parshat Tetzave

Several years ago on this parasha, we wrote about Shlomo Hamelech’s building of his palace close to the Beit Hamikdash. We explained that this represented his thesis that one should view the holy and the mundane and the Torah and the kingdom as inseparable. When the kings of the Kingdom of Yehuda sinned, the proximity to the Beit Hamikdash became a sore point, as Yechezkel highlighted (see Yechezkel 43:8). Was the approach of Shlomo’s father, David, the same as his son’s? The navi Shmuel (II,5) describes the conquer of Yevus and its transition into the eternal Israelite capital of Yerushalayim. We are told that David turned a fortress known as Metzudat David into his home and built around it, extending the city and building a wall around it (ibid. 7-10). The wall encompassed both the City of David and the Temple Mount, upon which the Beit Hamikdash would be built, and, in between, he left an area called the Milo for sleeping quarters for pilgrims to the Beit Hamikdash. David’s palace was built in the City of David, and, apparently, parts of it have been uncovered in excavations at that site.

Our parasha includes many p’sukim (46 to be exact) about the inauguration of the Mishkan, which started with the Seven Days of Miluim. This topic is continued in Sefer Vayikra, in Parashat Shemini, after the laws of korbanot are discussed, as well as in Parashat B’ha’alotcha.