Make yourself two silver trumpets

(Numbers 10:1)

Sivan 18, 5778/June 1, 2018

"HaShem spoke to Moshe saying: 'Make yourself two silver trumpets; you shall make them from a beaten form; they shall be used by you to summon the congregation and to announce the departure of the camps.'" (Numbers 10:1-2) With these words transmitted from G-d to Moshe, the construction of Temple/Tabernacle related vessels and implements comes to a conclusion. What began with the command to build the Ark of the Covenant, as we read in Exodus, chapter 25, now draws to a close with G-d's instruction to Moshe to personally create two silver trumpets to be given over to the kohanim (Temple priests).

The Ark of the Covenant, which contains within it both sets of the tablets of the law, as well as a complete Torah scroll, and rests permanently in the Holy of Holies, the Holy Temple's innermost and most sacred sanctuary, is an eternal testimony to the nation of Israel's intimate and unassailable bond with her G-d. The silver trumpets, by contrast, are specifically intended to be used outside of the Holy Temple Sanctuary, at the periphery of the outer courtyards of the Temple Mount complex, where the Temple Mount meets the nation that surrounds it, and within the midst of the nation itself, in times of war.

Despite the contrasting 'job descriptions,' the Ark of the Covenant and the silver trumpets are actually working in tandem, creating a bond between the Place where G-d has chosen for His Presence to dwell, (the Holy of Holies), and the outermost reaches of the people of Israel, wherever they be found.

And if the Ark of the Covenant represents the central, fixed, gravitational force that draws towards it the entire nation of Israel, and, ultimately, the entire spiritual structure of the world, the trumpets are the bandleaders and conductors of the nation, setting the nation into motion, as the verses testify:

"When they blow on them, the entire congregation shall assemble to you, at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. If they blow one of them, the princes, the leaders of Israel's thousands, shall convene to you. When you blow a teruah [a series of short blasts, the camps which are encamped to the east shall travel. When you blow a second teruah, the camps encamped to the south shall travel; they shall blow a teruah for traveling. But when assembling the congregation, you shall blow a tekiah [long blast] but not a teruah. The descendants of Aharon, the priests, shall blow the trumpets; this shall be an eternal statute for your generations. If you go to war in your land against an adversary that oppresses you, you shall blow a teruah with the trumpets and be remembered before HaShem your G-d, and thus be saved from your enemies. On the days of your rejoicing, on your festivals and on your new-moon celebrations, you shall blow on the trumpets for your ascent-offerings and your peace sacrifices, and it shall be a remembrance before your G-d; I am the HaShem your G-d."(ibid 10:3-10)

The movement of the Israelite encampments through the desert wasn't merely a march through space, it was also a march through time, performed with exquisite precision and harmony. That march, that synchronized movement of the tribes of the nation with the Tabernacle at its center, continues to this very day. Israel's exodus from Egypt and emancipation from Egyptian bondage and Israel's encampment at Sinai, where she made her eternal covenant with G-d, marked a monumental, cataclysmic, earth-shaking, paradigm-shifting moment in time and space for all humanity. But Israel's march through history, her walk with her G-d, her relentless strides toward her destiny, her promised land and her foreordained place among the nations, began with the first trumpet blasts, sounded there at the foot of Mount Sinai by the Temple priests, the sons of Aharon, using two silver trumpets fashioned by the hand of Moshe.

-The Temple Institute