VAYAKHEL 1992

In the Torah portion Vayakhel we have a description of all the material that was collected from the Jewish people in order to build the Tabernacle.  We also learn how they built each part of the Tabernacle.  However, this Torah portion starts in a very unusual way.  It starts by telling us how Moshe gathered together all the congregation, the sons of Israel, and he said to them, "These are the things which G‑d commanded to do them.  Six days work shall be done, and the seventh day for you shall be holy, a Sabbath of Sabbaths to G‑d.  All who do in it work will die.  You shall not kindle any fire in all your habitations on the Sabbath day."  What are all these laws about the Shabbos have to do with building the Tabernacle, and why does he start out by saying, "These are the things which G‑d commanded to do them"?  Why had Moshe gathered together all the congregation of the sons of Israel?  What's more, why does it say "Six day work shall be done" using the passive and not the active?  What does it mean a "Sabbath of Sabbaths to G‑d"?  What is this emphasis on fire?  After all, fire is just one of the 39 proscribed work that is prohibited to do on Shabbos?  Why did they single out fire?  After all, we all know that it is not just work that is prohibited on Shabbos; it is work in which you change nature.  A person could theoretically move all his furniture all through his house all day of Shabbos.  It is very tiring work but theoretically it is not prohibited.  However, you cannot build a piece of furniture because if you do that you are changing nature.  Why is it that this whole story of all these commandments are put right here before the building of the Tabernacle?  They seem to be out of place here.

Actually, though, if we think about it we can understand why the commandment of Shabbos is put right here in a very prominent place, in the first place in the Torah portion Vayakhel, when we learn how the Jewish people contributed things and built things for the Tabernacle.  There are really two temples in Judaism.  There is a temple in space and a temple in time.  Shabbos is a temple in time.  The Tabernacle is a symbol of the temple in space.  It is true that G‑d has told us all that we are to make this world into a paradise, that we are to conquer and subdue nature, that we are to make this world livable.  We all know that unless man puts forward his best energies we cannot live on this planet.  Without air conditioning in Houston in the summer it is almost impossible to live.  Of course, in Minnesota without heat in the winter it is definitely impossible to live.  Man, in order to exist in the world, must change nature.  He must make nature more hospitable to him.  Otherwise we cannot exist.  We all know how we have to cook our food.  We have to make our clothes.  We will die of exposure and hypothermia if we do not take proper precautions.  Therefore, we are commanded to work for six days.  He said to them, "These are the things which G‑d commanded to do them."  Yes, you are supposed to do things.  You are supposed to work hard.  You are supposed to create things.  You are supposed to make societies in which people can live with a certain amount of amenities.  That's why it says, "Six days work shall be done".  Notice it says it in the passive to teach us that it is a more important temple that we all have to build and that is the temple in time.  You know you can have the finest factory with the finest machines with the most beautiful plans and still everything can fail because the qualities which do not occupy any space are actually the most important ones: loyalty, devotion, dedication, integrity, honesty, compassion.  These things do not occupy any space but they are many times more important than the things that do.  We see here in America where firms can have the finest factories but they can be ripped off by their own executives.  We know here in America today how high officials in industry have run their companies into the ground.  They pay themselves high salaries and high bonuses and then lay off a thousand people.  They do not care because they are going to take their big salaries and invest them in bonds or other investments and live off the interest for the rest of their lives.  It is not true that you can just exist with a temple in space.  People in America have been sold a bill of goods.  They think that the most important thing is prosperity as measured by things, but it is not so.  You also have to have the intangibles, those things which do not occupy any space.  Unless you have them families will fall apart, we will be prey to drugs and alcohol.  People need to have these values which the temple of time represent.  They need to have these attributes which do not occupy any space, and, therefore, before the Jewish people built the Temple in space they had to be cognizant of the temple in time.  They had to realize that these values are even more important than the values of the temple in space.  Yes, it is true that we have to have the skills in order to build things.  We have to have the engineers, mathematicians, physicists, chemists, but we also have to have people who have integrity and honesty and who not only have ambition but they also have concern for others and compassion and love and kindness, etc.  Where do we learn these things?  We learn these things from the temple in time.

That is what Shabbos is supposed to teach us.  Shabbos is supposed to teach us that we are to treat each other well.  We are to spend time with our family.  We are to promote those values which cannot be quantified with time but which underlie everything we do.  That is why it says, "Six days work shall be done" in the passive.  Work can only be done if people have these values.  If they do not then they will destroy others.  We saw that in Nazi Germany where there were great enterprises but they were spent on destruction.  They were not based on positive values.  It says, "This seventh day shall be for you holy, a Sabbath of Sabbaths to G‑d".  Many people observe a Shabbos, but they do not understand what the Shabbos is about.  The Shabbos is to inculcate into us those things which do not occupy any space.

Then it is pointed out to us that we are not to kindle fire in all our habitations.  Why do we have to single out fire?  There is an argument among the rabbis.  Some rabbis say that reason we mention fire is that if you make a fire you are not punished as strictly as if you would violate any of the other 39 categories of work.  If you kindle a fire you will only receive stripes, but you never would receive the death penalty.  Others say, no, it was singled out to teach us as an example that if you violate by accident one of the 39 categories of Shabbos you would have to bring a sin offering.  You could only bring a sin offering, of course, if you do things unwittingly, accidentally, but others say this was put in here to emphasize the lesson that we just talked about.  After all, when did Moshe gather together all the congregation of the sons of Israel?  He had gathered them together the day after Yom Kippur, the day after G‑d had forgiven them for the sin of the golden calf.  What was the sin of the golden calf?  It was that the people worshipped their own creativity, that they had taken their gold and silver and had thrown them into the fire, and what came out of the fire?  The golden calf.  Fire is the symbol of man's creativity.  Fire can be very constructive.  You cook your food, You create machines.  It can also be very destructive.  It is also interesting to note that from the Torah only those things which are constructive are prohibited on Shabbos but not those things which are destructive because it is the very act of being constructive, many times, that you become destructive also.  If you let your creative energies run amok you can create concentration camps as well as creating beautiful cities.  Therefore, it is through the harnessing of forces in nature which can be both constructive and destructive that man can become even more destructive than nature.  Therefore, Shabbos teaches us that we must have the values of the temple of time.  Unless we wed these values to the temple of space we will create a civilization which will destroy and kill and will use all the constructive attributes of nature to destroy.  Let us hope and pray that all of us will realize that, that all of us will realize that we need more than the temple of space; we also need the temple of time.  If we combine the temple of time with the temple of space we will make a paradise on this earth.

I am reminded of the story they tell of an orchestra conductor who had scheduled 10 rehearsals for a big concert.  Unfortunately, most of the orchestra was absent at many of these rehearsals.  Finally, at the last rehearsal the conductor turned to the concert master, the first violinist, and he said, "I want to publicly in front of everybody thank you for being the only member of the orchestra who attended all 10 rehearsals."  The concert master got up and said, "Well, that's the least I can do since I cannot attend the concert tonight."  Unfortunately, that is the way many people feel..  They feel that all that is necessary is to build a temple of space, but that is not all that is necessary.  Prosperity alone will not cure the problems of crime or broken families or loneliness.  In fact, sometimes prosperity, itself, by allowing us to use half the workers to create the same amount of steel, causes great dislocations.  Yes, eventually it will probably be better, but for quite a few years it will be worse for those half the people who lost their jobs.  It is important that we all recognize that we need in addition to the temple of space a temple of time, that in addition to all the great tools and all the great technology we need the values that occupy no space in order to make the things which do occupy space produce only good results for mankind.  Let us hope and pray that we will produce these good results so the Mashiach will come quickly in our day.  Amen.