“See, I have called by name Beżal᾽el the son of Uri, the son of Ḥur, of the tribe of Yehuda: and I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship” (Shemos 31:2-3)

Chazal tell us that when Betzalal made the tabernacle and its vessels, he knew how to put together the letters with which the world was created. This is clearly some kind of kabbalistic idea which is quite foreign from us. I would like to share with you a chasam sofer which could share with you some light on this idea.

The Chasam Sofer (Moses Schreiber 1762–1839) sheds some light on this in various places in his work “Teshuvos Halikutim”, where he talks about prayer being in other languages besides loshen hakodesh, and also about translating the Torah into different languages. He likens this to the story of Achashveiros and Vashi. Achashveiros had a wonderful idea to have his wife prance around in a way that everyone would be able to see her beauty. The Chasam Sofer said that if this would happen to a normal king and queen, even if the queen would acquiesce to her husband’s wishes, she would cry. He explains the reason for this is that she would tell her husband, ““You think you are bringing yourself honor by having me parade before everyone without any clothing, but you are doing the opposite. Clothing refines and elevates beauty; without it, nothing is highlighted, nothing is framed. A queen must leave something to the imagination if her true dignity and beauty are to be appreciated.”  He explains this as far as learning is concerned. The Torah is divided into four different categories, which are called pardes (an acronym for pshat, remez, drush, and sod). The same verse in the Torah, if using one approach will have one meaning, using a different approach could have a totally different meaning. Or sometimes a meaning which will give you a depth of understanding.

I would like to give you an example of this. A mother tells her teenage child to clean up their room, saying, “I am sure you want to clean your room.” The child responds, “Yeah, sure!” According to pshat, a simple understanding, the child said “yes” meaning he would like to do it. According to drush, the child said, “I absolutely do not want to do it, but you are forcing me to do it!” If one would ask which interpretation is more correct, in my opinion both are correct, but they are just different approaches to the same words.

So too the Torah can be understood in many different ways. The Ridbaz (Rabbi Yaakov Dovid Wilovsky 1845 –1913), asks, “why is it that the Torah was given without vowels and cantillations?” he explains that those added to the words give us a breadth and depth of understanding. He calls it the ruchnios of the words. Whereas the letters themselves are just the gashmius of the words. He further explains that which Betzalel knew how to use the letters with which the world was created means that he understood this aspect of the torah: The vowels and the cantillations. And through this he was able to get a deeper understanding how to form the vessels.

This is what the Torah means when it says he was full of wisdom (chochma), understanding (tevuna). With this he was able to unlock the secrets of the construction of the mishkan.

We too, explains the Chasam Sofer, when we use our mesorah to learn the torah, are able to unlock understanding of the torah that was never even understood beforehand. May we merit to understand the Torah and fulfill that which we understand to the point that it finds favor in Hashem’s eyes so that we can celebrate this upcoming Pesach in the rebuilt Holy Temple in Jerusalem.