Discover and learn every week, "5 Facts" written on the weekly Parshah that you can share at your Shabbos table.

The haftorah teaches us that the windows of the Temple were to be made wide on the outside and narrow on the inside to symbolize that it is the Temple that lights up the world and not the opposite. (Meam Loez on Parsha Tetzaveh)

2. Where does the thchelet come from?

• Techellet/Turquoise, was obtained from the secretion of a rare aquatic animal called a Chilazon which emerges out of water once every 70 years. Its dye has the color of the sea, the sky, and was a reminder of the Throne of Glory. (Menachot 44a)

3. How many horns did the tachash have?

• According to R’ Yehudah, the Tachash was a magnificent multi-colored (6 colors total) kosher animal, which lived in the desert and whose hide was used to make the covers of the Mishkan. It had a single horn in the middle of its forehead. The Tachash only existed at that time and has been extinct ever since. According to R’ Nechemiah, the Tachash was created specifically for the construction of the  Mishkan’s and ceased to exist immediately afterwards. (Shabbat 28a)

4. How satisfying was the “show-bread”?

• A Kohen who would eat even a minuscule amount of the previous week’s show-bread would be completely satisfied. (Yoma 39a)

5. Where did the Shittim trees come from?

• The acacia trees were  planted in Egypt many years earlier by the Patriarch Yaakov. These trees are called Shittim, because they were planted along the Shittim Brook. This brook had a quality that whoever would drink from it would be sexually aroused (the people from Sodom would frequently use it).  Yaakov foresaw that the Bnei Yisrael would stop at the brook on their way out of Egypt. As such, he decided to dedicate the trees from this malicious brook for a holy purpose, namely, the construction of the Mishkan.. ((Rashi/Midrash Tanchuma, ML on 25:3)