<b>These are the accounts of the tabernacle, even the tabernacle of the testimony (Exod. 38:21).</b> The Tabernacle bears testimony to the entire world that He forgave them for the episode of the golden calf. This may be likened to a king who marries a woman he loves dearly. After some time he becomes angry with her and leaves her. Her neighbors ridicule her, saying: “Repent or your husband will not return to you.” After some time he returned to her palace and ate and drank with her. Still her neighbors were not convinced that the king had become reconciled with her. However, after they experienced the fragrance of spices ascending from the house, all of them realized that he had become reconciled with her. Similarly the Holy One, blessed be He, loved Israel and gave them the Torah and called then a holy nation: <i>A kingdom of priests and a holy nation</i> (Exod. 19:6). But when they sinned after forty days, the nations exclaimed: “He will not return to them.” Moses arose then and pleaded for mercy in their behalf. And He replied: <i>I have pardoned according to thy word</i> (Num. 14:20). Moses asked: Who will make it known to the nations? And He replied to him: <i>Let them make Me a Sanctuary</i>. When the nations smelled the fragrance of the smoke as it ascended from the midst of the Sanctuary, they knew that the Holy One, blessed be He, had become reconciled with them.
<i>These are the accounts of the Tabernacle</i>. It is written elsewhere: <i>Now these are the names of the sons of Israel</i> (Gen. 46:8). Observe how very precious the Tabernacle was to the Holy One, blessed be He, that He left the upper sphere to dwell in the Tabernacle. R. Simeon held that He dwelt in the lower sphere (at first), as is said: <i>And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden</i> (ibid. 3:8), but that after Adam sinned He ascended from earth to heaven. When Cain arose and killed his brother, He ascended from the first firmament to the second; when the generation of Enoch angered Him, He ascended from the second to the third; when the generation of the flood perverted His teaching, He ascended from the third to the fourth; when the generation of the separation (i.e., the Tower of Babel) became arrogant, He went from the fourth to the fifth sphere; when the Sodomites behaved immorally, He went from the fifth to the sixth; and when Amraphel and his companions appeared, He ascended from the sixth to the seventh. However, after Abraham came and performed good deeds, the Shekhinah descended from the seventh to the sixth firmament; after Isaac He went from the sixth to the fifth; after Jacob from the fifth to the fourth; after Levi, his son, from the fourth to the third; after Kohath the son of Levi, from the third to the second; after Amram from the second to the first; and on the day that Moses erected the Tabernacle: <i>The glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle</i> (Exod. 40:34). Scripture states: <i>For the upright shall dwell in the land</i> (Prov. 2:21). This should be read: “They caused the Shekhinah to dwell in the land.”