parashat ki tisa Making Shabbat
Click to Download Audio MP3 File.
The Torah portion for this Sabbath is parashat ki tisa. Ki tisa means “when you take up.” This is where Moshe takes up the census. This portion runs from Exodus chapter 30:11 to the end of chapter 34. Parashat ki tisa comes in the middle of God’s directions for constructing the sanctuary. A concise summary of all the work to be done occurs in Exodus 31:6-11.
"And I, behold, I have given him Aholiav ben Achisamakh of the tribe of Dan, and in the heart of all wise of heart I have given wisdom. And they shall do all that I command them: the tent of appointment, the ark of testimony, the expiation lid which is over it, and all the utensils of the tent, and the table and its utensils, and the pure menorah and all its utensils, and the altar of incense, and the altar of ascending offerings and all its utensils, and the laver and its base, and the garments of ministry, and the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments of his sons to serve as priest, and the oil of anointing, and the incense of spices for the holy place. According to all that I have commanded you they shall make.”
Then in the middle of this long work order comes the commandment of shabbat. At this point in the story the commandment of shabbat might seem intrusive. Why does God interrupt his work order with a work-stop order?
Actually, the same interruption occurs again in next week’s parasha. In Exodus chapter 35, just as God resumes the work order for the sanctuary after the interruption of the golden calf, he reiterates the commandment of shabbat. Why does God interrupt his second set of directions with another work-stop order?
The construction of the sanctuary entails making a great many things. In the work order for the sanctuary, the verb “to make” is repeated some 80 times. God says, ‘Make me this; make me that.’ But what God’s most concerned about making is not the sanctuary with all its beautifully crafted utensils. Something else is uppermost in his mind. Turn with me to Exodus 35:1, 2.
“And Moshe assembled all the congregation of the children of Israel and said to them, ‘These are the things which HaShem has commanded to make. Six days you shall do workmanship, but on the seventh day there shall be holiness to you, shabbat of shabbat observance to HaShem.’”
It might sound strange that among the things which God commands the children of Israel to make, the shabbat should head the list. We normally think of keeping shabbat, or of observing shabbat, or of remembering shabbat, or maybe of sanctifying shabbat, but not of making shabbat. Why does the shabbat belong at the head of a list of items that need making?
This isn’t the only passage where God says to make the shabbat. We have the same odd expression in this week’s parasha in Exodus 31:16, 17. “To make the shabbat.”
“And the children of Israel shall keep the shabbat, to make the shabbat throughout their generations; it is an eternal covenant. Between me and the children of Israel it is a sign for eternity that six days HaShem made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he sabbathed and was refreshed.”
Observant Jews recite this verse on Friday evening and twice shabbat morning to beautiful tunes. They call this recitation vshamru. But non-Jews normally think of shabbat as a passive commandment. After all, the verb lishbot, to sabbath, means to stop doing what you’re doing, to cease. In Israeli Hebrew lishbot means to go out on strike. But in our parasha, shabbat is an active commandment: God says, “Make shabbat.”
Shabbat is not something that just happens every seven days by itself. Shabbat doesn’t just come around like the seasons of the year, the phases of the moon, or the transition from day to the night. Shabbat is not a natural phenomenon. Shabbat requires internationality. Shabbat requires a conscious decision. Shabbat requires making.
During the work of creation, God didn’t make shabbat until he’d made a partner to make shabbat with him. Genesis 2:1-3.
“And the heavens and the earth were finished and all their hosts. And on the seventh day God finished his workmanship which he made and sabbathed on the seventh day from all his workmanship which he made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it he sabbathed from all his workmanship which God created to make.”
Ancient readers wondered how it was that the Torah could say that “On the seventh day God finished his workmanship?” If indeed God already “sabbathed on the seventh day from all his workmanship,” in what sense could he finish any workmanship on that day? Several of the ancient texts of the Torah: the Samaritan Torah, the Greek translation, the Syriac translation, actually change the word “seventh” to “sixth.” They read,
“On the sixth day God finished his workmanship which he made and sabbathed on the seventh day.”
That would be very logical: to finish on the sixth day and to rest on the seventh. Changing the wording, of course, is the easy way to get around difficulties in Scripture. Changing the wording is the most common way for translations to get around difficulties. But the Hebrew reader is confronted by a difficulty. Hebrew readers wonder what sort of workmanship might God have finished on the seventh day? An ancient collection of interpretations on the Book of Genesis entitled Breshit Rabba asks:
“What did the world lack? — Rest! When Shabbat came, rest came.” [chapter 10, section 9]
According to Breshit Rabba, the workmanship which God finished on the seventh day was rest. This ancient solution, that God’s workmanship of the seventh day was rest, can be supported in the wording of the fourth precept of the Decalogue. Exodus 20:11.
“For in six days HaShem made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything in them, and on the seventh day he rested. Therefore HaShem blessed the shabbat day and sanctified it.”
Notice the series. In Genesis 2:3 God sabbaths, blesses, and sanctifies. In Exodus 20:11 God rests, blesses, and sanctifies. I believe these two series are comparable. The common subject matter and verbal similarities allow us to legitimately use Exodus 20:11 to help interpret Genesis 2:2.
Blessing in Genesis 2:3 corresponds to blessing in Exodus 20:11. Sanctifying in Genesis 2:3 corresponds to sanctifying in Exodus 20:11. Sabbathing in Genesis 2:3 corresponds to resting in Exodus 20:11. When we compare the two series, we notice that sabbathing corresponds to resting. In a certain sense therefore, sabbathing is comparable to resting. Sabbathing is somehow equated with resting. Bereshit Rabba hits the nail right on the head! The workmanship, which God finished on the seventh day, was rest.
If this interpretation is right, it depends on irony. In ordinary usage, “workmanship” is precisely what’s forbidden on shabbat. The Decalogue commands,
“Six days you shall labor and do all your workmanship. But the seventh day is shabbat to HaShem your God. You shall not do any workmanship.”
But if Breshit Rabba is correct about Genesis 2:3, then the workmanship which God did on the seventh day was to rest. Our Torah then, presents rest as a special skill, as a special form of workmanship. True rest requires concentrated attention; true rest is an art form, true rest is workmanship. The Beair Yitzchaq, a supercommentary on Rashi’s commentary, remarks:
”Rest which a person doesn’t engage in intentionally, the mere lack of business, is troubled rest. It is rest for the body, but harassment of thoughts and toil of soul. The purpose of such rest is to renew our strength for further toil. This is fleeting rest. The holy shabbat however is soulful rest, in other words, rest which a person intentionally engages in for its own sake, which is to honor the holiness of the day.” [on Exodus 31:15]
That’s the end of the quote from the Beair Yitzchaq.
When the Decalogue is repeated in the Book of Deuteronomy the wording is slightly different from Exodus. As formulated in Deuteronomy 5:15, the fourth precept of the Decalogue explicitly instructs Israel to make shabbat.
“You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and HaShem your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore HaShem your God commanded you to make the day shabbat.”
Making shabbat is part of humanity’s partnership with our Creator. Shabbat requires intelligent intentionality. Every commandment of the Torah requires intentionality. Intentionality is what distinguishes a commandment from merely instinctual behavior. In a certain sense, the commandments all must be made by the person committed to obeying them. Moshe, speaking in Deuteronomy 4:14 says,
“And me HaShem commanded at that time to teach you statutes and judgments for you to make them לעשותכם אותם in the land where you are crossing over there to inherit.”
The Tanchuma comments on Deuteronomy 4:14:
“We would expect the text here to say לעשות אותם “to do them,” but in fact it says לעשותכם אותם “for you to make them.” [Tanchuma Buber, ki tavo § 3, p. 46]
This is the Creator’s challenge to his people today; to become creative participants with the Giver of the Torah. Torah is not only a matter of the Giver; Torah is also a matter of the recipient. Our Torah demands intellectual engagement, emotional fervor, practical action, and spiritual cleaving. Torah requires us to make it.
Our parasha juxtaposes the precept of shabbat with the giving of the Decalogue, as if somehow the shabbat represented all ten precepts of the Decalogue. Exodus 31:12-18.
“HaShem spoke to Moshe, saying, ‘You speak to the children of Israel, Nevertheless keep my shabbats, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations to know that I HaShem am the one sanctifying you. And you shall keep shabbat, for it is sanctification to you. Those profaning it shall surely be put to death. For everyone who does workmanship on it, that soul shall be cut off from among her people. Six days workmanship shall be done, but on the seventh day shabbat of shabbat observance, sanctification to HaShem. Everyone who does workmanship on the shabbat day shall surely be put to death. And the children of Israel shall keep the shabbat, to make the shabbat throughout their generations; it is an eternal covenant. Between me and the children of Israel it is a sign for eternity that six days HaShem made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he sabbathed and was refreshed. And he gave to Moshe when he finished speaking with him on Mt Sinai two tablets of testimony, tablets of stone written with the finger of God.”
When Pharaoh refused to send God’s firstborn son that Israel might worship him, he rained down terrible signs and wonders until Pharaoh relented. Pharaoh’s magicians tried to imitate those signs and wonders. They succeeded in imitating the first three, but they couldn’t imitate the fourth. At the fourth sign the magicians were forced to admit, “This is the finger of God” [Exodus 8:15 (8:19 in English)].
Now how many precepts are engraved on those two “tablets of stone written with the finger of God?” ANSWER Ten precepts. That’s why we call it the Decalogue. Today a lot of people who ought to know better, are telling us the Decalogue has only nine precepts or only eight precepts. By this logic we should be calling it the Evealogue or the Ogdologue instead of the Decalogue. By definition, it can’t be the Decalogue if it has any number of precepts other than ten. Decalogue means ten words, which is exactly what the Torah calls it [Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 4:13, 10:4].
Now how many fingers does God have? He does have fingers you know, because we read just a moment ago that he inscribed the two tablets of the Decalogue with his finger. How many? ANSWER Presumably, God has ten fingers.
That would make about one finger for each precept, wouldn’t it? As Israel’s enemies were forced to admit, the fourth sign, the sign which can’t be counterfeited, is the finger of God. Let me engage in a little midrash here. The fourth is the sign that can’t be counterfeited. You can think of the fourth precept of the Decalogue as a sign of the true God. Ten fingers; ten precepts. You don’t want to settle for a nine-finger god. A nine-finger god would be somebody else other than HaShem. You don’t want to settle for a false Decalogue, because you don’t want to settle for a false god. Shabbat is the sign that indicates the true God. Remember the fourth! Don’t settle for anything less than the genuine!
