Moses then convoked the whole Israelite community and said to them:
These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do: … 4 Moses said further to the whole community of Israelites: Sh’mot / Exodus 35:1, 4
Our Torah portion opens with Moshe gathering all the Israelites together to give them God’s instruction for building the Mishkan, the sacred space at the center of the camp representing God’s presence in their midst and serve as their place of worship. These directives are delayed by several verses as Moshe first reminds the Israelites about the sanctity and essential nature of Shabbat. This unexpected inclusion has sparked much discussion through the centuries and its juxtaposition with the building of the Mishkan resulted in the designation by Cha”zal, our ancient sages, of 39 categories of work prohibited on Shabbat.
Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Alter1 offers an interesting insight into the sequence of these commands. In his commentary on these verses, he suggests that the two disparate laws inform each other with meaning, days filled with purposeful, productive work are an essential prelude to the sanctified restfulness of Shabbat and conversely, the opportunity of Shabbat tranquility allows one to see the rest of the week with proper focus. Both are a reflection of our being created in the divine image, creative partners of God in the physical world, and emulators of God who invested the restfulness of Shabbat with sanctity. Both are expressions of divine service.
While God declares Creation to be “very good” and blesses the physical world it is only Shabbat that is declared to be “Kadosh – Holy”. The great 20th century Jewish philosopher, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel builds upon this idea in these two passages from his book, “The Sabbath”.
The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.
Jewish ritual may be characterized as the art of significant forms in time, as architecture of time… The Sabbath itself is a sanctuary which we build, a sanctuary in time. It is one thing to race or be driven by the vicissitudes that menace life, and another thing to stand still and to embrace the presence of an eternal moment. The seventh day is the exodus from tension, the liberation of human beings from their own muddiness, the installation of humans as the sovereigns in the world of time.
Shabbat Shalom –
Rabbi David M. Eligberg
1 Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Rotenberg-Alter (1799 – 10 March 1866), was the founding Rebbe of the Ger Hasidic dynasty, in the town of Gora, Poland (“Ger” in Yiddish). Rabbi Alter was also known as The Chiddushei HaRim after his commentaries on the Torah and the Talmud.
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