Shalom Friends;
This year’s Parshat Vayakhel vort is being sponsored by Steven and Debra Glanz and family of Ramat Beit Shemesh dedicated to their children for Hotslocha this year in all of their endeavors. To the Glanz family, many thanks for your sponsorship and for your continued kindnesses.
You can celebrate a Simcha — a birth, a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, a Chassuna or other Simcha event in your life, or commemorate a Yahrtzeit of a loved one, or for whatever other reason by sponsoring a Parshat HaShevua.
Please forward to your relatives and friends and encourage them to sponsor a Parshat HaShevua. And please be in contact with me with any questions, or for further details.
Best Regards,
Moshe Burt
olehchadash@yahoo.com
skype: mark.burt3
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The word Vayakhel, the opening word of our Parsha, rendered to English in Chumashim, is Moshe’s assembling together of Kol B’nei Yisrael, as Rabbi Shmuel Goldin puts it at the beginning of his Parsha Summary in his sefer; “Unlocking the Torah Text” (Sefer Shemos, page 299), to convey Hashem’s instructions.
The opening posuk of our Parsha reads:
“And Moshe assembled the entire congregation of B’nei Yisrael and said to them: ‘These are the things that Hashem commanded, to do them:'” (Sefer Shemos, Perek 35, Posuk 1 As rendered to English in “The Sapirstein Edition, The Torah with Rashi Commentary)
Parshat Vayakhel deals primarily with collection of materials and construction of the Mishkan (the Tent of Meeting, the Tabernacle), the forerunner of the Beit HaMikdash, and its accoutrements (clothing, equipment, etc).
But, before getting into instructions regarding the Mishkan, Torah states:
“For a period of six days, work may be done, but the seventh day shall be holy for you, a day of complete rest for Hashem; whoever does work on it shall be put to death. You shall not light fire in any of your dwellings on the Shabbos day” (Perek 35, posukim 2-3 rendered to English in the Sapirstein Edition, “The Torah with Rashi’s Commentary)
The Artscroll Stone Edition Chumash notes on Perek 35, posuk 2 — the words “For six days…” (page 517, note 2):
In its plain meaning, this was to inform the nation that, despite the transcendent importance of the Tabernacle, it may not be built on the Shabbos (Artscroll Chumash citing Rashi), because the day that testifies to the existence of Hashem supersedes the Tabernacle, where He is served. Acknowledgment of Hashem must precede service.
Ohr HaChaim delves more deeply into the commandment of Shabbos observance as a prerequisite to the Tabernacle. The Sages teach that idol worship constitutes a repudiation of all 613 commandments (Artscroll Chumash citing Horayos 8a); it follows, therefore, for Israel’s repentance to be complete — and for it to merit the Tabernacle in its midst — it had to accept upon itself once again all of the commandments. But the Shabbos, too, is reckoned as equivalent to the entire Torah (Artscroll Chumash citing Shemos Rabbah 25:12). Therefore, by reiterating the commandment of the Shabbos at this point, Hashem gave Israel the means to accept all 613 commandments. Sefer Shemos, Perek 35, Posuk 1 alludes to this with the seemingly superfluous phrase “to do them,” which can also be rendered “to repair them,” for the commandment of Shabbos was a means to repair the damage of the Golden Calf.
Rabbi Daniel Yormark of the Young Israel of Etingville, New York, wrote in a National Council of Young Israels D’var Torah on Parshat Vayakhel (25 Adar I, 5755 — 25 February, 1995):
The imperative “six days you shall labor” tells us that in all that one does one should strive to have The Creator in mind…. We see that the subjects addressed in the pasuk, the six days and Shabbos, are really based on one theme. Because it is only when creation is perceived as a sanctuary of Hashem that our abstention from the labors of the Mishkan mirrors the Creator’s abstention [on Shabbos] from creating the universe.
But there are questions: Was Vayakhel — the assembling of the entirety of Am Yisrael, and the learning of the halachot (Torah laws) of Shabbos meant only as a Mitzvah in the times of Moshe Rabbeinu and the building of the Mishkan, as well as during the period of the Malchei Yisrael? Or were both Vayakhel and the laws of Shabbos also meant to have application for B’nei Yisrael throughout all of our subsequent generations, throughout our travails in Galut through to our current troubled times where divisiveness, me-first self-centeredness, ego, envy, self-desire, lust for monetary riches and more all carry the consequence of indifference and insensitivity toward one’s fellow Jews? Were Vayakhel and the laws of Shabbos meant to apply as mussar regarding one’s tendency to pursue their self-interests and their self-aggrandizement amidst a bitter war against murderous Arab/Islamic terror which threatens to destroy us from within in ways that the Arabs alone would never be able to accomplish were we truly “Adat B’nei Yisrael”?
Back in the “Old Country”, this author recalls that Kiruv Rabbanim placed heavy emphasis on Shabbos as the embarkation point — the beginning of one’s teshuvah journey to come close, to come closer to HaKadosh Borchu. However, recalling past history of the past approximately 130 years, Shabbos, for many, became a point of disembarkment.
When the Jews emigrated to America in large numbers around the turn of the 20th century and had difficulty finding parnossa in their new residence: when the work was a six day job (before laws were passed regarding the five day work-week), the newly arrived Jew found himself with a huge test of emunah and hishtadlut (expending effort) — keep Shabbos, or earn money to feed, clothe and house one’s family. It was a tough call and many failed the test. The results of this test, failed by many, were that after crying rivers of tears, they gradually distanced themselves from Hashem. The weight of the test led many to working on Shabbos, then to eating non-kosher food, to secular marriage without marriage ketubot, to generations with little or no Torah footing or learning, and ultimately to inter-marriage and more. Bitul (nullification, desecration of) Shabbos has brought about the evolution to where we are today — massive numbers of Jews in America, and throughout the nations are ever more distant from Torah, with huge numbers of offspring of the burgeoning inter-marriage rate who are NOT Jews and lost to Judaism, despite the mushrooming kiruv movement of the 1960s through today.
Rabbi Yormark adds in his D’var Torah on Parshat Vayakhel:
Shabbat is not merely ‘a day off’…. It is not merely a day where there are so many things that I cannot do. It is a day when the Jew enters the realm of The One Above. It is a day when the theme is Oneg, pleasure and delight. It is a day where even our indulging in physical pleasure can be elevated and becomes an integral part of mirroring Hashem. It is a day when concerns for mundane and ephemeral pursuits are inappropriate…. Shabbat is a Matanah Tovah — a very special gift.
It is a beyond shame to see certain of Israel’s politicians, as well as its current governmental leadership, publicly support and promote the desecration of Shabbos and seeming repudiation of our Creator on a level observed and noted throughout the nation, throughout world Jewry and throughout the nations of the gentile world. Israel’s credibility and defensive deterrence in the big picture is not so much based on perceived military prowess as based on her dedication to and faithfulness to the Will of Hashem.
May we, the B’nei Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole — be totally restituted for all that was stolen from them, that the thrice expelled families of Amona be restored to their rebuilt homes, and the oft-destroyed Yeshiva buildings in Homesh be rebuilt, all at total government expense; all due to alt-leftist-agendized, supreme court legalized Yassamnik gunpoint. Baruch Hashem that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard is now free of his parole and restrictions and that he is now in his second year at home in Eretz Yisrael. May Esther Yocheved bat Yechiel Avraham have an aliyah in Shemayim and may her memory continue to lift Jonathan to at least 120 years. May the MIAs be liberated alive and returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem — as with the return in April, 2019, via Russia, of the remains of Zachariah Baumel, as should the remains of the two chayalim from the Gaza War of seven years ago. May we have the courage, strength, physical and mental fortitude to stand up and physically prevent the possibility of Chas V’Challila any future eviction of Jews from their homes and prevent Chas V’Challila the handing of Jewish land over to anyone, let alone to enemies sworn to Israel’s and Judaism’s destruction and eradication. And may we soon and finally see the total end to the Communist Chinese Wuhan lab corona virus pandemic and all like viruses and variants. May we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nei Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha to see the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Ki Karov Yom Hashem Al’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bimhayrah b’yamainu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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