Where Did They Get All of the Materials to Contribute to the Mishkan?

Over the past few parshiot we have been reading about B’nai
Yisrael’s contributions to the Mishkan.

 

While teaching this topic over the last few weeks, I have
been asked over and over again: “How did B’nai Yisrael, in the middle of the
Sinai desert have all of those items to contribute?”

 

B’nai Yisrael actually took many of the valuables out of Egypt during the Exodus. During the plague of darkness, B’nai Yisrael were instructed
to take gold, silver and clothing from the Egyptians as a form of payment for
all of the years that they worked and were never paid.

 

Even though some of the gold was used for the Sin of the
Golden Calf it was only a small portion of the nation that contributed and
those who did contribute only gave in small earrings, leaving plenty of gold to
contribute to the Mishkan, a much better cause.

 

The more difficult questions are:

 

Where did they get the wood to build the Mishkan?

 

Where did they get the olives to make the olive oil?

 

Midrash Tanchuma 9 states that Yaakov planted trees when he
went down to Egypt with the intent that B’nai Yisrael would take the wood with them during the
Exodus.

 

One form of the Acacia (the Shittah tree) is called nilotica
since it grows near the Nile.

 

This Midrash teaches that Yaakov believed God’s promise to
Avraham that B’nai Yisrael would one day be redeemed and therefore he helped
plan for it.

 

However, it is hard to take the Midrash literally. When B’nai
Yisrael were rushing out of Egypt
with hardly enough time to make the dough for the matzot, did they have time to
cut down trees to take with them?

 

When researching what grows wild in the Sinai desert, we
find the Atzei Shitim (the Shittah trees) a form of the Acacia that occur in
the desert wadis of Sinai whose wood was used to make the Mishkan.

 

If that is the case, then B’nai Yisrael were able to find
the wood in the desert and wouldn’t have had to bring it from Egypt.

The “sneh” (burning bush) may have also been a form of this
tree.

 

If you have visited the Sinai desert recently and haven’t
seen these trees it could be due to the fact that the Bedouins uprooted them
and didn’t replant them.

 

There were probably wild olive trees in the Sinai Peninsula as well which B’nai Yisrael were able to
use in order to make the olive oil that was needed for the Mishkan. We don’t
hear about B’nai Yisrael eating olives with their manna because in those days
the olives were used exclusively to make oil and were not eaten as a fruit as
they are today.

 

We see from here that between the valuables that B’nai
Yisrael brought from Egypt
and the wild trees that grew in the desert they had all of the materials needed
to construct the Mishkan despite the fact that they were in the middle of
nowhere.