13 Feb TERUMAH: IN A DARK EXILE, WHISPERING TREES – A FATHER PLANTS SAPLINGS 210 YEARS EARLY, OFFERING SOLACE TO HIS CHILDREN

The Smuggler
Tony comes up to
the Mexican border
on his bicycle. He’s
got two large bags
over his shoulders.
Joe, the border guard,
stops him and says,

“What’s in the bags?”
“Sand,” answers Tony.
Joe says, “We’ll just see about that. Get off
the bike.” Joe takes the bags and rips them
apart; he empties them out and finds nothing
in them but sand. He detains Tony overnight
and has the sand analyzed, only to discover
that there is nothing but pure sand in the bags.
Joe releases Tony, puts the sand into new
bags, hefts them onto the man’s shoulders,
and lets him cross the border.
The next day, the same thing happens. Joe
asks, “What have you got?”
“Sand,” says Tony.
Joe does his thorough examination and
discovers that the bags contain nothing but
sand. He gives the sand back to Tony, and
Tony crosses the border on his bicycle.
This sequence of events is repeated every
day for three years. Then Joe runs across
Tony one day in a cantina in Mexico.
“Hey, buddy,” says Joe, “I retired. I know

you are smuggling something. It’s driving me
crazy. It’s all I think about … I can’t sleep.
Just between you and me, what are you
smuggling?”
Tony sips his beer and says, “bicycles.”
Cedar Trees
One of the most employed materials in the
building of the Mishkan—discussed in this
week’s parsha, Terumah—was cedarwood
(“atzei shitim.”) Much of the structure and
many of the vessels of the Mishkan were
fashioned from cedar.
Says Rashi, quoting the Midrash:
How did the Bnei Yisrael obtain [cedar
wood for the construction of the Sanctuary]
in the desert? Rabbi Tanchuma explained:
Our father Yaakov foresaw with his holy
spirit that Israel was destined to build a
Sanctuary in the desert; so he brought cedars
to Mitzrayim and planted them [there], and
instructed his children to take them along
when they left Mitzrayim.
This seems strange. Why carry trees from
the Holy Land to plant in Mitzrayim for use
in a building to be constructed centuries later?
Surely, there is no dearth of wood in wealthy
Mitzrayim, and, in any case, it could always
be obtained for a price wherever their
descendants might find themselves. Even the
Sinai desert was not far from populated areas

from where the Jews could obtain cedarwood.
From the day Yaakov descended to Mitzrayim
till the Exodus, 210 years passed. In life, it is
good to plan long-term. I know people who
pack for a trip one week before the flight. It is
not my style, but I can respect them. Yet to
pack up 210 years before a journey, seems
like going overboard. Did Yaakov feel that he
needs to prepare the cedar wood 210 years
before it was needed? Could he not have told
his children to obtain cedars in or around
Mitzrayim? Imagine, a fellow by the name of
Jacob Isakson (son of Isaac) is relocating
from Russia to the US in 1810. He brings
with him cedar saplings to plant in America.
He tells his children that one day in 2023 they
might leave America to go build a sanctuary
in the desert and they will need cedarwood. It
would be strange; we could buy the wood in
America!It is not like Yaakov came to
Mitzrayim empty-handed, so he had nothing
to take along, but some cedar trees. Yaakov, at
the age of 130, was relocating his entire life,
family, livestock, and his enormous wealth, to
Mitzrayim. The last thing he needed to add to
the wagons were cedar trees!
Finding Comfort
The answer to this question I heard from the
Lubavitcher Rebbe at an address on Shabbos
Parshat Terumah, 6 Adar, 5747, March 7,
1987. I can still vividly recall the profound
emotion with which the Rebbe shared this
insight—and it moves me deeply to this
day. The answer, the Lubavitcher Rebbe
suggested, is intimated in the name of the
Chachum who transmitted this tradition:
Rabbi Tanchuma. As a rule, Rashi rarely
quotes the authors of the teachings in
Talmud and Midrash he quotes in his
commentary. Here is one of the exceptions.
Because it is the name of the rabbi who
shared this teaching, Tanchumam which
explains why Yaakov would engage in this
seemingly unnecessary toil, two centuries
before his descendants would need the
cedar.
The name “Tanchuma” means to comfort
and console. Yaakov our father knew that
one day the very country which has been
so hospitable to him and his family, the
country saved by his son Yosef, would
turn its back on the Jews and transform
their lives into purgatory. Mitzrayim
would impose one of the most torturous
conditions upon the Jews. Yaakov knew
that Bnei Yisrael would need something to
hold on to, something tangible to remind
them that they don’t belong here;
something concrete to imprint upon their
tormented hearts that they come from
somewhere else, and they will one day
leave this torturous concentration camp
and return home.
A promise? Yes. He and Yosef promised
the family that they would leave Mitzrayim
one day. But a verbal promise is
insufficient. People can’t live on words

alone. Yaakov needed to give them something
tangible that could comfort them and offer a
measure of relief as they walked in a valley of
tears and watched their infants plunged into a
river.
Whispering Trees
Hence, the cedar trees. Yaakov transported
from Eretz Canaan young, tender saplings of
cedar and lovingly planted them in the soil of
Mitzrayim, instructing his children, that one
day, when they depart from this country, they
must take these trees with them. Yaakov dies.
Yosef dies. All the siblings die. Then all the
grandchildren die. The first generations of
Jews who still knew Yaakov and his children
passed on. A new Pharaoh began to enslave
the young nation. Brutal labor and the
extermination of Jewish babies began to
become the Jewish plight. And throughout
this entire horrific ordeal, the crushed Jewish
slaves watched these cedars grow. And with
it, their hope grew. They harbored the
knowledge that long before their enslavement
by the Metzriyim, these trees had grown in
the soil of Holy Land—the land promised to
them as their eternal heritage. Each generation
of Jews pointed out these cedar trees to their
children, transmitted to them Yaakov’s
instructions to take these trees along when
they would leave Mitzrayim, to be fashioned
into a Sanctuary for G-d. And so, throughout
their long and bitter exile, these cedars had
whispered to the Jewish slaves: This is not
your home. You hail from a loftier, holier
place. Soon you will leave this depraved land
behind, to be reclaimed by G-d as His people.
Soon you will uproot us from this foreign
land and carry us triumphantly to Sinai,
where you will construct of us an abode for
the Divine presence, which shall once again
manifest itself in your midst. These cedar
trees stood as a permanent, tangible, silent
but powerful, and tall symbol of courage,
dignity, and hope in a bright future. They
gave a nation of tormented, wretched slaves
something to “hold on to” in a very concrete
way, as they struggled under the yoke of their
Metzriyim oppressors. These trees offered the
Jews some measure of “Tanchumah,” of
solace and fortitude, during their darkest
moments. When the Jewish people held on to
Yaakov’s “prehistoric” cedar trees, for a brief
moment, they felt free. And that’s what you
need in order to endure. It reminded them that
in their essence they were not slaves, they did
not deserve to be beaten and oppressed; they
were inherently free and one day they would
see that freedom.