Parshas Shmini 5769

All 7's and 8's

And it was on the eighth day, (of the inauguration of the Miskon), Moshe called to Aharon and to his children and to the Elders of Ysrael,. And he said to them, “Take a one year old bull as a chatas and an unblemished goat for an Olah and offer them in front of Hashem.” Shemos 9:1-2

Rashi, “And it was on the eighth day, the eighth day of inauguration, this was Rosh Chodesh Nissan, when the Mishkon was erected on that day and ten crowns were taken as is recorded in Seder Olam.

At first glance, we may not have known that this posuk is referring to the eighth day of the inauguration of the Miskon, therefore Rashi tells us that this is the case. However, the previous Parsha ends, detailing the procedures of the inauguration of the Miskon, if there has been no indication of a change in subject why would we think that the verse is discussing anything else?

The Gur Aryeh points out that at the end of Parshas Tzav, the Torah writes, “And from the entrance of the Tent of Meeting they shall not go out for seven days until the days of their inauguration have been fulfilled, all seven days they shall bring their offerings,” (according to Onkelus) (Shemos 8:13). This sounds like the inauguration of the Mishkon was a seven day process.
Therefore, even though the posuk of “And it was on the eighth day”, follows on from a parsha dealing with the inauguration of the Mishkon, this earlier posuk would appear to break the continuity of the parshios, (by excluding the possibility of an eighth day), thus meaning that the opening verse of our parsha could be referring to the eight day of the month.
However, we don’t expect the Torah to jump around, we perhaps could see 8:13 as an indication of a break in continuity, but according to the Gur Aryeh, having come from a parsha dealing with the seven days and opening a new parsha dealing with the eighth day, we have to say that here the Torah is referring to the eighth day of the inauguration.
The Gur Aryeh explains that the Torah uses the term “Eighth day”, rather than saying “after the seven days…” to show that this day is connected to the seven days and the focus of the seven days, the whole inauguration process was leading up to this day.
It could be that he means that since the earlier posuk has stated that there were seven days of inauguration and now we are forced into saying that we are dealing with day eight as a continuation of the seven, we have to understand the function of the apparent exclusion of an eighth day in 8:13. Thus we can say that it tells us that there were seven days of the inauguration leading up to the focus of the whole process which was the eighth day; a part of the whole process but different in nature, the preceding days being a preparation for this day.


To summarize, an apparent exclusion in a posuk can be overridden by logic, requiring a reinterpretation of this exclusion whilst keeping it as close as possible to it’s original function.