Finally, after months of intense and loving labor, the Mishkan was completed and filled with the objects that had been so painstakingly made for it. The work had acquired the Divine seal of approval:
Vayëhi bachodesh harishon bashana hashénith bë’echad lachodesh huqam haMishkan.
And it was that in the first month, in the second year, on the first of the month the Mishkan was erected (XL, 17).
Vayëchas he‘anan eth Ohel Mo‘éd uchëvod Ha0Shem malé’ eth haMishkan.
And the cloud covered the Tent of Assembly and the glory of Ha-Shem filled the Mishkan (ibid., 34).
The great luminary of 19th century German Jewry, Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, notes the similarity between what happened at the inauguration of the Mishkan and what happened at Sinai, in that there we also find:
Vayishkon këvod Ha-Shem ‘al Har Sinai.
And the glory of Ha-Shem rested on Mt. Sinai (ibid., XXIV, 16).
Further, at Sinai Moshe was not called into G-d’s presence until the seventh day after the cloud had rested (ibid.), and in our parasha, too, we read:
Vëlo’ yachol Moshe lavo’ el Ohel Mo‘éd ki shachén ‘alav he‘anan uchëvod Ha-Shem malé’ eth haMishkan.
And Moshe could not come to the Tent of Assembly because the cloud was resting on it and the glory of Ha-Shem filled the Mishkan (ibid., 35).
In Leviticus I, 1 we first find G-d calling Moshe to Him. Rabbi Hirsch also reminds us that King David took note of this similarity:
Ad-nai vam Sinai baqodesh.
My L-rd is among them, as at Sinai, in holiness (Psalms LVIII, 18).
King David thus puts his finger on the quality of holiness as associated with G-d’s imminence in Israel, and as we have already seen, both the Mishkan (ibid. XXV, 8) and the later Temple in Jerusalem are called miqdash (“holy place”). The obvious point is that Israel, as G-d’s servant on Earth, must lead hallowed lives if G-d is to dwell in our midst. The point of the comparison would thus seem to be the presence of G-d at the center of holiness. The Torah was given at Sinai, and so it was naturally there that the këvod Ha-Shem “dwelt” (vayishkon). What had happened to bring about its “transferral” to the Mishkan?