The joy of Adar is above all the joy of Torah, the source of every true gladness of heart.
The Tachash, a single-horned creature with polychrome skin, "glories in its own colors" (Sassegonah).
The three Patriarchs correspond to colors: Avraham white (Ḥesed), Yitzhak red (Gevurah), Yaakov multicolored (Tiferet).
The Mishkan is built opposite Yaakov; the central beam (Bari'ah HaTikhon) is Yaakov, who joins the extremes.
The word Mikdash foretells the eternal Third Temple, which Hashem Himself will establish.
True Anavah: to glory not in oneself but in what one has received from one's fathers and from Heaven.
We stand on the eve of Rosh Ḥodesh Adar. Our Sages teach that the joy of this month is meant to grow.
"When Adar enters, we increase joy." But what joy is this? Tehillim answers.
"The precepts of Hashem are upright — they gladden the heart." To increase joy in Adar therefore means to study more Torah: Torah is the ultimate source of joy.
The Torah lists the materials of the Mishkan. Among them appears a mysterious element.
"And skins of Tachash." Our Sages teach that the Tachash was a unique creature, created specifically in the wilderness for the Mishkan and then vanished. It had a single horn and a brilliantly multicolored skin.
To resolve the contradiction we need a fundamental Kabbalistic principle: each Patriarch embodies a middah and a color.
The multicolored Tachash corresponds exactly to Yaakov's middah: neither pure white nor pure red, but the rainbow born of their union.
Our Sages teach a deep correspondence: the First Temple is aligned with Avraham, the Second with Yitzhak, and the Third Temple with Yaakov. The Mishkan, prototype of the future Temple, is built entirely around Yaakov's Tiferet — hence its coverings made from the Sassegonah animal, polychrome like Tiferet.
Yaakov joins the extremes: Avraham (Ḥesed) on one side, Yitzhak (Gevurah) on the other. He is the central pillar holding everything together — exactly like the central beam of the Mishkan.
"And they shall make Me a Mikdash, and I will dwell among them."
Moshe Rabbenu already sings of it in the Song of the Sea:
"The Mikdash of Hashem — Your hands have established it": the Temple that Hashem Himself will found and that will never fall.
Return to the question: if the Tachash boasts of its colors, how does that fit the humility of the Mishkan?
The answer runs deep: the Tachash boasts — but of what? Of its colors, that is, of what it received, not of itself. So too Yaakov glories in Tiferet, but his colors are those of Avraham and Yitzhak. In essence he says: "Without my fathers I am nothing; all that I am is their inheritance."
And this is precisely what draws down the Shekhina: when a person recognizes that everything comes from Hashem and from his teachers — וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם, "I will dwell within them." For the Shekhina rests only where there is true humility. Tiferet = Yaakov = polychromy = Anavah.
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