The opening verse of Numbers 7 says a single thing twice. Moses "anointed the Tabernacle and sanctified it," and then the verse adds, "and he anointed them and sanctified them." Why anoint once, and then anoint again? Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:6 refuses to let that repetition slip by.
Rabbi Aivo, reporting Rabbi Tachalifa the Caesarean and Reish Lakish, says the two phrases describe two different motions of Moses' hand. One anointing was item by item — each lamp, each board, each socket, each vessel receiving its own individual touch of oil. The other anointing was collective — all of them anointed as one single whole. The Tabernacle was consecrated twice, once as a catalogue of sacred parts, and once as a single holy body.
Another sage hears the repetition even more daringly. One anointing was for this world. The other was for the world to come. The Tabernacle was not consecrated only for its forty-year journey in the wilderness. The same drop of oil that sanctified its acacia boards was also an advance deposit on the redeemed future, when a restored Temple will stand again and the divine Presence will be at home among humanity.
The midrash then links this doubled anointing to a parallel pattern in Exodus. "You shall join the Tent together so that it be as one" (Exodus 26:11). "You shall join the tapestries so that the Tabernacle may be as one" (Exodus 26:6). Rabbi Yudan and Rabbi Levi, alongside Tachalifa the Caesarean and Reish Lakish, explain that one verse describes joining all of them as a single whole, and the other describes joining each one individually. The Tabernacle was "one" for measurement — every tapestry cut to matching size — and "one" for anointing — every tapestry receiving the same oil.
This is a quiet teaching hiding inside a short paragraph. Sanctity works at two scales. There is the singular holiness of each small part of a life, each mitzvah, each Sabbath candle, each hand washed before a meal. And there is the larger holiness of the whole assembled pattern, the full Tabernacle, the full Temple, the full people standing in covenant with God. Neither scale is enough by itself. If you consecrate only the pieces, you miss the glory of the whole. If you consecrate only the whole, the pieces go unblessed.
And then comes the most generous promise in the chapter. One anointing for this world, one anointing for the world to come. The sanctity that Moses poured onto acacia planks in the wilderness of Sinai was never going to evaporate when the Tabernacle was finally packed away. It was already, from day one, reaching toward the future world that the prophets kept promising.
The Tabernacle was a rehearsal. The oil was an advance. The holiness is still in motion.