Completing The Creation of the World Shabbos and the Mishkan Isaiah Cox 28 February 2009 I have often been troubled by what we are – and are not – allowed to do on Shabbos. The conventional translation of Shabbos as the Day of Rest has not helped with general confusion on this issue. The vast majority of non-observant Jews understand that Shabbos is a day when work is forbidden, and so they aim to retain the spirit of the day by not doing something that they decide is work. More educated Jews know that in halacha, “work” is actually defined by 39 melachos, the forbidden labors of Shabbos, including a wide range of constructive and destructive acts. These acts are the ones that were required for building the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. Yet this does not go any distance in explaining why there is this connection between the Mishkan and Shabbos. And so we are left with a big gap between Jews: Observant Jews explain that there are 39 melachos, etc. – but we essentially follow these laws because that is what we are told to do. Nobody becomes Shabbos observant because they are impressed by the beauty of its connection to the Mishkan. Those of us who are Shabbos observant often fall back on the English translation – we define “work” as the 39 melachos, even though if we think about it, there are plenty of things we can do on Shabbos that are not forbidden within the 39 melachos. For example: on Shabbos, one is permitted to pick up a heavy stack of bricks in one’s home, move it 10 feet, then move it back again, ad infinitum. One is permitted to learn Torah, as well as to come up with new ideas. We spend a lot of effort on family, and guests, and festive meals. We use the spoken word to sanctify and bring in Shabbos itself. We can visit the sick, give an 8 day old boy a bris, or a host of other things that require concentration, or work up a sweat. We are even encouraged to engage in the ultimate physical creative act: procreation. None of these acts is forbidden on Shabbos. We are only – and specifically – forbidden to do acts that were done in the making of the Mishkan. It has nothing to do with work – the answer is in the Mishkan!
The Mishkan (and by extension, the Beis Hamikdash) is G-d’s “permanent” home among the Jewish people. The making of the Mishkan is part of the fulfillment of our role on this world: to make the world a place where G-d is welcome, to create a structure where Hashem feels at home. Building the Mishkan is a necessary and critical step for the reunification of heaven and earth, to undo the separation of the waters above and the waters below. It is, in a nutshell, essential to our Jewish destiny. Preparing the groundwork to make the Mishkan possible was the core accomplishment of pre-Egypt Judaism,1 and building the Mishkan (and then the Beis Hamikdash) was the core accomplishment of the Jews in the wilderness and then Ancient Israel. Building a home for Hashem is what Judaism is all about. All well and good: but what does the Mishkan have to do with Shabbos? To answer, this, we have to think of them as different dimensions. The Mishkan is holiness in place, and Shabbos is holiness in time. Shabbos is the time in which we are barred from performing work – defined by the acts used to build the physical Mishkan. All week long we should strive to do the things that make a home for G-d on this earth. But on Shabbos, anything that smacks of making a physical home for G-d is forbidden to us. Shabbos is called a taste of the World to Come, of when Moshiach is with us. It is a time when we experience the unification of heaven and earth, and the holiness within it.2 As a time carved out of time, Shabbos is our link to what the world should become 1
The seven people buried in Hevron: Sarah, Leah, Avraham, Rivka, Yaakov, Yitzchak, and Adam. The full paper on this topic which is a much longer work, will, Be’ezras Hashem, become completed in the coming months. 2 On Shabbos, Hashem’s power within us is amplified. We create Shabbos in the very same way that Hashem created the world – by uttering the words of the Kiddush, beginning, as Rabbi Yehuda did when he sanctified Shabbos for the last time, “And the heavens and the earth were completed.” Creation through the spoken word; the very idea of it brings out that which is holy and like Hashem within us.
after we have finished the weekday efforts of building a physical home for Hashem.3 On Shabbos we cannot do melachos that were used for the Mishkan because on Shabbos, building the Mishkan is unnecessary. If we did melachos on Shabbos, we will have missed the point of Shabbos entirely! If we do a melacha on Shabbos, we are rejecting the power of Shabbos itself to bring Hashem into our homes and lives. Mishkan and Shabbos as two different aspects of the same goal for the Jewish people, remain mutually exclusive. We cannot build the Mishkan on Shabbos, and inside the Mishkan, Shabbos prohibitions do not apply. Neither is allowed to conflict with the other. On the other hand, while melachos are forbidden, the act of creation is not. We bring Shabbos in with mere words, and we take its leave the same way. Within Shabbos, we are free to talk, to pray, to think, to learn and to love – all are acts of creation, sometimes of the highest order.4
Corollary: Marital Intimacy The angels atop the Mishkan look like a man and woman, reaching to embrace one another. Intimacy between husband and wife is a union of holiness.5 The mere act of coupling with love takes something performed by every animal, and joins it to heaven. Indeed, love within a marriage might be a higher form. In Melachim we learn that workers on the Beis Hamikdash spent 2 months at home for every month they spent in Lebanon working. Why? R’ Avin said that Hashem cherishes marital intimacy6 more than the beis hamikdash itself.7 That the Mishkan and a Marriage are even comparable tells us that they are on the same plane: they have the same goal! Ramban points out that when men and women are intimate in holiness, the shechinah dwells with them.8 A marriage is itself a mishkan, because, when effected with love and desire, both invite the Shechinah inside. Of course, love and desire must be there, because without them, physical intimacy is merely earthly, animalistic. And the Ramban adds that without those elements, Hashem is not present.9 This can also explain how Rashi emphasizes that intimacy between a man and his wife was particularly important on Shabbos. “Sabbath a night of enjoyment, relaxation and physical pleasure.”10 Elsewhere Rashi advocates that not only scholars, but laypeople also should engage in this practice on Friday night.11 Every Jewish marriage aims to invite Hashem into the relationship, and if Shabbos is a path to the unification of heaven and earth, then the unification of a couple on Shabbos is doubly so.
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Shabbos is also the time in which we make a different kind of home for Hashem; we build our marriages and families and communities, as well as our love of Torah. 4 According to sources, this was later amended to a belief advocated in the Sefer Hasidim and by the Ramban in his Iggeret Kodesh that if done in the proper time and place, namely Shabbat, marital intimacy not only produces a son, but a Torah scholar.
Both men and women should always strive to be married (Rambam, Hilchos Ishus 15a:16). 6 It is important that intimacy itself is considered holy – not only if it is tied to procreation. The mitzvah of onah applies whether or not procreation is possible, which means that the union between man and wife has an importance independent of the edict “be fruitful and multiply” which applies to all creatures. 7 Yerushalmi (Kesubos 5:7) 8 Based on Sotah, 17A 9 This may also explain why intimacy is called “knowledge” or daioh. Chava and Adam ate from the tree of knowledge, became aware of their sexuality – and yet: intimacy with love is knowledge, both of each other, and of Hashem (through the presence of the shechinah). 10 Rashi to Ketubot 62b 11
Rashi to Niddah 17a
The connection between marriage and the Mishkan can also be found in the text. Shmos, 35:22 says “vayavo ha-anashim al hanashim” which Rashi understands as “im hanashim” – when volunteering gold jewelry for the building of the Mishkan, men and women came with each other, as Simha Baer says: as couples. The holiness of building the Mishkan was provided by married couples, volunterring their personal jewelry. They were in effect loaning their personal connection to the shechinah. The direct link between G-d’s presence in a marriage and G-d’s presence in the Mishkan is established when married Jewish couples contributed together to the building of G-d’s home. The explicit instruction from Hashem to the Jewish people to “return to your tents”12 after the giving of the Torah is, Rashi tells us, a commandment that husbands and wives shall once again build their own holy houses, to once again unite and make homes suitable for Hashem’s presence – this, says the previous verse, is the way to ensure that our attitude and mindset when we were with Hashem at Sinai remains with us as a people forever. We preserve the atmosphere of the giving of the Torah through building a marriage!
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Devarim 5:27
KEEPING Shabbos Building G-d’s spiritual home – our reach up Localized in every home/family Mitzvos for all Jews
BUILDING Mishkan Building G-d’s physical home – his reach down Nationalized for all Jews
KEEPING Mishkan
For all Jews
Intimacy of man&wife – d’rabbonon
Family trumps Building, 2-1
No mitzvos for normal Jews Intimacy of Angelic analogues to man&wife, d’oraisa Angelic intimacy Unification of man and G-d Shel Malah Unity of Heaven and Earth Place Permanent
Animal intimacy Unification of man and G-d Shel Matah Unity of Heaven and Earth Time Temporary, fleeting
Working toward Unity
Exists only in the mind; Shabbos is a state of mind Intimacy and thought/Torah: Briya at extremes We build spiritual
Fleeting. Once built… Is Shabbos way of reliving holy building of Mishkan, bring it alive to us? Exists only in the physical making Technology; Man’s briya “in between” extremes We build physical
Mitzva of thoughts and words
Mitzvah of deeds
Because G-d rested Creation of our home by G-d
Creation of G-d’s home, by man
Exists in the physical world. No Briya; place of stasis We share physical with Hashem Melding of thoughts, words and deeds – only place where concentration must not waver