Vayakheil: technology

Most of the second half of the book of Shemoth is a description of the construction of the Mishkan, the portable Temple and its vessels. This orthogonal edifice has was a product of the technology of its time It surrounded a mystical inner sanctum.  The activities inside this structure make up much of the next book of the Torah, Vayikra. 

The mishkan described in Shemoth has almost nothing that is round ( perhaps the laver and the decorations on the menorah).  The temple built by Sholomo, with the assistance of Hiram, had cylindrical columns.  It also had the Yam, the huge basin of water ,that was 10 amoth  across and 30 amoth around.  We, who are familiar with constant  relationship between  circumference and diameter of a circle ( π), see this as a rounded estimate of a number that cannot be expressed exactly as a ratio between whole numbers ( 3.14159265358.....).  The disclosure  of this relationship is noted by the Talmud (Eruvin 14a) and the commentators  begin to correct the estimate. 

The Temple of Solomon was more advanced technologically than that of Moses. Its sanctity was not compromised  by the advances that it incorporated. Why didn't the Omniscient  bestow the advances of Hiram  on Bezalel, the architect of the mishkan?  Why was there no Temple-cam so all the people could witness the sacred rite?  The development of science and technology is a challenge to our understanding of the powers of Gd. Clearly, Gd's plan was not to bestow these advance early. 

The first instruction in Vayakheil is to keep the Sabbath.  Specifically, not to use fire. Fire is the archetype of technology.  It is the basis of smelting metals, thus making tools.  Fire is an insubstantial that makes great changes. The control of fire - and its descendants- steam and  electricity - give us the amazing world that is familiar to us.  We are told to relinquish this power on the Sabbath, as Gd relinquished Creation on that day. Perhaps this verse is an element in the construct that the forbidden "labors" of the Sabbath are those that were involved in the construction of the mishkan, a bond between the Temple, the Creation and the Sabbath.  

Technology without values is terrifying. So is belief.