אבן עזרא — במראת הצובאות אשר צבאו פתח אהל מועד

Q — What were the "מראות הצובאות" used to make the kiyor? Chazal (cited by Rashi) read it as mirrors with which Jewish women in Egypt seduced their exhausted husbands — Moshe initially recoiled ("מואס משה בהן... מפני שעשויים ליצר הרע") but God said "אלו חביבין עלי מן הכל" because through them whole tzva'ot were established.

A — Ibn Ezra gives the opposite reading, virtually pole-opposite: these were the mirrors of women who had RENOUNCED beautification — "סרו מתאות זה העולם" — and donated their mirrors because they no longer needed them, dedicating themselves instead to coming daily to the entrance of ohel moed to pray and to hear divine teaching. "צבאו" = many came, in great numbers. The kiyor was built from instruments of spiritual asceticism, not from instruments of marital intimacy. Ibn Ezra reads this as a value-statement of his own: "אין כל ספק שבדבריו אלו מביע ראב"ע את עמדתו שלו כלפי היחס הראוי בין עולם החומר לעולם הרוח." Onkelos appears to read it the same way: "נשיא דאתין לצלאה בתרע משכן זמנא."