Teruma’s Ten Commandments’ Moment : InTent

The Torah Portion Teruma bolsters the Exodus’ historicity. Teruma explicitly details construction matters for the Mishkan aka Tabernacle. The Tabernacle’s discuss is part of Richard Elliott Friedman’s argument that an Exodus did occur.

Scholars have connected the Tabernacle’s design to another structure from antiquity. The Mishkan’s design bears similarity to Pharoah Ramses II’s War Tent that was used during the Battle of Kadesh. www.torah.com This connection gives rise to a questions concerning the design’s intent. 

Arguably, one can argue that the designer’s intent was multi-faceted. For the Children of Israel, there may have been familiarity the War Tent.  Likewise, Egyptians, their allies and their enemies were all familiar with the Tent.

One must ask, “why no original design?” Originality, in many respects, is overrated. Humanity’s success as a species is the ability to build the past. Building from the past inherently includes copying or improving upon past successes.  Thus, it is no surprise that past ideas and information within that time became part of the design. The Torah does not hide the fact that materials were taken from other sources. In Numbers 21:14, there is the reference to The Book of the Wars of the Lord. Thus, the Torah should be appreciated as intergrating the past with the inclusion of new thoughts and ideas. 

Given this, the notion that the design of a Pharoah’s Battle Tent was used for the Mishkan aka Tabernacle is not suprising and rather brilliant. For the Children of Israel, the Tent implied that their national leader would be housed commensurate with the leader of the area’s most powerful nation- Egypt. In present times, this is not unlike the notion of the term “White House”. As the leader of the free world resides there, any leaders outside of the United States have their offices are referred to as their country’s “White House”.

The notion of intent extended beyond the Children of Israel. As the Egyptians had engaged in military campaigns throughout the Levant. Outsiders most likely recognized the Egyptian War Tent and it’s significance. With this, the design may have offered some hesistancy for others to bring hostilities towards the Children of Israel. This premise may have been validated in the Book of Numbers. When the Prophet Balaam is sent to curse the Children of Israel, he instead provides a blessing. A line from the blessing is “How lovely are your tents O’ Jacob.”  Rashi, in addressing this line, in one explanation, suggests the blessing may be related to the tent of Shiloh aka Mishkan. Thus, in the ancient world, the architecture likely impacted outsiders view of the Children of Israel. In doing so, it offered some protection.

In sum, in borrowing from the existing culture, the Tabernacle’s design both influenced the Children of Israel as well as those they would encounter in the Wilderness. The cultural appropriation symbolically impressed that the Lord was truly a national leader rivaling the most powerful of nations.

Be well!!

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