gold is added to molten glass in small concentrations, what color is the resultant glass?

a.    Purple

b.    Red

c.     Green

d.    Clear

e.    Dude, Gold ruins the glass and it shatters when cooled.

 

5)   Gold’s purity is measured in what unit?

a.    Farads

b.    Sieverts

c.     Ohms

d.    Karats

e.    Carrots

 

6)   What metal is more malleable (bendable, flattenable, stretchable) than gold?

a.    Copper

b.    Silver

c.     Steel

d.    Aluminum

e.    Dude, no metal is more malleable than Gold.

 

7)   You find an actual idol of solid gold in a shipwreck you and a friend discover.  It weighs 124 pounds. What benefit can you get from this idol according to Jewish law? 

a.    None at all.  Nothing, Nada, Gournisht.

b.    Melt it down, then use the gold as you like.

c.     Sell it to a museum and then you can keep the money.

d.    Sell it to a museum but you must  give away the money.

e.    Bow down to it- Judaism loves that.  

 

8)   What category of Metal does gold belong to?

a.    Noble

b.    Transition

c.     Alkali

d.    Actinide

e.    Heavy (dude!)

 

9)   While Moses is up on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights,  the people panic and decide he’s dead, and then lose their minds completely and build a

a.    Copper Cow

b.    Silver Bull

c.     Bronze Snake

d.    Golden Calf

e.    A giant statue of the goddess Isis

 

10)                   How does  gold get created in the universe?

a.    Volcanoes

b.    Earthquakes

c.     Interstellar collisions

d.    Supernova detonations

e.    Dude, gold is only made in the gravity of a black hole.…

 

11) A lot of gold was used to make the Mishkan, the portable Temple made by our ancestors when they         wandered in the wilderness.  That portable temple was eventually made part of the…

a.    Temple of David

b.    Temple of Solomon

c.     Temple of Isaiah

d.    Temple of Ben Gurion

e.    Temple Sholom

 SHEMOT 25

Now Adonai spoke to Moshe, saying:

Speak to the Children of Israel,
that they may take me a raised-contribution;
from every person whose heart makes-him-willing, you are to take my contribution.

And this is the contribution that you are to take from them:
gold, silver, and bronze,

blue-violet, purple, and worm scarlet [yarn], linen, and goats’-hair,

rams’ skins dyed-red, tanned-leather skins,
acacia wood,

oil for lighting,
spices for oil of anointing and for fragrant smokey-incense,

onyx stones, stones for setting
for the efod and for the chest-plate.

Let them make me a Mikash/Holy-Shrine
that I may dwell amidst them.

 

Exactly as I grant you to see,
the building-pattern of the Mishkan/Dwelling and the building-pattern of all its implements,
thus are you to make it.

 

They are to make
a Coffer of acacia wood,
two cubits and a half its length,
a cubit and a half its width,
and a cubit and a half its height.

You are to overlay it with pure gold,
inside and outside you are to overlay it,
and are to make upon it a rim of gold all around.

You are to cast for it four rings of gold
and are to put them upon its four feet,
with two rings on its one flank
and two rings on its second flank.

 

You are to make poles of acacia wood
and are to overlay them with gold

and are to bring the poles into the rings on the flanks of the Coffer,
to carry the Coffer by means of them.

In the rings of the Coffer are the poles to remain;
they are not to be removed from it.

And you are to put in the Coffer
the Testimony that I will give you.

 

You are to make a  kaporet/atonement-cover of pure gold,
two cubits and a half its length
and a cubit and a half its width.

You are to make two keruvim/winged-sphinxes of gold;
of hammered-work are you to make them,
at the two ends of the atonement-cover.

Make one sphinx at the end here
and one sphinx at the end here;
from the atonement-cover you are to make the two sphinxes,
at its two ends.

And the sphinxes are to be spreading [their] wings upward
with their wings sheltering the atonement-cover,
their faces, each-one toward the other;
toward the atonement-cover are the sphinxes’ faces to be.

 

You are to put the atonement-cover on the Coffer, above it,
and in the Coffer you are to put
the Testimony that I give you.

I will appoint-meeting with you there
and I will speak with you
from above the atonement-cover,
from between the sphinxes that are on the Coffer of Testimony—
all that I command you
concerning the Children of Israel.

Why use acacia wood for the Mishkan when so much else is expensive gold, silver, or bronze? 

Answer one:  Because it was special wood and had been set aside by Jacob himself!   Rashi,  France, 10th

 

Rashi  (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, 10^th century France)  on Exodus 25:5:3

ועצי שטים AND ACACIA WOOD — And from where did they get this in the wilderness? Rabbi Tanchuma explained it thus: Our father Jacob foresaw by the gift of the Holy Spirit that Israel would build a Mishkan in the wilderness: he therefore brought cedars ( here called acacia) to Egypt and planted them there, and instructed his children to take these with them when they would leave Egypt.

Rashi believes that the wood was a type of cedar, and cedar is fragrant, marvelous stuff.  Cedar is seen as a dignified wood and is a premium building material even today. In fact, King Solomon builds much of the interior of  his amazing palace out of cedar-  his throne room is recorded as cedar from “floor to floor”.  Solomon also builds much of the first  Temple in Jerusalem (which would take the place of the Mishkan around the year 980  BCE) with cedar.

 

Answer two:   Because it was common wood and could be found locally.

Ibn Ezra  (Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra, 11^th century Spain) on Exodus 25:5:3

ועצי שטים. ...כי היה סמוך אל הר סיני יער עצי שטים...

...there was a forest of Acacia trees near Mt. Sinai, [and they used that for the Mishkan].

Daat Zkenim (by the Ba’aeli Tosefot, a group of  Franco-German scholars in the 12th and 13^th cen.) on Exodus 25:5:1

ועצי שטים, “and acacia wood.” ...There were some forests in the desert from which the Israelites were able to cut boards which they called Sheeteem. This is also why we read in Joshua 2,1 that “Joshua sent out spies from (the forest around Shee’teem)."

 

Michael Schlesinger and Catherine Walters, The Biblical Garden Blog (2016):

Several species of acacia were common and accessible on the Sinai peninsula, but only Acacia Raddiana is suitable for construction. This thorny tree has an impressive umbrella shape: a single trunk with a broad and flat crown. The bark is brown-reddish and the leaves are small to conserve water. Highly resistant to drought, it grows deep roots and uses water stores that other plants cannot reach. Because the tree grows slowly, the wood is hard and dense, resistant to water and insect damage. Acacia wood is beautiful and nearly indestructible, well-suited for carrying the mishkan as the Israelites sojourned in the wilderness and moved on into Canaan. https://www.templesinairi.org/biblical-garden-blog/a-tree-suitable-for-gods-presence

 

 Answer three:  Because of what it symbolizes. 

Rabbi Charlie Schwartz wrote (2010)“In the eyes of the midrash, acacia wood is a humble, inexpensive wood. God commanded the Mishkan to be made of acacia to teach principles of derekh eretz — that is, the traits one should embody, in this case humility.”   

Rabbi Ishmael bar Rav Nachman  (4^th century Bavel) taught the rabbinic principle Derekh Eretz kadmah Le’Torah,   that one must have Derech Eretz (basic decency and humility) before one can learn Torah.   “The simple wood that forms the basic structure of the ark, table of showbread and other parts of the Mishkan has to be in place first before the glorious gold, silver, and rare fabrics  added to it.   So too,  before one learns all the glorious wisdom contained in torah,  one must have a foundation of decency and humility.”