Nombres 8:4

This is how the Menorah was made. The Holy One, Blessed is He, showed him (Moshe) by pointing [as one would point] with the finger, since he had difficulty with it. This is why it says וְזֶה (“This”).

Beaten. Batedic (hammered) in Old French, meaning the same as דָּא לְדָא נָקְשָׁן, (“they struck one another”). There was a lump of gold, [weighing] a kikar, [which] he beat with a hammer and cut with shears to extend its (the Menorah’s) limbs properly; but it was not made limb by limb and [then] connected.

From its base until its flowers. Its base was the hollow box over the legs, hollowed like the silver candelabras before princes.

From its base until its flowers. As if to say, ”The Menorah proper, in its entirety, and all its dependent parts.”

From its base. Which was a large limb.

Until its flowers. Its most delicate work — it was all one piece. עַד (“until”), is customarily used in this sense, like “From the harvested crop, until the standing grain, and until the olive grove.”

According to the vision which [Adonoy] showed . . . According to the form which He showed him on the mountain (Sinai), as it is said: “Observe and make them according to the form. . .etc.”

So he made the Menorah. The one who made it. But Midrash Aggadah [states] by the Holy One, Blessed is He, it was made spontaneously.

And this was the work of the candelabrum, which was of beaten gold, from its foundations unto its lilies, the work of the artificer, with the hammer was it wrought: according to the vision which the Lord had showed Mosheh, so did Bezalel make the candelabrum.

AND THIS WAS THE WORK OF THE CANDELABRUM, BEATEN WORK OF GOLD. The meaning thereof is to allude [to the law] that throughout all [future] generations the candelabrum must be beaten [and fashioned out of one solid piece of metal], and that this is essential [for the validity of the candelabrum and lighting the lamps therein]. This is why He expressly mentioned at the beginning [that it is to be] beaten work, but did not mention [here] that in the making thereof there should be branches [going out of the candelabrum], knops, and cups shaped like almond-blossoms. But He did mention [here that it be of] gold, for it is likewise a commandment for all generations that it be made of gold, in order to glorify the House of our G-d. Then He repeated [in the verse before us] it was beaten work, in order to say that it is only [failure to make it] of beaten work that invalidates the candelabrum, but [the requirement] of gold is not [indispensable, since it is valid if made of any metal], and certainly its other embellishments [such as the cups and knops do not invalidate it if they are missing]. And thus have our Rabbis said in the Sifre 61. and in Tractate Menachoth.

וזה מעשה המנורה מקשה, the very composition of the menorah as a single chunk of gold, with all its lights facing the lamp on the central shaft, symbolises this united endeavour to serve G’d, i.e. to look towards the spiritual light as symbolised by that in the center of the menorah, its “trunk.” המנורה מקשה, to underline the unity, the whole people jointly striving to attain the same spiritual objective.