Blessed are You, Lord, our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who has sanctified us with mitzvot and commanded us to immerse ourselves within words of Torah.

(5) Take from among you gifts to יהוה; everyone whose heart is so moved shall bring them—gifts for יהוה: gold, silver, and copper;

(21) And everyone who excelled in ability and everyone whose spirit was moved came, bringing to יהוה an offering for the work of the Tent of Meeting and for all its service and for the sacral vestments.

(3) In order to comprehend this we have to quote a statement by our sages in Shemot Rabbah 30,3 that the letter ו indicates an addition to something that was recorded previously whereas the absence of such a letter where one could have expected it suggests that what is introduced at that point has no connection with what had been reported previously. Having learned this, we can proceed to evaluate the respective presence or absence of the letter ו in different parts of this paragraph. The paragraph begins by listing contributions for the construction of the Tabernacle, listing thirteen different materials and joining each one to the other with the conjunctive letter ו to show that each of these materials was of equal importance in the construction of the Tabernacle and was equally indispensable. All of these materials could be subsumed under the heading תרומת השם. The Torah considered someone who had contributed copper as on the same level as someone who had contributed gold, for instance. According to Menachot 110 the Torah describes the person who offered a bird as a total offering as having offered a ריח ניחוח, no less so than a person who offered a four-legged mammal as an עולה, a total offering. The evaluation is based on the principle אחד המרבה ואחד ההמעיט, that the quantity of a contribution does not determine how G'd evaluates it but the intent does. As long as the intent is to please Heaven that is all that matters. In this connection, you may wish to read what I have written on Leviticus 1,17.

(4) Another reason that these 13 items are joined together in the Torah by the conjunctive letter ו is that all of these materials were indispensable. The Tabernacle could not function if any of these materials had been absent. The aforesaid applied only from the point of view of the materials which had to be contributed; it did not mean that furnishings or other parts of the Tabernacle constructed out of, say gold, were of the same significance as parts made of copper, for instance. Different parts of the Tabernacle each represented different levels of sanctity.

(6) For your God יהוה will bless you as promised: you will extend loans to many nations, but require none yourself; you will dominate many nations, but they will not dominate you. (7) If, however, there is a needy person among you, one of your kin in any of your settlements in the land that your God יהוה is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kin. (8) Rather, you must open your hand and lend whatever is sufficient to meet the need.

(14) "and lend shall you lend him": If one is impoverished but does not want to take charity, he is given the money as a loan, and then, (when he wishes to return it), it is ceded to him as a gift.

(15) "shall you lend him": If one has the means, but does not wish to fend for himself, he is given the money as a gift, and payment is exacted of him after his death. The sages say: If he has the means and does not wish to fend for himself, he is not attended to. If he is impoverished and does not want to take charity, he is told "Bring a pledge" (as security), in order to appease him.

(16) "sufficient for his lack": You are commanded to sustain him, but not to enrich him.

(17) "which is lacking to him": even a horse, even a servant (if that is what he is used to). And it happened with Hillel the Elder that he gave a pauper of high pedigree a horse with which to work and a servant to attend him.