In Parashat Naso, in the beginning of Kapitel ז׳, the pasuk says: ויהי ביום כלות משה להקים את המשכן was the day that Moshe finished putting up the משכן, וימשח אותו ויקדש אותו, he anointed it, he made it holy, etc., etc. It says what happened: ויקריבו נשיאי ישראל, etc., that the נשיאים of all the שבטים came close and they were מקריב, ויביאו את קרבנם לפני ה׳, and they bought, brought their korban to Hashem. What was their korban? שש עגלות צב ושנים עשר בקר, עגלה על שני הנשאים ושור לאחד, ויקריבו אותם לפני המשכן. They brought a donation to the Mishkan. What was donation? The donation was six wagons and twelve cattle, twelve oxen. Two נשיאים together brought one wagon, and each נשיא brought one ox. And since there were twelve נשיאים, there were twelve oxen and six wagons. And the purpose of these wagons were to use it to carry the Mishkan. When the Mishkan traveled and the Levi'im had to carry it, so they would carry different parts of the Mishkan on these wagons. But lichorah we have to understand: We know that when they build the Mishkan and the Yidden were required to give donations for the Mishkan, we find that the donations were given very generously. As the pasuk says in פרשת ויקהל, קאפיטל ל״ו פסוק ז׳, that they brought דים, they brought enough. The pasuk even says more: והותר, they brought extra, more than they needed. So how come when the נשיאים brought a נדבה at this point here, so they brought it very exact, they brought it very limited? They brought only six wagons, which means each נשיא only gave a half a wagon and one ox. Why couldn't they give more? Why couldn't they be more generous, and each נשיא should give more than just a half a wagon?

And the question is even stronger: Concerning the נדבה of the נשיאים here, it says in Sifrei and in Bamidbar Rabbah פרשה י״ב ט״ז, Rashi brings it down in Parashat Vayakhel, and also here on this pasuk, that why takeh did the נשיאים bring their donations as soon as the Mishkan was put up? Why did they bring right away this donation of six wagons and twelve oxen? Because by the מלאכת המשכן, when they had to give the donations for building the Mishkan, the נשיאים said to themselves: Let the Yidden bring whatever they want, and whatever will be missing, we will bring later on. And the end was that the Yidden brought everything they needed, so they had nothing to bring. The only thing they were able to bring were the אבני שהם and אבני מלואים for the אפוד and the חושן. So they felt that since then, by the נדיבות המשכן, they missed out, so now they will complete their mistake. So therefore, as soon as the Mishkan was put up, they felt it's important that they right away should bring a donation. So it comes out that the donation they brought here, by bringing the wagons and the oxen, was to make up the mistake that they made then by not being so quick and so generous in the נדבות of the Mishkan. So if this was to make up the mistake of missing out on their generosity, so what did they do? So they brought each נשיא a half a wagon. L'chorah, if they were going to make up the generosity, the mistake that they made then, so adrabah, here should they bring very generous, here they should have brought much more. So why did they limit it that each one only brought a half a wagon?

And the question is even stronger: The purpose of these wagons were for the לויים to be able to carry the different parts of the Mishkan on them. Now the נשיאים knew how heavy the Mishkan was. They knew what this involves. They knew the size of the קרשים, of the walls, of the wood. They knew the size and the weight of the עמודים, of the beams. And they knew the size and the weight of the אדנים, those that were for the base of the walls of the Mishkan and for the עמודים. So if so, they would imagine that in order to carry such a great amount, you have to have a lot. And the Gemara takeh in שבת צ״ט עמוד א׳ makes an exact cheshbon of how the boards laid on these עגלות, on these wagons. And it says that it laid very exact, very together, and sometimes because it was so close together and it was squeezed in, it would sometimes in the middle of traveling fall and a לוי would have to run and pick it up and fix it, etc., etc., etc. So this was only concerning the קרשים that the Gemara makes the cheshbon. Now imagine if you're going to add the עמוד עמודים and the אדנים of the Mishkan itself, and the sixty עמודים of the yard, of the חצר, the sixty אדנים of נחשת of the yard. All this they were supposed to put on these עגלות. So the question is, if there was so much to put on, so why did they minimize, why were they so exact, why were they, so to speak, so stingy that they only brought six עגלות? Especially when we know what the Gemara says concerning the Beit HaMikdash. The Gemara in שבת דף ק״ב עמוד ב׳ in different places that אין עניות במקום עשירות, that the Beit HaMikdash and so is the Mishkan, it's a place of עשירות, a place of richness, and there there is no עניות, there is no poverty. In other words, there everything has to be בהרחבה. So how come here the נשיאים, when they brought the donations for the Mishkan to carry the Mishkan, they were, so to speak, so stingy that they only brought six עגלות for the twelve נשיאים? Lichora, this could be explained based on what Rashi says in Parashat Terumah. In Parashat Terumah, קפיטל כ״ה פסוק ה׳, Rashi explains, from where did the Yidden get the עצי שטים? Where did they get the wood to make the walls of the Mishkan? And Rashi says, because יעקב אבינו צפה ברוח הקודש, יעקב אבינו saw with רוח הקודש שעתידין ישראל לבנות משכן במדבר, that the Yidden will have to build a Mishkan in the desert. והביא ארזים למצרים, so he brought the עצי שטים to מצרים, ונטעם and he planted it there, וצוה לבניו ליטלם עמהם כשיצאו ממצרים. And he commanded his children to take them along when they would go out of מצרים. So from here we see that even though the Yidden had a lot of gold and silver and different precious things when they took it out of מצרים and also by the ים סוף, the ביזת הים, nevertheless, עצי שטים was very limited. Where did they get עצי שטים from? Because of what Yaakov Avinu took from ארץ ישראל to מצרים. And they had to have it there for 210 years, and then take them along to the מדבר. So from that we see that the Yidden had a very limited amount of wood. So maybe this is the reason why the wagons were so limited, because the wagons are made of wood and they only had a limited supply of wood. But it's hard to answer this way, because where does it say that the wagons had to be made of עצי שטים? It could have been made of other wood. And where does it say that they didn't have a supply of other wood? And especially, as the Gemara says in Yoma דף ע״ה עמוד ב׳, that they bought certain things from תגרי אומות העולם, from different merchants from the different nations, surrounding nations that came to the desert and sold the Yidden different things. So they could have bought wood from them to make these wagons. So it's hard to say that the reason they only gave six wagons was because they had a limited supply of wood.

But the answer to this question is that we understand that even though the Mishkan and the Beit HaMikdash the הנהגה, the behavior was in the form of עשירות, of richness, and it wasn't stingy at all, it was very generous, nevertheless it is clear that not one detail or a detail of a detail was not utilized to its maximum for an ענין in the Beit HaMikdash. There was nothing in the Beit HaMikdash, whether it was in the קרבנות or in the building or etc., etc., that was not utilized for a purpose of being used to serve Hashem as part of the Beit HaMikdash. And therefore we can say the same thing concerning the עגלות. The עגלות, the wagons and the בקר, the oxen that pulled the wagons, were part of the Mishkan, even though they were only used to carry the Mishkan, but nevertheless they were part of the Mishkan, because part of the Mishkan was that it had to be carried when the time to carry it came. So they were part of the Mishkan. So they had to be with an exact measurement in a way that not one part of it should be left unused and not utilized for its purpose of whatever it was supposed to do for the Mishkan. Just like it's self-understood that it couldn't be in a smaller measurement than needed, because if you needed some more, then it definitely had to have more, you had to have enough that it should be able to be used for its purpose, the same way it couldn't have anything extra, because anything that would be extra there and would not be used, it would be an extra thing within the Mishkan. And therefore it had to have the exact measurement. And if six were enough, that by putting it into the six it would, after pushing it in, it would be full and it would be enough to use to carry the Mishkan, they couldn't bring more than six. Because if they would bring more than six, that means that there was some extra space, and an extra space was extra, not used. Being that it was not used, it's לבטלה. And since this is part of the Mishkan, so no part of it could have been לבטלה. And therefore, even though it was a very heavy weight, they had to give only six and not more, because if six was enough that in the six you were able to put in all the parts of the Mishkan, and if you would have more than six, there would be some extra space, then you would have some space in the עגלות which were in vain. And therefore, they only had these six. Even though it seems like it doesn't fit to the concept of אין עניות במקום עשירות, that you don't have any poverty in the place of riches, which is the Mishkan and the Beit HaMikdash, nevertheless it doesn't mean that there should be something left without being used. In other words, this fits to what the Gemara says in שבת דף ע\"ז עמוד ב', that כל מה שברא הקדוש ברוך הוא בעולמו לא ברא דבר אחד לבטלה. Whatever Hashem created in the world, not one thing was created in vain. Everything is used for the sake of Hashem. Like it says that כל מה שברא הקדוש ברוך הוא לא ברא אלא לכבודו, whatever Hashem created is for His honor. So everything in the world has to be utilized for His honor. Now, concerning things in the world, we don't always see how every detail is used for the glory and the honor of Hashem. But when it comes to the Mishkan, being that the Mishkan is the dwelling place of Hashem, the Mishkan is the place where Hashem said ושכנתי בתוכם, I will dwell within it, I will dwell within the Mishkan. So being that the Mishkan is the place where Hashem dwells, so there, בגלוי, in a revealed fashion, you have to see how nothing is לבטלה, nothing is in vain, and everything is utilized and used for the sake of the Mishkan, for the sake of serving Hashem in the Mishkan. And therefore, even though normally the הנהגה in the Mishkan was in the form of עשירות, of riches, of generosity, but it doesn't mean chas v'shalom that it should be in the form of לבטלה. You have to be able to see how every part is utilized for its תכלית, for its goal. And therefore, since to carry the Mishkan was enough if you had 12 בקר and six wagons in a certain measurement, so there is no reason that they should add and bring more, then you will have some space which will not be utilized. And therefore, even though they wanted to be very generous, as we said in the beginning, because this was supposed to fix the mistake that they made by the נדבת המשכן, but still it doesn't mean that they were able to be generous and bring something to be used in the Mishkan in vain. And therefore, they felt that the six were enough, and the truth was the six were enough, therefore they brought the six.

And this is a lesson to every Yid concerning himself. We know that every Yid has a private Mishkan. As the Chazal say, brought down in Reshit Chokhmah שער האהבה פרק ו', and in Shelah שער האותיות אות ל', and exactly where in the מדרשים it's written we don't know, but it's brought down there on the פסוק, ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם, that when Hashem said let them make for Me a מקדש and I will dwell within them, so they say that בתוכו לא נאמר אלא בתוכם, it doesn't say within him, in it, which means in the Mishkan, but within them. That means בתוך כל אחד ואחד מישראל, השם dwells within every single Yid, which means every Yid has a Mishkan within himself. So we have to take a lesson from this inyan to every person's private Mishkan, that just like here we see that they were very careful there shouldn't be one part that wouldn't be utilized to its maximum, the same thing with every Yid. Every Yid has to be careful that every detail of the person, every koach, every ability, every power that a person has, everything that Hashem gave him should not, chas veshalom, be לבטלה, should be in vain, but he has to use every single thing that he has to its fullest measure in order to bring it to its goal for which Hashem created it, which is to serve Hashem. As it says in the end of Masechet Kiddushin, that אני נבראתי לשמש את קוני, a Yid is supposed to know that he was created to serve his Master. So every single detail, every single koach, every single part that he has is supposed to be utilized for that. And this refers to every single koach of the person's kochot. He has to know that, for instance, when he learns Torah, he has to learn with his whole might, he has to use every single power he has in this learning of Torah. And if he doesn't, let's say he's able to learn the Torah deeper and he learns it more superficial, then there is one koach that he has that is not used for learning Torah, so that's in vain. To a certain degree, that's even called bitul Torah. He's wasting time from Torah, even though as far as time is concerned, he's not wasting time, because he's learning. But if he's not using all parts of himself, all kochot he has, it's also a level of bitul Torah. As we know the proof from The Gemara says מבטלין תלמוד תורה למקרא מגילה, that you have to be מבטל תורה in order to read the Megillah. When the time to read the Megillah on Purim comes, even if you're in middle of learning, you have to be mevatel your learning and read the Megillah. But the question is, how can you call this mevatel Torah when the Megillah is also part of Torah? So really, all you're doing is you're changing from what you were learning to a different part of Torah. How come the Gemara calls it מבטל תלמוד תורה? Because when you read the Megillah, you don't read it בעיון, you just read it superficially. You don't go into the details, you don't go into the depth. But when a person learns Torah, he can learn it deeper. So when he's going to stop learning whatever he's learning in order to read the Megillah, that means that before he used his deeper kochot in learning Torah, and now he will only use his superficial kochot to learn Torah. That's called bitul Torah. You nevertheless have to do it because it's a mitzvah to hear the Megillah. But otherwise, we do refer to it as bitul Torah. Why? Because there's a certain koach that the person had that he didn't utilize it for learning Torah. And the same applies to doing mitzvot, that if a person has a certain כישרון, a certain talent that could be used for a mitzvah, could be used l'shem Shamayim, could be utilized in serving Hashem, he must use it. And the same applies to everything else that's connected to kedushah, whether it's a koach or time. For instance, if a person has a moment that he could learn Torah, and he doesn't learn Torah, so then he is wasting that moment, so there's a certain part of him that is not being utilized for its purpose. And this is the lesson that we take from the עגלות, that they gave six עגלות, even though they wanted to be very generous, because this was enough and they didn't want to waste anything, the same is with a Yid that he's not allowed to chas veshalom waste any koach, but every koach must be utilized for kedushah.