It contains 14 sections describing various aspects of the
Tabernacle: the boards (1), woolen carpets (2), and carpets made of goat-hair (3), the curtain (4), the courtyard (5), the
Ark of the Covenant (6-7), the table (8), the
temple menorah (9-10), the incense altar (1), the goblets (12), the
Levitical services (13), and the wandering in the wilderness (14). In the Munich manuscript, sections 1 and 2 constitute one section.
Except for Isi ben Judah and Judah ben Lakish, every authority mentioned also appears in the
Mishnah; and these two are as old as
Rebbi, the author of the Mishnah. From this fact, and from the fact that many teachings of the Baraita on the Erection of the Tabernacle are cited in the
Talmud with the formula "de-tania" or "tanu rabbanan",[1] it may be assumed that this baraita was available to the
amoraim in a fixed form. It is questionable, however, whether the
Mekhilta and
Sifre drew upon this baraita. Mekhilta
Beshallaḥ, introduction[2] seems to have preserved the
aggadah on the seven clouds in the wilderness in an older form than that given by section 14 of the present baraita, though this very section may not pertain to the real baraita. It is also possible that Sifre
Numbers 59, originated from section 10 of the Baraita.
Lewy inclines to the idea that the baraita was originally part of the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai. But an argument against such a hypothesis is the fundamental difference in the two writings; the baraita containing almost no Midrash, while the Mekhilta is composed chiefly of
midrash halakha. The same reason may serve to refute Brüll's view[3] according to which the baraita is an addition to the Mekhilta.
Elements of the Baraita
The text of the baraita is in general free from interpolations (the words of
Isi ben Akkabyah in section 10 do not occur in the Munich manuscript; they found their way later into the baraita from
Menachot 29a). Nevertheless, sections 13-14 seem to be later additions from another baraita (they occur already in
Rashi), as shown by their
aggadic character, and by the fact that the author of VeHizhir (who copied the baraita in full) omitted them—probably because he did not know of them. There is much in favor of the view of
Grünhut, and before him of
Ḥayyim M. Horowitz,[4] that both sections were constituents of the Baraita of the Forty-nine Rules. It is especially noteworthy that the numbers "four" and "seven" are the ones on which the sections hinge.