This week’s Haftorah describes how Shlomo Hamelech built the Bayis Rishon (first Temple). The Haftorah discusses the outside measurements, the schedules of the workers, and many other aspects. Prior to a discussion of the interior construction, the Navi tells us that Hashem appeared to Shlomo and told him: “the House you are building; if you follow my statutes and you fulfill my laws and you keep my Mitzvos – I will keep My word with you that I spoke onto Dovid your father”. The wording of the Passuk at first glance appears disjointed and confusing. The passuk starts off talking about the Bayis and it ends up telling us that Hashem will fulfill His words to Dovid Hamelech. The thought about the Beis-Hamikdash seems to be somewhat ignored.

The Torah is perfect and as such all Pessukim must make perfect sense. It can therefore safely be assumed that the above verse, as disjointed as it might at first appear, is in reality somehow perfect. In modern writing we use all sorts of techniques to separate the parts of a sentence from each other. Sometimes we will insert a thought in the middle of the sentence by means of a parenthesis. Such parentheses within a sentence generally denote an explanatory interjection. The Torah has its own system – the cantillation (the ‘trop’) notes that are meant to do the same. Without getting into the technical aspects of these notes, it would seem that the passuk contains a parenthetical section. Once this section is ‘removed’ the sentence begins to make sense.

The passuk then states that Hashem is telling Shlomo the following: “this House you are building (if you go in the ways of Hashem…) I will fulfill in it the promise I made about you to your father Dovid.” This breakdown of the passuk makes the passuk readable but still doesn’t entirely explain what Hashem was communicating to Shlomo.

The Malbim explains that Hashem was in effect telling Shlomo that while the latter was indeed in the midst of building a physically fabulous Sanctuary for Hashem, this in itself was not sufficient. Hashem was telling Shlomo that the true essence of building a Beis Hashem is adhering to Hashem’s ways. The main structure of a Beis Hashem, says the Malbim, is the edifice one erects within one’s heart when one adheres to Hashem’s every word.

In life it is easy to focus on external materialism. And doing so at times becomes so misleading that we end up measuring even our Avodas Hashem in superficial ways. Hashem is telling us that we must always realize that the real Avodas Hashem depends on how we build ourselves into true embodiments of Avodas Hashem.

A very warm Good Shabbos, Rabbi Y. Dov Krakowski