Faith Soul

The episode that we read in Exodus, chapter thirty-five, takes place the day after Yom Kippur.

The full tale actually opens up a short while before when Moshe ascended Mt Sinai to receive the Word of God. Leaving his family and people behind Moshe climbed upward to the gateway of heaven. When he returned forty days later, Moshe was crushed as he discovered his people had crafted a Golden Calf. Moshe was beyond dismayed. Having just met God and emerging from the meeting glowing with the vestiges of the Divine encounter, Moshe finds Bnai Israel had utterly betrayed his trust. His faith in the people was misplaced. The tablets were shattered.

Moshe then went up to meet God a second time. The day when he returned to the people was on the tenth of Tishray, Yom Kippur.

Is this not auspicious? Forgiveness of the Great Betrayal was granted, sealed and completed on the Day of Atonement. When HaShem issued the second set of Commandments it was the ultimate signal that He had embraced the people once again.

A recurring question we ask about the Israelites is, how could they have turned on God? After everything that God did for them how could this nation forget so easily? The plagues? The sea? The manna?

Another question asked less often is, how could HaKadosh Barukh Hu forgive them? It would not have been a long leap of imagination to suggest that the people were not worth saving. The experiment failed. Why not just give up on the Israelites? The brit, the holy covenant, had been abrogated by them. God kept His side of the bargain. We reneged. What stopped God from saying; "Since you have abandoned Me, I am abandoning you?"

The only plausible response to this question is that God wants us. Just like we want our children and parents to be strong and well; so too, God wants us to succeed and overcome our worst impulses. Just like we do not jettison our loved ones, God does not abanondon us.

There is an old rabbinic conundrum of what to say when called upon to officiate at the funeral of a no-goodnik. What is there to say? He was a lousy provider. He stole. He cheated. The only answer is, he was good to his mother!

In much the same way we look at God and see the same hope from Above. He wants us to do well. God cheers for us. He hopes for the best. Even in our most awful, dark moments, God sees our potenitial. That is why the Holy One embraces us even when we have turned our backs on Him.

Here, in our parsha, God shows us how to forgive, even when the crime seems unbearable...

A thought: God Himself visits Abraham as he is ailing. Why does the Holy One visit the sick? To teach us how we must behave. Our responsibility is to visit people in pain.

In the opening chapters of the Torah, God makes clothes for Adam and Havvah. The Sages were not at a loss to tell us why God becomes a provider of garments: He wants us to imitate Him. God shows us how to care for the disadvantaged. As the Holy One clothes the naked so should we care for our brothers and sisters.

Going back even further, HaKodosh Barukh Hu designs a universe in seven days. Does the All Powerful One really need that length of time to create the cosmos? Cannot God cast a universe in a millisecond? Why seven days? He makes a universe in the span of one week to show us how to use our time. If the Omnipotent One refrains from creating on the seventh day then it follows that we need to imitate Him.

What is the first mitzva in the new era when the Torah was given? The Israelites are directed to build a Mishkan, a Tabernacle. Before any further instructions are given comes a warning: The first utterance before any construction begins is to not work on Shabbat.

The Holy One knew that the people would now be eager to please their Maker. After all, they had just been forgiven for the crime of the Golden Calf. Now was the time for contrition and proving that they were a faithful lot. They wanted to prove that they were worthy of God's forgiveness. Understanding their few-found zeal, God articulated that under no circumstances were the people allowed to do any kind of word on the Mishkan during Shabbat.

In the immediate next verses the work of the Mishkan is carefully delineated. The Rabbis throughout the ages looked at these passages and determined that if we are not allowed to do them on Shabbat for the sake of God, then we are most certainly not allowed to do them for any other reason on the holy Shabbat. These thirty-nine articulated labors then became the identifying features for prohibited work on Shabbat.

Two questions need to be asked:

1. Are there any features link the 39 labors together?
2. And what do these labors have to do to with the creation by God of the universe, i.e. refraining from creating on the seventh day?

1. The thirty-nine actions have in common with each other the idea that they build a comfortable, useful universe to suit our needs. All these items -- cooking, baking, making fire, sewing, etc.-- provide us with a more predictable and ordered world. Each labor changes the natural universe to make us more comfortable. In our time, the comparison might be mowing the lawn, working in the yard, using engines to change the environment.

Idea: nowhere in the Torah does it state that we must not "work" on Shabbat; that is, "work" in the traditional mode of doing what we get paid for. The halakha is far more complex.

2. What do these labors have to do with Shabbat?
Listen to the description of Man in Genesis. Of man it states that when God breathed into this first being His animating breath of life Adam became a living nefesh. Genesis 2:7

The nefesh becomes worn and depleted as we exercise our never-ending role of "dominator of the world."

That is why as the Torah is given another gift is offered by the Holy One. "...and on the seventh day he rested, "vayinfash." Vayinfash literally means "and he was soul-ed." S'forno reveals that God, at the same time that He presented us with His Torah, also presented us with an additional dimension to life, Shabbat. When we act within the universe, not as conquerors or overlords, we imbibe an extra soul. Or, at the very least, we become whole with our original self, our nefesh.

On Shabbat we are presented with the godly gift of becoming re-souled.