On six days work should be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Eternal . . . You shall kindle no fire throughout your settlements on the Sabbath day.
Shemot 35:1-2
Why is it that the Book of Shemot records the command by God to observe the institution of Shabbat immediately before He instructs Moshe to build the Mishkan (Tabernacle)?
. . . Let all among you who are skilled come and make all that the Lord has commanded: the Mishkan, its tent and its covering, its caps and its planks, its bars.[1]
This, one could argue, is surprising and repetitious. After all, on a much earlier occasion, the Torah had already informed us that the Ten Commandments instructed the Jews to observe Shabbat: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”.[2]Why this repetition of this command just before the construction of the Mishkan? Rashi (on Shemot 35:2), recognizing the difficulty, states:
He intentionally mentioned to them the prohibition in reference to the Sabbath before the command about the building of the Tabernacle in order to intimate that it does not set aside (supersede) the Sabbath (cf. Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael 35:1:1).
This is indeed very surprising: Why should the observance of Shabbat be more important than building the Mishkan? After all, is not the Mishkan the symbol of an ongoing encounter between God and human being? Abravanel, in his (fifteenth-century) work Perush al Ha Torah alludes to this:
Since the Tent of Meeting and its vessels whose making God had commanded symbolize communion with Him and the resting of His presence on the nation, we might have thought that this activity outweighed in importance all the other biblical prescriptions and most certainly the Shabbat rest. . . . Actual work is a more eloquent witness of faith than cessation from work, since action is affirmation and inaction, negation.  …  It might well have been argued that the work of the Tent of Meeting would have sufficed to draw attention and testimony to the existence of the Divine Presence in our midst to His omnipotence as Creator of the world and all the creatures therein. The desistence from work would therefore not be required in this instance, to testify to these principles.[3]
Abravanel, however, does not provide any answer to the puzzle.
The importance of fire
The answer may lie in the fact that the command to observe Shabbat specifically mentions the prohibition of lighting fire on Shabbat. A Midrash relates that at the conclusion of the first Shabbat, Adam HaRishon (the First Man) became frightened when the sun began to set. Seeing this, God brought him two stones and taught him how to make fire. Adam, realizing the meaning of this gift, burst out in a spontaneous brachah (blessing): “Blessed is He who has created the light of fire.”[4] This became the brachah that we utter every Saturday night, just after the Sabbath has ended, and before we reassume our work as creators. As opposed to the Greek myth of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, here, it is God who willing hands over this great secret to human beings.
Humanity is created in the image of God. This means, among other things, that we are blessed with creativity and intellectual comprehension. The very first commandment given to humans was to “fill the earth, master it and rule the fish of the sea” (Bereshit 1:28). The creative impetus is a divine gift, and the active expression of human creativity a divine injunction. The Creation is a call for human action, for involvement and partnership with the Creator.
To be involved in technology, science, and other human endeavors is to be involved in a religious act: a mitzvah! The more we fashion the world, the more we fulfill God’s command. This, however, also means greater responsibility: The more we know how to operate and dominate the world, the more we become responsible for the consequences — for the outcome, the results of our deeds and creations.
The Mishkan and the Creation
It is expressive of God’s belief in human capabilities that He leaves humans with the responsibility of building Him a dwelling place in the form of the Mishkan.
There is a striking parallelism between the account of the Creation chapter and the narrative of the construction of the Tabernacle, which has been pointed out by many commentators.[5] Concerning the construction of the Mishkan, we read again about a sequence of six days consummated by a seventh day:
Moshe went up to the mountain and the cloud covered the mountain. Now the glory of the Lord rested upon Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it for six days, and on the seventh day He called upon Moshe out of the midst of the cloud. (emphasis added)[6]
Concerning the Creation, it says (Bereshit 1:31): “Now God saw everything He had made and behold it was very good. And God blessed the seventh day.” Similarly with the Tabernacle: “And Moshe saw all the work, and behold they had done it. And Moshe blessed them” (Shemot 39:43).
At the completion of the work of Creation we read: “Now the Heavens and the Earth and all their hosts were completed, and God completed on the seventh day His work which He had made” (Bereshit 2:1-2). And again, with the completion of the Tent: “Now was completed all the work of the Mishkan” (Shemot 39:32). And: “So Moshe completed the work” (Shemot40:33).
The human work on the Tent of Meeting is equated with God creating the universe (note the repetition of the word completed in both narratives). But what does the Torah mean by this equation?
The Tent of Meeting and the concept of work
The Talmud uses these parallels, as well as the juxtaposition of the commandment regarding the Mishkan and Shabbat in a very creative way: it derives its definition of the kinds of work prohibited on Shabbat from all the activities required in building the Mishkan:
To what do these forty but one key works correspond? Rabbi Chanina said: They correspond to the operations for constructing the Mishkan. There they were sowing, hence you may not sow, they were reaping, hence you may not reap.[7]
Agricultural work (plowing, sowing, reaping, etc.), food preparation (grinding, boiling, kneading, baking, etc.), and craftsmanship (sewing, weaving, spinning, building, writing, etc.) were all necessary to build the Mishkan.
What’s more, these activities stand as key activities (avot melachot) comprising all purposeful human interaction with the physical realm. For example, plowing includes digging, removing stones, fertilizing, and so forth. Baking includes boiling, frying, and melting iron; in other words, it is the general principle that changes the physical or chemical status of a substance by means of heat. In fact, we have here a complete overview of all skillful human creativity.[8]
The Mishkan, then, holds every single form of work through which we show our unprecedented mastery over the world. By building a dwelling place for God, we nearly become God’s equal. We create a microcosmos of such perfection that even God can symbolically “fit into it.” Our skillful masterpiece nearly replaces God’s own creation!
But here, paradoxically, is a warning to us to remain humble. Instead of seeing our place in the world as a manifestation of absolute mastery over all creative powers, we are first called upon to dedicate all our creative talents toward a higher goal: the Mishkan. As in the case of the first fruits to be offered in the Temple, before we are permitted to fully enjoy all our talents, we are asked to give the “firstlings (maaser) of all these talents to God, our Creator. Only after the dedication of all our talents to building the Mishkan can we use these same talents to build and master the world.
Questions to Ponder
- Rabbi Cardozo points to the parallels between the Creation and the building of the Mishkan as indicative of the human partnership with God. What other meanings might these parallels have?
- What is the common denominator of all those categories of melachah, work that are forbidden on Shabbat? One possibility is that they all involve conscious tool-making, and that on Shabbat, we turn back the clock on our own evolution and return to the Garden of Eden.[9] Does Rabbi Cardozo’s thesis support this notion or contradict it?
- Rabbi Cardozo characterizes Shabbat as playing primarily a religious role — it is meant to symbolize our partnership with God. However, earlier, we are told to observe Shabbat for a different reason: “Six days you may carry out your activities, but on the seventh day you must cease, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and your servants can relax, along with the resident alien.” This instruction includes the word “l’ma’an” — ”in order that”. We are to cease working so that our families, our workers, and our farm animals may rest. In your opinion, is Shabbat a religiouscommandment or a social one? Is there a way that it might be both? If so, what does that say about the purpose (or goal) of religion?
Notes
[1] Shemot 35:5
[2] Shemot 20:8
[3] Perush al Ha Torah on Shemot 35:1)
[4] Genesis Rabbah 11.
[5] See Nechama Leibowitz, Studies in Shemot (Jerusalem: World Zionest Organization, Department for Torah Education and Culture, 1972), pp. 696-699.
[6] Shemot 24:16-17.
[7] T. B. Shabbat 49a.
[8] Rashi, loc. cit.
[9] See for example: Yael Shahar, “B’reishit and Shabbat: a glimpse of what might have been”, accessible at: https://www.yaelshahar.com/breishit-shabbat-glimpse-might/.
