Sheishet yamim tei’a’se melakha uvayom hashvi’i yiyeh lakhem kodesh
Shabbat shabbaton lA-donai…
Six
days you shall melakha, and on the
seventh you will have a holy day, a Shabbat of rest to the Lord… (Shemot 35:2)
Just last Shabbat someone
commented to me, “I’m supposed to rest on Shabbat, but I can’t do the things I
find relaxing.” This stems from an attempt to understand halakhah in English terms. “Six days you shall work, and on the
seventh you will have a holy day, a Shabbat of rest to the Lord.” It’s the word
“work” that gets us in trouble. In every translation there is a commentary, an
interpretation of the text that cannot fully encompass the original meaning of
the words. While it’s true that the word melakha
means work, melakha refers to a very
specific category of work. Hebrew has melakha,
avodah, peulah, esek, la’amol, and even asakah.
Each of these refers to a type of activity. In English too: work, toil, effort,
exertion, labour, action, and more. And, as in Hebrew, each of these words has
a slightly different meaning.
There are 39 categories of melakha.
Each of these categories refers to an act related to the construction of
the Mishkan. Each of these is also a
creative act. Melakha also appears in
Breishit. “Va’y’khal Elohim bayom
hashvi’i m’lakhto asher asa vayishbot bayom hashvi’i mikol-m’lakhto asher asa.
Va’y’varekh Elohim et yom hashvi’i va’y’kadeish oto ki vo shavat mikol-m’lakhto
asher-bara Elohim la’asot.” “On the seventh day God finished all the work
that God had been doing, and God ceased, on the seventh day, from all the work
God had done.” (Breishit 2:2-3) In observing Shabbat, we embrace the concept of
b’tzelem Elohim, being in the image
of God. This is not an easy task. It is not human nature to stop when you’re on
a roll. The Vilna Gaon taught that when God ceased work on the seventh day, the
world was unfinished. This is a lesson for us to put our unfinished work aside
and leave the world as it is to observe Shabbat.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
wrote, “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.” For those who have not observed
Shabbat regularly, putting aside melakha
is not only daunting it is stressful. It takes effort and practice to
re-envision how we spend our time. To unplug, thus leaving the world as it is,
for 25 hours, leaves many individuals feeling adrift or pointless, unable to
connect. Instead, they need to connect to that which exists in time rather than
in space. Relationships become more important that actions, real communication
more important than the passing on of information. The sacred becomes more
important than the profane. Together then, we are not objects; we are beings b’tzelem Elohim. We are not purposeless.
We are holy.
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